Kim Powell of ghSMART shares research insights from her book, The CEO Next Door, and misconceptions, patterns, and best practices in improving your odds of ascent.
You’ll Learn:
- Where likability can help you–and hurt you.
- The 4 critical behaviors linked to successful CEOs
- Brilliant CEO tactics to accelerate your decision-making
About Kim
Kim Powell is a Principal at ghSMART. She serves leading Fortune 500 senior executives, private equity firms and non-profit leaders in the areas of management assessment, leadership coaching and organizational change. She co-leads ghSMART’s research on first time CEOs and is passionate about supporting leaders in accelerating their effectiveness in new roles.
Items Mentioned in this Show:
- Sponsored message: Document Standard Operating Procedures with SweetProcess
- Kim’s firm: ghSMART
- Kim’s Book: The CEO Next Door with Elena L. Botelho
- Book: NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
- Book: Untangled by Lisa Damour
- Book: Mindset by Carol S. Dweck
- App: Strides
- Prior episode: 030: Optimal Practices for Prioritizing, Hiring, and Relating with ghSMART’s Randy Street
Kim Powell Interview Transcript
Pete Mockaitis
Kim, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.
Kim Powell
Thanks for having me.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, I learned a little bit about you and that you one time played a championship football game in the Notre Dame Stadium. What’s the story behind this?
Kim Powell
Yeah, strange factoid, right? Most people are familiar with Notre Dame’s obsession, if you will, with American football, but it may be less well-known that the participation rate in intramural football on campus is extremely high. So, I didn’t know how to catch a ball before I started college, and got roped into my intramural team, and we had a fabulous team. So the championships were at the Notre Dame Stadium, we played like the regular football team, we had a mascot and cheerleaders. And three out of my four years won the championship, and I have a bag of grass before they moved the turf somewhere, somewhere in a box in the back of my closet. But yeah, it was a fun experience.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is cool, yes. Well, my wife went to Notre Dame, and that’s always a little bit of a joke – it’s like, “How do you know if someone went to Notre Dame?”
Kim Powell
They probably have it plastered on their clothing, they are watching football every Saturday, yeah. Something that was a surprise to me, but certainly the collegiality of the game and the willingness to take someone who couldn’t catch and turn them into a wide receiver and a kicker – that was fun. It was a good experience.
Pete Mockaitis
That is cool. And so, speaking of experience, you’ve got loads of it over at ghSMART. And we interviewed a colleague of yours, Randy Street, from there, way back in episode 30. So for those who are newer listeners and didn’t catch that one, what is your company all about?
Kim Powell
Yes, ghSMART is a leadership advisory business. So, the core of what we do is assessing senior leaders. And in an assessment what we are doing is looking for the fit of a given leader to a particular job experience or job situation. I personally spend most of my time supporting boards and selecting CEOs, as well as CEOs and selecting their teams.
And we’ve branched out probably since you spoke with Randy, so a good, I would say half, 60% of our business is that core helping on key talent decisions. And the rest we branched out to do more broader leadership development, CEO succession, I do quite a bit of my work in the private equity space, supporting on human capital diligence prior to deal close. So we’ve certainly grown a little bit, I think, since episode 30.
Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, that’s so cool. And so have we. And I always love it when there is a rich, rich research base behind the stuff that you’re doing. So first maybe, while we’re talking about fit, I would love to hear in broad strokes how you think about that onto the macro-level, because I imagine you can break it down into numerous competencies and indicators and cultural parameters. But how do you think about a fit, because sometimes the word “fit” is really just a euphemism for “He or she didn’t do a good job. It wasn’t a good fit.” But you mean something different.
Kim Powell
Yes, yes. So, critical and I guess core to our methodology is what we call “first developing a score card”. And this is really sitting down with the board of directors, or the CEO, or the hiring manager in some cases, and stepping back to say, “What are the critical, call it 5 to 10 key outcomes that absolutely have to be delivered for you to have a smile on your face, that this role was successful?” And we get pretty granular to articulate what those outcomes are. Ideally a good chunk of them are measurable in quantitative ways, and we also get into how those outcomes need to be delivered.
And in that way we get into some of culturally what things work, what things don’t work, what are most likely the biggest reasons why someone might fail at a given role. And then what we do is, in that 4 to 5-hour behaviorally-based assessment we sit down and go through the entire career history, including education in the early years for the various candidates, and we’re looking for behavioral patterns. What we want to see is an individual who has operated in similar context and delivered a similar rate, size, pace of outcomes that this particular role is expecting, to define success.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay, understood.
Kim Powell
Yeah, and obviously to your comment, it’s not just, “Hey, they just didn’t work out” or, “I didn’t enjoy working with them.” It’s we’re really looking for somebody who has a high probability of delivering – if it’s expanding international growth by 30% by opening the doors to two new countries, for example. We would be looking for behavioral patterns and underpinnings where they’ve done that in the past in different contexts, they have exhibited the agility, call it cross-culturally – those types of things.
To sit down with then the hiring manager and say, “Look, in these contexts they’ve successfully done it, or in these contexts they haven’t”, and guide them towards making choices where you’re putting people in situations where their strengths can come to life, and you’re identifying early potential developmental areas that could hinder them from success. And a lot of the conversations, what can you do to put the right supports in place, whether that be other people and their team, whether that be types of measurements, whether that be development, coaching, on-the-job training, that will help this individual increase the probability of delivering on those outcomes?
Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Well, that sounds like a ton of fun. That just sounds like a cool job to have.
Kim Powell
I was going to say, the best part is I get to hear these fascinating stories. And it’s really incredible to be a witness to people’s amazing accomplishments and how they address setbacks and how they bounce back from that. And you do really quickly start to see some patterns of success, which the reality is, we gather things that go really well, we gather a lot of things that don’t go well, and we hear how people talk and internalize and approach that.
And for me stepping in almost five years ago, it was fascinating that we had not adequately, in my opinion, taken full advantage of this amazing assessment dataset. So, I’d done writing and research in my background in strategy consulting, and I stepped in and said, “This is a rich, rich opportunity to mine this data in a way that could be really useful for aspiring leaders, managers out in the world.”
And teamed up with one of my colleagues who had that same intention, and started supporting a research effort, which we call the CEO Genome Project – how do we decode what makes a CEO. And conducted a bunch of research over a number of years, and ultimately delivered some insights that we thought were worthwhile, telling on a broader stage. So hence the idea of, maybe we should write a book. But it was really after already uncovering some interesting nuggets that we thought would really be useful for aspiring leaders, and only then did we decide to embark on the marathon of putting it to paper.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, and put it to paper you did, and the book is called The CEO Next Door. And by the way, excellent title. It harkens to The Millionaire Next Door, which is one of my favorite books – full of insights and counter-intuitive, data-driven goodies. And you delivered some of these within this work. So can you share, what are some of your central findings here?
Kim Powell
Yeah. And before I go there – to the title. Actually one of the things that sparked the desire to write this book was, in our assessment work over the years, we realized what we were seeing in amazing leaders didn’t necessarily match up with if you pull your latest Fortune, Forbes, name, your article about leadership and you get this portrait publicly in the media of this pantheon of charisma, amazing strategist, flitting from Davos to the next multi-cultural summit of talent. You just get this picture that they’re larger than life, and an iconic, kind of heroic set of leadership skills and capabilities.
And that does not match up with what we’ve seen or what I’ve experienced, what we’ve experienced as a firm. And when you dig into the covers and you get closer to these real CEOs, the CEOs if go beyond the Fortune 500, which usually is what’s profiled out there, and look at the 2 million CEOs over, call it a size of over 5, 10-people companies – you realize they’re real humans that make mistakes, that do also amazing things, but they feel much more accessible.
And the closer you get, the more it opens that possibility for more of us to aspire to larger platforms of leadership, or we can amplify our positive impact on the world. And that was really the kind of purpose-driven, I guess, motivator for the book for me, was unlocking that. If I could transmit that opportunity to more people, I think we would have a larger base of leaders out there wanting to change the world. And I feel like we could use that right now.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I love that. That is inspiring, and it’s so true when you talk about the myth, or the kind of picture of what you think of when you see a CEO. I just chuckle a little bit whenever I see those magazine or Shark Tank. It’s like all of them, they love to fold their arms in front of them, I’ve noticed. That’s like the CEO super powerful, “This is what I look like”, ooh, like you’re a superhero.
And yet I remember when I was at Bain, the very first time I was in a meeting with a CEO of a billion plus dollar company, I thought, “Oh my gosh, it’s the CEO. I’m going to be in the same room.” I was so sort of excited and nervous and curious what this sort of mythical person would be like. And then he just listened very well and carefully to all the things we were sharing, and just asked the most fundamental of questions like, “Does this number include the benefits or just salary? The benefits, okay.” It was like, “Oh, he’s just a normal guy.” [laugh]
Kim Powell
It’s so true. In our research what we found is… We interviewed about 100 CEOs, just to compliment the quantitative research that we did, and to bring the stories to life. And what we found is 70% of them did not know they wanted to be CEO until typically the role just before, or potentially two roles before CEO. When they got close enough to work directly with the CEO and see what it is actually like when you start to break down those myths a little bit and see reality, and they realized, “Huh, maybe I could do this. And maybe this is something I would be interested in.”
And so, yeah, it’s something where you think people are destined for these roles, and the reality is, it’s not true. Back to your original question on the main themes – one of the main themes is the behaviors we saw that differentiated high-performing CEOs were all buildable. I mean they’re all buildable muscles. The things that popped out of the exploratory, quantitative research were not intrinsic things that you are born with; they’re things that these leaders honed over time, and they’re muscles that you can build. They’re not easy – it’s not like it’s a walk in the park – but I was really encouraged to see that these are things that you can practice and get better at. So that was one of the key themes or key findings.
The second is what gets you hired is not necessarily what drives performance. I guess it’s not surprising; we know there are biases in the hiring process – that’s certainly well-chronicled. But it came through in our research as well. And obviously the last thing we’ve talked about is just this – the role is more accessible if you kind of increase the aperture and look at a broader representation of CEOs. And our data said it extends across sizes, across industry sectors, it is much more representative of the CEO next door, as opposed to the Fortune 500. And so in that you do see that the myth isn’t necessarily reality, when you get closer to the C.
Pete Mockaitis
This is intriguing. So, let’s talk about each of those a bit. You mentioned they’re all buildable muscles. And recently we had Gary Burnison from Korn Ferry on the show, and I was so intrigued to get his take as I’m a kind of dork who will plum through their For Your Improvement competency matrix, and note that I’m so intrigued by how they’ve cataloged some competencies are much harder to develop than others. And I asked Gary to put a little bit of a context on that, and he said perhaps 200 times harder than others to develop. And so, I’d love to get your take on, when you talk about they’re buildable, but it’s challenging – just how challenging?
Kim Powell
Yeah, these fall into the middle set, I would say. The things that are really immutable that are hard to change are obviously the stuff like basic IQ capabilities. I mean, there is work out there that says that’s shapeable at some level, but man, that’s really hard to fundamentally change that. And again, some of this is how much are we looking to change, and how much do you need to change to be effective for what you want to do.
In this conversation we’re going to define success as growing in your role, but success doesn’t have to be CEO. They’re plenty of successful people who are not in that role that I admire. So, I do think it also depends on how much you need to improve to be effective. And I would say the four behaviors, just to call them out, that were statistically significantly different for high-performing CEOs compared to low-performing CEOs, were decisiveness – and this was all around the speed and conviction at which you make decisions, not necessarily be perfect or right or fully correct on all of your decisions.
The second was adaptiveness – your ability to change personally, as well as drive change and adapt your organization to the needs of the market and the shifting consumer or competitive context. The third is reliable delivery – so this is the ability to consistently deliver against expectations. And the last is engaging for results – and this is really about your ability to manage a very diverse and increasingly diverse stakeholder set, and moving them in an aligned fashion towards a common goal, which is really obviously tricky and gets more tricky as you grow in an organization.
So those are the four. These four behaviors all fall in the spectrum of changeable, and you can certainly improve, but it requires a significant focus. It’s like the Ben Franklin, pick a given trait, work on it relentlessly, build a new habit – and there’s plenty of work out there about how you build a new habit. But it takes that level of focus. It’s not something technical; for example communication skills – you get some guidance on how to structure a presentation, get video, get some feedback, you can improve more easily. I would put that as the “easy” category.
These are things that I think because of the nature of them, require very discreet focus because you’re making decisions at every moment. And you can practice and build better behaviors at every moment, but it’s not as simple as going to a training class, if that makes sense. I don’t know how that meshes with what you’ve heard before, but that’s why I would describe them as “changeable”, which is really encouraging. But it’s not easy; you’ve got to really focus on it.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So let’s talk about each of the four there. Now, let’s kind of fast forward a bit.
Kim Powell
Yeah, sure.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay, very cool. So I’d love to chat about each of those four. But first, Kim, can you tell us a bit about that point that what gets you hired doesn’t drive performance?
Kim Powell
Yeah, of course. So we gathered outcome data around who was hired and not hired. We also gathered, did they exceed performance expectations, meet or not meet. And what we found is those buildable muscles, those four behaviors that matter, were all correlated with high performance, but only one of them was actually correlated with what gets you hired, interestingly. And that was reliable delivery.
In our conversations we also talked to board members; we reviewed a suite of 70 CEO firings, so we spoke with the board to get underneath what drove that. And really what you hear is, reliable delivery clearly is important in delivering performance, but it’s also something that exudes safety in the process of hiring. If you’re someone who has met or exceeded expectations across your career, managed that effectively, put in rhythms, cadences, etcetera for your organization to deliver – you are someone who’s going to make the board feel very safe. And they feel very nervous in that critical decision around who should lead the company. And so safety is something that you can play to by ensuring reliable delivery.
The thing that did pop out that is a big driver of getting you hired, but is not correlated with high performance, is likeability. So the warmth and energy you exude in the interviews really matters. And if you combine that with the safety of reliable delivery, you end up as an individual that the board wants to back. So, while being likeable doesn’t help you deliver results – we have to do a little HBR – a little piece around being too nice can get you in trouble. Being very likeable in an interview does work to your advantage; at least that’s what the data would say.
Pete Mockaitis
Now that’s so intriguing, Kim. And I’m trying to be nice and I think I’m often likeable, and so I’m wondering, is it sort of no correlation or a negative correlation, like I’d be better off if I’m a little meaner?
Kim Powell
Well, it depends if you want to get hired or if you want to perform.
Pete Mockaitis
Perform.
Kim Powell
I would say the trick… There’s nothing right or wrong about being nice. The trick is… I think what we’ve seen and what we wrote about in that piece was, individuals who prioritize affiliation, who are motivated to affiliate, who define success as being liked by all, are unlikely to make the difficult calls when you are by definition going to disappoint a given stakeholder, group or individual.
There are natural tensions in a business always, between manufacturing and sales, I mean you could fill them in. There are always natural tensions and you as a leader of an organization are having to make difficult calls that won’t make everyone happy. And by definition humans don’t like to change. If you’re trying to improve your organization – again, there’s going to be resistance to that. And you cannot have as your primary goal affiliation and achieve the level of progress that is likely demanded by your shareholders, or whatever your governing structure.
Pete Mockaitis
Alright, noted. Point taken, thank you. So, I think we hit the point about the role is more accessible pretty well. So let’s talk a bit about these buildable muscles. So, decisiveness, adaptiveness, reliable delivery and engaging for results – could you give us maybe a picture for, first of all, what does “great” look like, versus “okay”? Because I think sometimes many people would say, “Yeah, I’m decisive, sure. I deliver reliably.” And so, I have a feeling though you’ve got a clearer picture on what “great” really looks like here.
Kim Powell
Yeah, yeah. Fundamentally – and I can’t underscore this enough, because this was the real insight and surprise for us – decisiveness is about speed and not about perfectionism and ensuring you have gathered the nth degree of data, that you are 99.5% sure that this is the right direction. The really good decisiveness looks like willingness to move with 60% of the data. It looks like willingness to push decisions down when you recognize they are not a CEO-level decision, or fill in your level of leader decision. You streamline what you are deciding so that others in your organization can speed up, make quicker decisions, and not everything is being elevated, for example.
The other litmus test that you see in really decisive leaders is, they really have a way of cutting through the noise, which helps them speed up their decision-making. And the way that they do this is really having a very crystal-clear picture of value drives in their business and they have almost like an inherent formula in their head: “These things matter, these other things don’t.” They’re very relentless about focusing on what matters and they understand the things that will move the needle, and they focus their decisions there.
A couple of leaders I really loved speaking with, they talked about continuously asking certain questions of themselves. One of the leaders of a tech business told me, she said, “Look, if I sensed that I was struggling with a call, if I had to make it in the next 30 seconds, what would it be? And 9 times out of 10 I would push myself to just do it.”
Another leader said, he’s like, “I tested myself with two questions. The first is articulating what is the downside of getting this decision wrong? And weighing that with, how much am I going to slow others down by delaying my decision here?” And he’s like, “By thinking about those two dimensions, I was able to push myself to move forward, even if it made me uncomfortable that I wasn’t 100% sure.”
And I think they recognized that they were setting the pace and the cadence of the organization. So if they’re slow, if they’re asking for their 100-page analysis – the reality is the organization is going to adapt those behaviors. And so it’s not just yourself; it’s actually the signal and the ripple effect that you’re sending throughout your organization.
Pete Mockaitis
Kim, that’s dead on, thank you. Please, unpack the others just like this.
Kim Powell
Yeah, yeah. So, let’s tackle “adapt”. This one’s really.. I was least surprised about this, just given the amount of writing out there. And I should have noted when we did the exploratory research with SaaS, they actually unleashed text-based analytics on our data, as our data’s text, which frankly we couldn’t have done 10 years ago, because they’ve progressed so much.
But what we did is said, “Here’s the outcome data, here’s the text-based data. Have at it, apply your models.” They do all the predictive fraud analytics for credit card companies, they have really fascinating, for a separate conversation, tools that they can apply. But they did exploratory research. We did not say, “Hey, go prove that adaptive behaviors are important.” They actually came back to us, and that’s why we were so surprised with some of these things.
But of those surprises this was least surprising. I think his name is Richard Foster of Yale, he did a piece of work that showed the lifespan of leading companies has shrunk to less than half. I think it was from 60-something years to 20-something years over the last couple of decades. Just the pace of what is happening in the market right now demands a level of adaptation that just wasn’t there for the prior generation.
So this I don’t think is very surprising, but really two elements, or two litmus tests, I would say, that I saw in very adaptive leaders. The first is that they had an openness, self-awareness and willingness to change personally. They were really humble to recognize that they do not know what they need to know, almost across the board. And so what you found is a willingness to let go of past behaviors and practices, even if they had been successful.
They were really good about proactively thinking about “What can destroy my business?” What about personally my behaviors that have led me to this place but may not lead me to the next ambitious goal?” And so they’re willing to let go of… … the book, “What got you here won’t get you there.” These leaders practice that, and it’s a really difficult thing to do. So that’s one litmus test, is willing to let go of what got you to the seat, essentially, and relentlessly question that.
The second is, they adapt more of a future-orientation. So you see these leaders really embodying… There’s no one else thinking 10 to 15 years in the future, most likely, other than the CEO. And so they don’t give up time with the customers; they double the amount of time they are thinking one, two, five years out, compared to the amount of time they spent looking out to the future in the role before CEO. So you see them shifting their attention to a longer
timeframe when they get into the C. So those are a couple of things to call out on adaptiveness.
Pete Mockaitis
Got it, thanks.
Kim Powell
Yeah. And then reliable delivery – this is the most boring one; however it is actually I think the most important – if you look at leaders who did this were 15 times more likely to be in the high-performance group. So it was a really strong behavior and it also helps you get hired. So, it’s boring but it’s important.
And essentially to deliver reliably, there’s a couple of things I’d unpack here. The first is these leaders are really good about setting expectations, as opposed to letting expectations get set for them. So they are actually very proactive and front foot around anticipating and setting expectations of those around you. And that’s important to note because as a CEO you have a board – call it, I don’t know, somewhere between 4 and 15, some public boards are way more – individuals coming from a different seat, with a different set of goals, a different set of expectations. And the CEOs who are successful really actively spend time setting an aligned set of expectations for performance, in a way that allows them to deliver. And this is not a one-and-done; they do it over time as the context changes.
So I remember talking with a board member who was really frustrated with his CEO, and I was like, “Wait, I saw the original value-creation plan – he hit that.” And the board member said, “Yeah, but the market changed. It actually opened up and this happened to this competitor, they went away. It actually should have been bigger.”
And that dissonance between changing expectations created friction and frankly sucked up time and was unproductive for the CEO to deal with on the board. And had they been ahead of that and proactively shaped that, they could have minimized the friction and transaction cost.
The other element to reliable delivery is, I think more the mundane one, which is these leaders try to show up consistently and build consistent expectations into their organization, and this removes ambiguity. So for people who are operating day-to-day, if you are working for a leader who you don’t know, “Is Jekyll or Hyde is going to show up today?, “Is your expectation to the questions you ask of my P&L going to be different than they have been the last month?” – it is hard to operate affectively. You’re constantly guessing, you’re in a world of ambiguity, it does not lead to your highest performance.
And so these leaders recognized showing up consistently removes some of that ambiguity for the team, and the clearer they can set expectations – they use score cards, they use metrics, they give clear feedback, they hold people accountable – and if that’s consistent, the organization operates at a higher performance level and a higher capacity than they would otherwise.
Pete Mockaitis
Right, makes sense.
Kim Powell
So a couple of things there, yeah. And the last one is engaging for results, and as I mentioned this is really around, “How do I herd the cats to a given bowl of food?”, in the simplest way. And the cats all want to go in different directions, and some like mice and some like chicken – I’m making this up. But basically you do need to spend the time with the important stakeholders, whether that be key leaders, key regulators, key industry titans, key board members, to really gain their perspective.
And often times there’s a lot out there around how you empathize, you imagine what it’s like in someone’s shoes. Actually these leaders are actively asking questions and getting the perspective directly from the individuals at hand. They’re not imagining; they’re asking smart questions and listening, and they’re using that intelligence and understanding of that individual or a group of individuals’ goals to harness that knowledge and move them towards a given intent.
They have a goal for most interactions, they know what they’re trying to get or where they’re trying to get to or where they’re trying to move this group or individual to, and they’re very deliberate about using the individual’s motivations and ambitions, knowing very clearly what the intent is, and then putting rhythms into the business or into those relationships that move those stakeholders forward in an aligned fashion.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And you mentioned a part of that in the book there is that there’s some conflict, some differences of opinion about what’s best in what stakeholder over another, and how do they navigate that well?
Kim Powell
Yeah. Well, sometimes they don’t – we could talk about a bunch of examples of that. But when they do, they are very good at… Again, it kind of links back to expectation-setting. They’re very good at listening, gathering input, understanding goals and finding other ways to move individuals towards that goal, and logically explain why this is best for the enterprise overall. They have an ability to link it to, “What’s in it for me”, me being the person sitting across the table from them. And they have an ability to make it relevant to that individual or group’s context.
And that requires really listening, not just imagining the goals, imagining the context. They have to really understand that stakeholder group or individual and find a way to translate the goals into something that’s meaningful, that’s in it for that party. And that does not mean not being disappointed, but it does mean being logical, transparent, setting expectations and delivering, and linking it to some sort of objective of that party.
Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Well, that’s a nice lineup there. And so, in addition to these keys, you mention some handicaps and career catapults. Could you maybe comment on one of each of those?
Kim Powell
Yeah, yeah. There are some other fun analytics we did on the data. The hidden handicaps are really around what can stop you from getting the job that you want, and there’s some basic… I would call these “linguistic” or “superficial” factors that we saw, that have little or nothing to do with what it takes to perform as a CEO, but can trigger biases in the interview process.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sounds like a quick win. What are they?
Kim Powell
Yeah, so a couple that I’ll call out – one is using pretentious language or kind of ivory tower, elevated affectation, like using too big a word, not being down to earth – actually hinders you and hurts you in the hiring process. So, the more snooty you sound, the less likely you are to be hired. The other one we saw, which I took to heart, being a former management consultant – the more platitudes, consultantese and acronyms you use, the less likely you are to be hired. So, all those consultants out there – be wary of the consultantese when you are going for CEO roles.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay, noted. So we can just cut those out. And it’s funny because people kind of become attached to them; it’s like the platitudes are their friends, or sort of comforting. And in a way – that’s a whole another conversation – I think they’re comforting because they give a little bit of an umbrella of ambiguity. So they’re less kind of conflicted.
Kim Powell
Precise. They’re not specific. And exactly – they play it safe and as a result they’re not precise or specific, and that I think is what really triggers the reaction. The more precise and specific and down to earth you can be, the more safety you exude. The more ambiguous, amorphous, hard to pin down – that does not elicit a sense of safety by your interviewer, if that makes sense. They’re not sure what they’re going to get, I guess, is the way to say it.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, and I love it when it’s dirt simple, like, “Customers don’t like this. We need to change that.” There it is!
Kim Powell
Yeah, versus the, “Well, we leveraged this and created amplitude in that.” What? What did you do? [laugh] Yeah, and then some of the basics came through that I think everybody is aware of, but the more meaningful numbers you can use, the better. You want to be memorable and relevant, was what we found.
And so, if you’re coming from an organization that’s not well-known, you don’t have it in with the organization to the extent that you have what we call “bona-fides”, but if there are ways to articulate a stamp of approval from somebody who’s respected by the organization you’re hiring or interviewing for, finding those connections and then being memorable and relevant, and numeric where you can, in terms of your impact and what you’ve done in the past, are all good things to file away for your next job interview.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I completely agree and I see that. I’ve coached many people on their resumes and it makes a world of difference between just saying “improved” to “cut $20 million improved”. It’s like, “Oh, okay.” It’s sort of night and day. And I even see that myself. I was buying paper today and it’s like, “I don’t know what paper to get. Give me the numbers that show it’s great – the thickness, the brightness, the whiteness. Okay, that’s a good paper.” And I think it’s the same for humans – even though we’re hard to quantify, we want something that gives us that comfort, like, “This person has what it takes.”
Kim Powell
Yes. And even better, cutting 20 million in cost off a base of 100 million, versus off a base of a billion – actually means something different to me. And I want to see that you can cut it out of 100 million, ideally in a sustainable way, or in a way that predecessors haven’t done. So I also think sharing some of that context, like why do these numbers actually matter, why are they great, is also really important.
Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Well, Kim, tell me – is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about a couple of your favorite things?
Kim Powell
Well, I think I would just say, for everybody who wants to be awesome at their job, don’t just accept any role. Pick the right role for your strengths and your skills and your values. One of the myths that we bust in here in this book is, there’s really no, we call it the “all-weather” CEO. The reality is I’ve met fabulous, really great leaders, that wouldn’t be great in the context for which we were making a hiring decision. And it doesn’t mean they are not a great leader; it just means that that wouldn’t be a good fit for them, for what the job needed relative to their skillset. So, be choosy and be thoughtful about where you can be at your best.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay, excellent. Well now, Kim, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
Kim Powell
Ooh, I’ve got one actually from my 10-year old daughter, if that’s okay. Her quote is, “You can still taste when you take small bites”, which has been a philosophical quote – it became philosophical for me around how much do I bite off career-wise, how much do I bite off in terms of my calendar and schedule? And the reality is I can still taste performance, success, impact, even if I take small bites.
Pete Mockaitis
I love it, thank you.
Kim Powell
So, not a famous quote, but it’s important to me.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s fun, thank you. And how about a favorite book?
Kim Powell
Oh, I’ve got a lot. I think I saw somewhere that maybe you’ve had your first child.
Pete Mockaitis
Yes.
Kim Powell
So I’ll call out two. One is called NurtureShock – I think it’s by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman – data-based research on parenting – so that could be up your alley. The other one, I have a 10-year old girl… There’s a great book called Untangled by Lisa Damour, who again – data-based research on how to navigate the teen years. And then I would say from a business perspective, I love (Growth) Mindset by Carol Dweck.
Pete Mockaitis
Right, thank you. And how about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?
Kim Powell
So, I use an app called Strides, which is I think originally an exercise app, but you can customize your goals. I’m very goal-driven and I use it to track nights away from my family. So, if a particular week is horrible I can zoom out and look at it by month, by quarter, by year, and realize I’m actually still on track.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. And how about a favorite habit, a personal practice of yours that’s helpful?
Kim Powell
A personal practice is about every two to three years I actually try to take a recharge period, and I find that I am a much more effective leader and advisor and coach when I have a chance to catch my breath. And that’s a pattern actually than extends across my career.
Pete Mockaitis
And how long is a recharge period?
Kim Powell
It’s varied, but sizeable. So anywhere from four to six weeks, to four to six months.
Pete Mockaitis
And so you’re just not working during that time?
Kim Powell
Yeah, I’m just not working.
Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome.
Kim Powell
I’m gearing up for one this summer actually, in late summer, to again, just unplug. I do a lot of fiction-reading, I tend to have a few personal goals in that time, whether it’s reconnecting with family or exercise, athletic-type goals. And then I come back kind of a new human. It’s hard to do in some roles, but at a point of change – if I’m changing roles, changing companies – I always try to build that in to the process.
Pete Mockaitis
Very cool, thank you. And is there a particular nugget that you share with some of this work that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, getting them maybe quoting yourself back to you?
Kim Powell
Two I would call out: “Engage for impact rather than affinity”, which we talked about earlier. The second is: “Connect before you correct”. When you’re providing feedback to your team, connect before you correct. It’s also applicable on the home front with your kids actually.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think we could have a whole episode on this, but now I’m thinking that’s true kind of on the macro scale – hey, you want to have a deep, solid, firm foundation, relationship before you provide constructive feedback, otherwise it’ll often be sort of rejected, like, “Well, screw that jerk. They don’t know anything.”
Kim Powell
Yes.
Pete Mockaitis
But is it also… How are you thinking about it in the micro context, like, “I’m about to deliver a correction. What should I do beforehand, in this very hour?”
Kim Powell
In the micro – understanding what’s going on in their world. So often times they’ve had a terrible shock to their life and they’ve had a bad performance for the last couple of weeks, and someone passed away, or their dog died, or fill in the blank. Take the time to see what’s going on with them. Assume positive intent before you jump on the critical feedback.
Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And Kim, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?
Kim Powell
So I’d point them to CEONextDoorBook.com for more information about the book.
Pete Mockaitis
Alright. And do you have a final challenge or a call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?
Kim Powell
I would say the whole notion of, “You’re destined to be a great leader”, is false. And so, my challenge or call to action is while there’s no perfectly planned or carved plan, there are ways to get stronger and make better choices. So, it’s really just an inspirational, evaluate the opportunities ahead and put yourself in positions where you can excel.
Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, Kim, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you for sharing these research insights, and good luck with all you’re up to, and have fun over the next recharge period!
Kim Powell
Thank you, I will.
