Round Table – “Hiring, Firing and Board Meltdowns” (LS09)

Bill Hybels facilitated a round table discussion around the topic “Hiring, Firing, and Board Meltdowns” on Thursday morning. The round table involved Carly Fiorina (former Chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard), Henry Cloud (psychologist and co-author of Boundaries), David Ireland (Senior Pastor of Christ Church in Montclair, NJ) and Patrick Lencioni (business consultant and author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team).  There was great discussion around the table with video clips of some very extreme situations that Willow Creek had put together.

Here are a few main ideas that rose to the surface for me from the group’s discussion of each topic.

Hiring
One idea that made so much sense to me but is easy to skip over is the reality that the more clear your organizational culture is, the easier it will be for job candidates and you to see if they are a good fit or not. The candidate will be able to see, understand, and self-select into the organization.

In regards to the interview process, the round table emphasized the importance of not only asking lots of open-ended questions but also taking the interviewee out of the normal context to see how they operate as a ‘normal’ person.

Firing
When approaching the topic of terminating employment, it is extremely important for organizations to have some sort of system already in place for ongoing feedback for personnel that keeps the termination from being a surprise. Ongoing feedback means that there must be truthful words spoken, and not the Christian tendency toward avoidance. As Bill Hybels said, “the kindest form of management is the truth.”

Board Meltdowns
In putting together a board, it is extremely important to have two things in place:

• Clarity on the purpose and operating values of the board
• Right people who have influence in the organization and the diverse skills necessary to move the organization forward