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206 SNAKES IN SUITS
fine was a quarter a minute, used to come up to enough after a year
to buy pizza for the entire company staff. Now, with inflation, the
fine was up to a buck, but the resulting improvements in timeliness
led to fewer pizzas overall.
“Glad we’re all here. Thank you,” said Johnson, the CEO. “You
all interviewed Morgan and Tom for the new director of communications
job, and this meeting is to share our impressions, review what
information we got from references, et cetera, and make a decision.
Are we all on board with that?” he asked, looking around the room at
the members of the selection team assembled in the conference
room.
Heads nodded around the table.
Carla handed out two candidate packets to each member of the
team. These contained the results of their interviews, reference
checks, background checks, and assessments from the executive recruitment
firm. “The cover sheet gives the summary of all that we
have. I’ll give you a minute to read through it,” she said, as they perused
the page while she took out some other notes from her pile.
“It’s pretty obvious that they’re in a dead heat according to the
competency list. They both got high marks from their references on
understanding the business, building external relationships, oral
communication style, written communication, and business acumen.
Morgan did a bit better in problem solving and decision making
overall, but one reference said he tended to take on too much of the
detail work himself and didn’t delegate enough. Tom got the opposite
review; he tended to delegate too much, sometimes handing off
details his last boss thought he should have handled himself.”
“I got the same impression during my interviews,” said Nate, the
hiring manager. “Tom told me he liked to develop his people, and
delegation was a means to that end. Morgan didn’t seem to think doing
it all himself was a problem; actually, he was quite proud of the
fact. But then he didn’t have the same staff level as Tom.”
The conversation continued with a detailed review of the remaining
competency areas. At the end of this topic, the two candidates
were about even in their attractiveness to the group.