Placing Wrong People and Best Leave
It is a sad story when companies place the wrong people and best people leave. Yet, it happens all too often. When we first started this business, a US MNC needed a great plant manager with a niche qualification that made it an exceedingly hard search. Our rigorous recruiting was thus put to the test in its early days. However, we succeeded and placed someone who is both a great leader and had the niche qualification. He could also work in a remote corner of Beijing.
Unfortunately, this company had a Malaysian factory and decided, unbeknownst to us, to place an Asia Director at the same time who they located in Beijing! Furthermore,, they used a US focused recruiter who placed a well spoken Malaysian. Within six months, they lost our tremendous placement forever.
More good managers peeled away one by one. Time proved that losing that plant manager was the last hope for that great company to succeed in China. They just slipped once, and the competition picked up that leader. He would then bury them step by step as they struggled to regain footing after that one wrong placement and the loss that followed that. You see, while the best left, the worst stayed. Then, the company promoted them for their loyalty as opposed to their character and talent.
And Again – Placing Wrong People and Best Leave
In another case, at a $3B multinational, the director had us place people under his own find at district leader, and all we placed left along with other best people because this district leader was totally the wrong hire. The cost of these bad hires is astronomical.
Not just that they lost those good people, but wrong hiring alienated those people by that one bad hire. They are in your industry and think bad of your company and talk bad of your company just because of that one bad hire. Not everyone left that bad hire. Other bad hires also stayed around as sensed a chance to overcome the meritocracy they faced before. The rise of the politicians is thus unleashed.
My idea to write on this came from Nicky Verd here.