Search, Succession & Writing the Future w/ Jim Citrin of Spencer Stuart

Today's guest is Jim Citrin, a legend in the world of CEO search and succession. Jim is the leader of Spencer Stuart's CEO practice. Over the course of his career, he's interviewed over 14,000 candidates and worked with clients on more than 800 searches and succession assignments. Jim's gift is seeing the future—a future that candidates and companies don't always see—and then bringing them together to write that future.

Chris and Jim discuss:

• How Jim helped Hubert Joly and Mark Thompson land their respective CEO roles at Best Buy and the New York Times
• Why delivering great results alone is no longer enough for CEOs
• How to rewrite the narrative about the perfect CEO who has all the answers
• What the succession process looks like, and what boards are looking for in candidates
• How you can use storytelling and your vision of the future to earn trust with the board in the interview process

And much more!

Transcript

Jim Citrin  0:00 
If you do have someone leading a team or an organization who really cares about the people on the team, and it's authentic, then people will rally for that person. And they'll actually deliver great results. It's a guaranteed success formula.

Chris Hare  0:17 
Welcome to The Storied Future Podcast, a show where I interview high performing CEOs, experts and innovators who have put new narratives out into the world and then use those narratives to shift the future. If you want to create a future where you're celebrated not only for what you've accomplished, but for how you've accomplished it, who you took with you and who you became in the process. You're in the right place.

My guest today is Jim Citrin, a legend in the world of CEO search in succession. Jim is the leader of Spencer Stuart's CEO practice. And over the course of his career, he's interviewed over 14,000 candidates and worked with clients on well north of 800 searches and succession assignments, as you'll discover Jim's gift is seeing the future, a future that candidates and companies don't always see and then bringing them together to write that future. When Jim approached Hubert Joly about becoming CEO of Best Buy, Hubert responded, "Jim, you're crazy. I don't see that at all." When he floated the idea of pursuing the CEO role at the New York Times to Mark Thompson at the BBC, Mark laughed and said, "The New York Times would never go for a Brit, and they'd never go for a journalist." Joly and Thompson didn't see the future Jim saw, at least not at first. And in the case of Mark, the New York Times didn't see it either. But when those leaders stepped into that future, and apply their extraordinary talents, the turnarounds they lead made history. Jim and I talk about how he helped Jolie and Thompson land their respective roles at Best Buy and the New York Times, why delivering great results alone is no longer enough for CEOs how to rewrite the narrative about the perfect CEO who has all the answers, what the succession process looks like, and what boards are looking for in candidates, and how you can use storytelling and your vision of the future to earn trust with the board and the interview process. Before we get started, we did run into some technical issues when we were recording. So you may hear a change in the audio partway through as we switch to the backup audio. Let's dive in.

Jim, thanks so much for joining me on The Storied Future Podcast.

Jim Citrin  2:13  
Thanks, Chris. I'm really, really pleased to be here. Looking forward to this conversation.

Chris Hare  2:17  
So before we get into your story, I'd love it if you could talk a little bit about who you are, before you even talk about what you do.

Jim Citrin  2:25  
So I'm Jim Citrin. I am a dad of three amazing kids and three in laws, I have a real passion for what I do. And I'm really privileged to love my work and be very healthy and love sports and be a committed dad and a brand new grandfather. A five week old baby. Oh, that's amazing. So it's great. I'm unlike some people who say you want to separate your work life from your other life. I'm very integrated. So it's a little hard to say who I am without going a little bit into.

Chris Hare  3:07  
I get that. Well, as I was reviewing some of your past interviews, I was really struck by how much you love interviewing. I mean, you've just totally light up on camera when you're talking about it. So talk to me about why that is why do you love it so much.

Jim Citrin  3:20  
When I was an undergraduate at Vassar College, I was one of 10 seniors that were selected for highly competitive program to be an Admissions Office interviewer. And that's when I did my first interviews, and I loved it from the very beginning. I have estimated that here at Spencer Stuart where I lead our SEO practice, as you know, I've done between 14,000 to 15,000 interviews.

And I do roughly 500, 600 a year. And I study interviewing, I love interviewing, I get energy from it. And interestingly, when I was at faster Admissions Office interviewing, I just loved the relationship that gets brought to life through an interview setting. And we can talk about this and many ways, and some memorable interviews and, and all but I remember loving, getting to know someone connecting with them building relationship, getting insight, and you're always kind of trying to solve a problem. Are they right for this situation? Or what they write for faster when I'm interviewing for CEO positions, aren't they right? But what makes them tick, and then also building a trusted relationship with them. And they're actually both sides of the same coin, whether you're interviewing or being interviewed, I think they're pretty much the same thing. And you've just read the situation. It's just like an art form. And I just loved it. And then I love interviewing on this side as well. And part of the A recent why can I love it is so much is going on in an interview like that you're having to truly suss out what makes a person tick, what they're great at what contexts they'll be successful in, and try and match that with a situation, all the while building relationship, and trust, because he really need I'm not a fan of the high pressure interview, I don't think that actually gets the right outcome, a really want to create a comfortable trust based relationship. And it goes to a whole kind of philosophy and a lot of research I've done on interviewing, which is that the same person can be a huge success in one context and a failure in a different context. So it's about really understanding what makes someone tick, what environments they're going to be really successful and, and really determining if that's a good fit. But then you're also at least in our job, you're selling people, great candidates, you know, they have lots of options. And oftentimes, they're sitting in great roles. So you're buying and selling and assessing. And so there's so much going on. 

I'll tell you two, actually, Chris, that I think are most kind of distinctive over that 15,000, one goes back to 2012. And it's in New York, it's in the spring of 2012. And I had a courtesy interview with a brilliant gentleman who I talked to on the phone as a reference. And he was coming to New York and wanted to get together to brainstorm about things. This a gentleman named Mark Thompson, he had just completed a highly successful tenure as the Director General of the BBC, in London, Director General is CEO here. So he was CEO of the BBC, the most prominent media organization in the UK. And I met with him without an agenda. And he wanted to think about what was possible for him or next. So we're having breakfast. And we're having a nice chat about news and journalism. And then I asked him a question that I really am glad I asked. Because I guess if you asked me, Chris, if there's one question in an interview, what's the single best interview question? Of course, there's not one single one. But the best interview question I have fight to pick one is, just pick out one thing that you're most proud of, and why. And when you ask that question, there's so much that goes into that the person responding has to think about all the things they could say. So there's a lot of self editing and curation. And what they say speaks volumes about what gives them energy and how they've done something. And then if you click down a little bit about how did that happen, you really can learn a lot. So I asked him that question. And he thought for a moment, and he said, "Well, I it was the creation of the BBC iPlayer." And it created really well. Netflix was still in its relatively early days and about 2010, 2011. And Mark is Director General, strategize that had a team that entrepreneurially created this world class technology that allowed streaming and catch up TV on a very limited budget. And he talked about the technological breakthroughs that had to be done on an extraordinarily limited budget, and how they had to break through bureaucracy and conventional wisdom. And it was basically the story of digital transformation. And I said, let me ask you a second question. I said, Would you ever consider moving to the US for a role? He said, Well, it depends. He said, depends where he said, I don't know if you know this, but my wife, Jane is American. I said, Actually, I didn't know that. And he said, and our daughter is coming over to the states to attend University in the fall, she'll be going to Harvard. So if it's something in New York or Boston, and it's the right thing, I'd be open minded. So with those two answers, I said, Okay, I've got a crazy idea for you. I said, Would you ever consider becoming CEO of The New York Times? He laughed, and he said, The New York Times would never go for Britt. And they'd never go for a journal, because he knew well enough that there's a separation of journalism from the business side. And at a great news organization like the New York Times, The Newsroom reports to the publisher, which is the chairman and the CEO doesn't have that. And I said, I know. But your story of digital transformation is exactly what we are looking for and what the board of the New York Times is looking for. So we talked more about it. He left and I called the chairman Arthur Sulzberger at the time. And he was the head of the search committee, and I said, Arthur, I said, I think I've just found your new CEO. And he goes, "Really? Tell me." I said, "Mark Thompson," He goes, "Mark Thompson of the BBC?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Jim, you know, that's not at all what we're looking for." I said, "I know, I know, we're looking for a Silicon Valley product person who can lead digital transformation of the hard times." And he says, "Yes, exactly." I said, "Here's the thing." I said, "I know he's a journalist. I know, he's a Brit. He's more of a video guy than a print guy." But I told the BBC iPlayer, digital transformation story, and they were really intrigued. "Okay, well, why don't we have you have meetings," and I introduced Mark, he was one of six candidates. The other five were more traditional on spec, digital transformation, Silicon Valley types. And lo and behold, in the fall of 2012, he went in and led one of the most storied digital transformations ever, and came up with the strategy to really invest in journalism to go for subscriptions versus advertising, and overhaul the product. And it's one of the great success stories, with market capitalization growing like tenfold and all of that. So that all comes from that particular interview and be open and goes back to those couple of questions that I asked. So that's one of that I'm very proud of, and it was extremely memorable.

Chris Hare  11:25  
Yeah, that's beautiful. I just had, I was actually just having a conversation with the Chief Digital Officer this morning about the importance and the role of culture and being one of the biggest things in digital transformation, right. And so that fact they could have, you could have brought someone to them that had all the technical chops, versus the person who could truly transform the culture, as well as the technical side.

Jim Citrin  11:46  
One of the other huge lessons in that particular story. And the reason why it worked so well, both BBC and the New York Times was that Mark knew, and this is not unique, just to the New York Times, but every company leading some kind of cultural transformation, you have to understand where the transformation needs to start. And at a journalism company, like the New York Times, it's got to start in the newsroom. And Mark, as a journalist knew, instinctively and intellectually, that he had to actually have the journalist, the newsroom, lead their digital strategy, which famously came out in 2014, with a big document that ended up getting published called the innovation report, and it was created by a team in the newsroom. They knew that it all had to be transforming to digital, so transforming from the inside out, as opposed to being mandated from a CEO. That was the other key to that success. And now it's been, it's been firing on all cylinders, Mark completed a tenure of seven years. And there was a process where his successor was an internal candidate, Meredith Levine, who's doing an amazing job as well. Anyway, that's why...

Chris Hare  13:07  
I love that. Sorry, go ahead.

Jim Citrin  13:11  
I was just gonna have a second really memorable interview. And it wasn't a traditional interview, it was actually a reference conversation. All the times when we're doing our CEO succession work and CEO, search work. You're talking to people all the time. And this is one truly memorable conversation that essentially was imagery of the 45 minute phone call back before the days of video and it was a reference. I was doing the CEO search for the Motion Picture Association of America, which is kind of timely now that the screenwriters are coming off strike. But this goes back to a legend and Hollywood named Jack Valenti. And I was leading the process for his succession. And there were two finalist candidates doing references on them. And the finalist candidate who ended up getting the job was a gentleman named Dan Glickman, and dam was the secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration. And that might seem like a very strange fit to be the head of the Motion Picture Association. His son was a storied Hollywood producer and executive John Glickman. But interestingly, he knew a lot about Hollywood. And I did a reference with President Clinton, and it was 45 minutes. And typically when you do a reference, it's like an interview, Chris, you say, well, here are the requirements of the job. How does this individual line up against those requirements and all of that? And so, I had met President Clinton in a meeting of about 25 kind of silly ICANN Valley and other industry leaders at the White House, like three years before that, I was a guest, because I was leading our global technology practice at the time. And they were four senators and the President went around the room, chatting with each person for just about, like, a minute. But when he has famously who's so charismatic when he talked to you, he really made you feel like you're the only person in the room. So now, this reference conversation was like, two years later. And he said, Jim, great to talk to you again. Are you still writing books? We in that little one minute conversation, he was asked what I did, and I just come out with my very first book. And I said, I am President Clinton. I said, you don't remember that? Because you don't remember that. Or you have incredible briefing notes. He said, Of course, I remember. Listen from the top. I said, you're paying for it. Anyway, so he put me at ease in a second. But then I said, so I'm calling about Dan Glickman, as you know, we're doing the search for the head of the Motion Picture Association of America. Huge. I said, Can I tell you what the board says the key priorities are and then you can tell me how Dan lines up against that? And he said, Actually, no. He said, I'd like to tell you what I think the Motion Picture Association needs. And then we can discuss if Dan is the right guy for the job. And he just went on for about 15 minutes, giving an overview and a strategic synthesis of the entertainment industry on a global basis. That was a tour de force. He knows he knew a lot about Hollywood. But he said there are two key issues that are facing Hollywood right now. One is piracy. And the other is taxes. No piracy, and technology. He said, and where's piracy coming from? It's coming from China, and also from Germany. And he went on and said, when he had Dan Glickman, as Secretary of Agriculture, he said he was the only person in the Cabinet who was on a first name basis with the Premier of China, because at that time, and in our historical relations, he said, using food was the least controversial way to really establish the relationship and build a relationship with China and Dan Glickman, was the most revered American with the Chinese government. So if anybody can fight piracy coming from China, it's down. And the other thing that he oversaw, was mad cow disease. And our fight against that. And where did that come from? That came from France and Germany, the two countries also where piracy was happening. And Dan was a legend in those two as well. Anyway, he just went on, but, and it was just so characteristic. And then I saw him again, a number of years later, he remember that conversation. And so in our role at Spencer Stewart, where we're working with great clients and leaders of all stripes, you get to talk to the most amazing people. And those are just a couple that stand out.

Chris Hare  18:19  
It's really fascinating as you're talking is, I'm kind of seeing you, as you know, you're meeting companies and leaders at this inflection point, right? And having the right person and the right strategy, and everything can really change everything for that person as well as for the company, right? And so essentially, you're helping them write their stories and the stories of those companies, how does that land with you? 

Jim Citrin  18:41  
That's what gives me the most energy. I mean, I'm really privileged. I mean, for those of us who have found jobs and careers that really play to your strengths, and give you enormous energy and satisfaction, it's just a gift. And I don't take it for granted any day. And I love it. And I feel like that's a bit of my calling is if I can help others find environments in which they can be really successful, and really happy and really make a big impact, then it is truly the Win, win win. People love hearing about opportunities, but if you can, like help do that. And when it works, you really improving organizations and people's lives. When you place work, leaders and organizations, you really have a disproportionate impact on the future of that organization, especially at the CEO level. A great CEO really sets a direction and if they can inspire people to follow it and it really results in success. You make everybody's lives better. You save jobs, you create value for shareholders, people's families are benefited. One of the great turnaround stories, where I was privileged to Place the CEO is best buy back, when he bears show Lee came in the company was really at risk of going out of business. So at Best Buy, at the time, everybody was basically using Best Buy to go look at products and then buying things cheaper on Amazon. And they had really poor customer service and their cost structure was out of whack. And they were really at risk of following their previous archrival Circuit City into bankruptcy. And Hubert Joly was someone who we recruited, and he came in from outside of retail and had different perspectives than people inside the industry might have had. And he came up with a strategy to partner with vendors like Samsung, and Microsoft and Apple to create stores within stores and have those vendors pay Best Buy, essentially, like a landlord. And then he used the funds to dramatically change customer service, and incentives, compensation. And people started having much, much better customer experiences. Lo and behold, they ended up creating like a billion dollars in market cap saved over 100,000 jobs. And the company is flourishing to this day. This has been a very active here I mean, Spencer's do it, we were the leaders and CEO succession and CEO search and we work across industries. But this particular recent months, we've placed lots of new leaders. And it's just the most amazing thing, the new CEO of PayPal, we recruited wonderful leader from Intuit, who's just starting and can build on the strength of that company, the new CEO of Pearson, has just announced a top Microsoft executive to come into the world's largest education company. And to instill he's an expert on AI, and how AI can actually transform a company like Pearson, and many others over the course. So it's not just the old stories, but we're just keep doing it each and every day. And it can it's an amazing experience.

Chris Hare  22:28  
I wanted to go back actually to Best Buy with Hubert. I recall from one of your interviews that he didn't quite see the future you did in regard to Best Buy. And like you saw that it could be a good fit for him. And then I'm curious how that conversation went with him. 

Jim Citrin  22:42  
There are two really big insights from that. One is Hubert and then others have boards make decisions about leaders. I had known you bear. We were in the McKinsey Paris office together at the end of the 80s. So I've known him for years. And we had recruited him to be a board director for Ralph Lauren. So he knew a little bit about retail as a board director. And he was running a big global company called Carlson Carlson with a big private company that had hotels like Radisson hotels, but also had a big travel business, and also had restaurants, tgi fridays, for example. So he knew enough about multi unit kinds of business models and knew a little bit about retail from Ralph Lauren. He happened to be based in Minneapolis where Carlson was, and that's where Best Buy was. And I was having lunch with you bear with my partner, Susan Hart, who leads our global retail and luxury practice. And Susan also knew who Baron you bear wanted to get our advice about kind of his future, he had done a great job at Carlson, and was thinking if he stays there forever, or what else might be out there. And we were chatting, and I said humera I've got a potentially crazy idea for you. He said, What is it? I said, become the CEO of BestBuy. And he said, Jim, you're crazy. Because I don't see that at all. In fact, Hubert wrote a best selling book that you might be aware of called the heart of business and great book that I highly recommend. And the introduction, the opening line to the book, says, quote, Jim comma, your crazy exclamation point, quote, and then goes on to tell from his perspective than the basically I said, Look, here's the downside, that I can't get the costs under control that I can't match Amazon in price or service. And then Best Buy goes out of business. That would not be good. I said, here's the good side. I said at scale says the company still had huge revenues and huge numbers. employees, historically, it had an amazing culture. And people were really proud to work there. They call them blue shirts. And I said, if you can somehow get the economic model to work, I said, I don't have the answer to that. I said, but if you can come up with a way to make the economics work, he knew instinctively that they had to find a way to match Amazon prices, or in electronics, no one would go there. So whether it was cost reduction or other ways, he said, Okay, let's assume we can figure that out. And he said, people actually really want to make technology easier. And when you're buying, whether it's televisions or computers, or phones or anything, the ability to look and touch and actually get some help, real help. That was something so he kind of saw the possible future. And one of the things we do as part of CEO processes, which turns out to be an amazing, very simple, but really important and powerful step. And this is a great example, Chris, of where this really worked well, as an exercise we do call the vision paper exercise. So in the case of SEO searches, you know, pretty much every time we do it, when you get down to the finalist, place where one two or three finalist candidates are meeting with the board before that final meeting. Sometimes this is the third round, the fourth round, the fifth round, whatever it is, we ask candidates to write a usually a five page memo to the board, what your vision is for the company, under your CEO leadership, and how you would lead the execution of that vision. And it's really useful when you have multiple candidates because boards, they're making decisions on what vision of the future. They want the company to follow by WHO and then they basically think, okay, what is the likelihood that this individual can help realize this vision, that's really how they make decisions, on CEOs. And in the case of Best Buy, there were two finalists, candidates, one from retail, who was a very logical candidate, and he wrote efficient paper that was just about pretty much summarized by doing relatively the same thing, but just much better service. And it was fine. But Hugh bear wrote this unbelievably breakthrough vision, presentation, hypothesizing to partner with these technology companies in a way that no one's ever done before. And so he wrote that vision. And the board really bought into that. And that's a step we do and all of our CEO work. Well,

Chris Hare  27:46  
it's fascinating because I was at Amazon Marketplace in the mid 2010s. And I think scale has really done Amazon in in terms of their ability to maintain trust of customers, like I do not buy electronics on Amazon, almost never, I go to Best Buy, right or sometimes Costco. But it's fascinating. He had a quote, at some point around the fact that with Amazon, it's not a zero sum game, there's room for both of us to win. Right? And I love that kind of simple, but powerful shift in the narrative. And then we obviously saw what he did with that.

Jim Citrin  28:18  
Well, that's true. I mean, that simple comment is really important as much for employees, as for investors, because of investors back then, are they saying, well, Amazon's going to win and electronics, therefore Best Buy is going to be out of business? And to just make that simple reframing says actually, maybe that's not right. So

Chris Hare  28:40  
I'd love to chat a little bit about the role that values play in finding the right fit CEO. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? And then your work on the leadership Odyssey? 

Jim Citrin  28:49  
Sure.So values, are there certain things that are irrefutable that I would put it in values, then there are different interpretations of culture and priorities. So I'll try and talk about both of those. So values such as honesty, integrity, doing right by others, at least, when we're involved should be completely crystal clear. And that kind of stuff doesn't have any compromise, honesty, obviously, hard work and things. But there's a range of different leadership styles. Not everybody and not every high performing CEO is the nicest person in the world. But we've done a lot of research and on a couple of points. One is that the vast majority of really effective leaders, especially leaders over time, they have a value set that comes from a place of caring, and those who care about others, as much as or even in some cases, more than themselves, they'll actually be really high performing. And if you can combine that value set with the right capabilities, the right brains and all of that, you're going to be absolutely successful. I wrote a book called The Five patterns of extraordinary careers. And we had, we had a huge amount of research and surveying and interviews, and one of the huge differentiators between those who were merely successful versus the absolute extraordinary performers was on this basis. And it doesn't make the popular podcast or stories, you know, of person who is the real generous leader of the benevolent leader. But if you do have someone, it's not only a CEO, it works at every level of you to have someone who's leading a team or an organization, who really cares about the people on the team. And it's authentic, then people will rally for that person. And they'll actually deliver great results. It's like a guaranteed success formula. This value got put to the test during COVID, and the pandemic and the shift to remote. And what we had done, we've done another study, looking at CEO specs over the years. And if you go back 10 or 12 years ago, purpose, mission values was very infrequently listed as part of the key criteria. But by 2020, during the pandemic, it was in the vast majority of our specs. So that's not super scientific. But it's actual real evidence of, at least from a Spencer Stewart perspective, working with boards, what they say is most important. And the reason why that became so important during the pandemic was that when everybody went to remote, it's easy to just dial it in, literally and figuratively, when you're working remote, and the discretionary effort that leads from Okay, or average performance to great performance has to be coming from someone from the employee on the other side of the Zoom screen. And that's a really intrinsic value. And that came from people really believing in why they're doing what they're doing. Leaders who really believe in carrying them put their best interest at heart. And that rise of purpose and mission coincided with the pandemic and remote work and it made it really, really important and central. What's interesting now is having come out of the pandemic, and kind of these return to work, whether it's hybrid, or return to Office, and a tougher economic environment, and inflation and interest rates and competition and other factors tougher market environment. It's the what's the balance of driving results, which, let's say was the traditional metric of leadership performance, and purpose and mission, which over those years became much more important. Right now, it's sort of an open question. Of course, every board and every company wants a mission driven leader who has the right values and the right culture. But they also really want and need results. Otherwise, investors and activists are going to come in and ask them. And so that's where the tension is right now. And mission and purpose and results. The real question is, is there a chicken and an egg? If you can really lead with purpose and mission and values? With the right strategy? And the right energy? Can that lead to the results that boards and the organization and investors really are demanding? That's, of course, where you really want it to be? Or is our purpose and values? Is that a luxury that only high performing results oriented organizations can put up there? And so that's an open question right now. And of course, we'd like to believe that being purpose led leads to great results. And I do believe that's the case. But you really need to put the results back up on the board as well.

Chris Hare  34:26  
Yeah, one of my past guests says, works with you all he's been you all replaced him a couple times. And what I've seen, and I've known him a long time, what I've seen with him, and we've talked about this on the follow up podcast was this evolution from being high performing and actually told him on the podcast, you were very almost like an automaton in the past. Right? But I've seen this evolution in him of that wanting purpose, and discovering that empathy and learning how to manifest those core values that I think were there but then Learning how to manifest them. And bringing together the purpose will also continuing to be high performing.

Jim Citrin  35:04  
And I think what's interesting is that in a way, that's actually very liberating. And we're at a moment where perfection, or the pursuit of perfection is overrated. The CEO or leader, as hero, as the be all and end all who knows, has to know everything and have the answers is a fallacy. I think that imperfection, and being human is absolutely motivating, and not having all the answers, but having a way to use the collective strengths and experience and wisdom of others to come up with the right answers. People want to be let I mean, don't be mistaken. Everybody wants to say, what's the direction? Where are we going? And it is the responsibility of a leader to set that direction. But it doesn't mean that they have to have all the answers.

Chris Hare  36:06  
I'd love to chat a little bit about the board, and kind of how their narrative about the future and the path to get there plays when they're looking for a new CEO.

Jim Citrin  36:14  
Well, the first question that a board asks when they're starting a succession process, and this could be a long term succession planning process, when you have a CEO who was still performing well and has years in front of them, or could be an emergency situation where, for either performance reasons or health reasons or competitive reasons, there has to be an immediate change. The first step in any succession process or search process is for board defining what its future strategy should be in the future priorities. And then what are the leadership implications of the and that could be from an industry point of view, from a functional point of view? And there are always trade offs? And is it if does someone have to have been a CEO before? Or can they be a first time CEO? Can they be someone from outside of the industry or an adjacent industry? What kind of scale will they have to have led. And so that's the first process. And that's usually quite a, an interactive process. We call developing the spec that lasts usually it can be a week, but it can also be several weeks of what we typically do is interview every board director one on one, if it's an open search, then you interview management as well. In many cases, we'll do culture surveys, when it's going well, it's an open process. And then you synthesize all that into a briefing document. And that becomes the yardstick by which candidates are measured, whether internal candidates or external candidates, and also a marketing document. When you approach someone say, Hey, Chris, I'm working on an important CEO opportunity, I'd like to talk to you about it and give them a little bit of an overview and then say, Can I send you the spec to take a look at so it becomes a marketing document? That's a really critical part of the process. And then they review that, and then you come back and have discussion on that. And then if they're interested, then you do interview with them. And then they come into the process? And

Chris Hare  38:22  
what role does the CEO story and how they kind of tell their story play and earning trust? Obviously, it's critical, but I'm just curious, I'd love to hear some an example of that.

Jim Citrin  38:32  
It's everything. It's not just the CEO, this is every one of us share telling our stories all the time and lots of different settings. But there is we talked earlier and discussion about interviewing, there's something very distinct about when boards as a group, interview CEO candidates, it's usually a maybe it's a committee. So there might be five members of a board search committee, a five on one interview, but certainly in the final presentation, when they've had the vision paper, it's usually 10 on one interview, usually, we are in the room. So we get to participate, sometimes facilitator hosts but always observe. So I've probably done 300 500 board, interviews of CEO candidates. And it's a unique dynamic, and it really always starts with the person story. And usually, as I said earlier, this is probably the third, fourth or fifth time that a candidate has met a board or board members, but it's a different dynamic when they're meeting the group at the same time. And usually, the opening question of what's typically a 90 minute interview is, Chris, tell me about your story. And tell me why you might be the ideal person for this role, and why this role might be the ideal fit for you at this point in your life, that's really the question, why are you right for this job? And why is this job right for you in the context of your story. And the ability in that moment to really create the right energy, the right connection with a group of people in a compelling way, is the difference between whether they earn the trust of a board or not. And that's actually a skill set. I did one. And when it works well, it's beautiful. When it goes down, it's really painful, and the painful match and everybody loves disaster stories. I was once interviewing for the CEO of one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. We had five candidates meeting the Chairman and the committee. And this one individual who was magnificent in his experience, and it's great on paper and have great one on ones. Basically, to that opening question. I can do not Chris, this individual went on for 40 minutes without stopping. And after about the first five or seven minutes were left, amazing. Everybody was leaning forward, and they were wrapped. The next five or 10 were like, okay, but then after about 12 minutes, people were starting to tune out. And after 20 minutes, the guy was dead. And he kept going and going. And so in one question, now, meanwhile, later, like, two months later, I had lunch with this individual, Ken, who's the CEO of a very prominent company who was great on paper. He goes, what happened? And I said, Do you realize you went on for 40 minutes? uninterrupted? I said, you lost people after about 12 minutes. He goes, Why didn't you stop me? I said, I was trying to signal you. But it wasn't my board was really painful. On the other side, in five or seven minutes, a CEO can absolutely create trust and create the case, they tell a little bit of their personal story. And if they can say why they're really interested in this and how it links to their experience and to their values, and then say, well, we can spend more time talking about this, or we can have follow up questions about them. So managing time in that high stakes environment is really key as well.

Chris Hare  42:24  
Well, let the stress die down over here. Just a minute from that story. Wow. So I'd love to kind of rewind and talk more about you and what makes you tick. I would love to hear just, you know, going back to when you were a kid, and what were you like as a kid, what did you think was possible about the future. And we'd love to hear a little bit about how you got here.

Jim Citrin  42:45  
So as a kid, I was the middle son of three really close siblings. My older brother Jeff and the younger sister, Nancy, and we're incredibly close growing up and incredibly close to this day. My older brother was brilliant. And he literally read the encyclopedia for leisure. He was a good athlete to be a great swimmer and a tennis player. My younger sister wasn't as beautiful and everybody loves her. And she's like, so popular and also really smart and clever and live. So I was kind of that middle child. And I was definitely a late bloomer. I was a good athlete. And growing up, I had super high energy level, but it was all about for me about sports. And I was a big swimmer growing up. And then in junior high school, high school and college, I played three sports, which in high school is one thing I played soccer and swam, and I played lacrosse. And I always thought that that gave me a lot of both drive and discipline, and gave me energy level and fitness. But it wasn't until I wasn't a really good student in high school, I didn't have great attention span. I didn't do all my homework. I probably had undiagnosed ADHD back in the day. But sports definitely kept me on track. And I did well enough that I was able to apply to reasonable colleges. And I was very fortunate to get into Vassar, which is, you know, top 10 liberal arts college. But what really clicked for me, Chris, is that I went from a typical American High School, where it was all about popularity in sports and social life, to an academic environment at Vassar where it was cool to be smart, and the professor's were incredibly inspiring. I'll never forget my freshman English class I had a professor, Mr. Gifford who was no longer living but he had taught many legendary writers who went on at faster to become have published authors and novelists in the light. And he was so supportive. And we wrote papers for every class. That's basically where I learned how to write, I fell in love with writing. And years later, when I wanted to start writing books, I went back to Vassar and I had a meeting with my freshman and also junior year Professor became the advice on how to write on how to actually do kind of writing and now published eight books and have an early one in the works. So it's something that I'm really, really proud of, but I go back if I was in high school, and it was like, oh, yeah, this guy would have become a published author, that would have been in the realm of impossibility.

Chris Hare  45:41  
Now, as we come to a close, my final question for you is, I'd love to understand, I'm actually going to ask you a question. What is it that you are most proud of from your career?

Jim Citrin  45:51  
I don't want this to sound trite. Because you know, sometimes we ask someone a question. If you remember the way I framed the question to Mark Thompson, what do you think over the last 12 or 18 months? Pick one thing that you're most proud of? And why? That's a great question. But a very different question is like, protect ahead to your 80th birthday party, or your retirement party. Imagine what the speeches are, what would they say that's a very different way to tease out what you're really most proud of. For me, I would say that they're really two things. And they're really categories. That Spencer Stewart we've got about 2000 colleagues around the world, some of our most high performing partners, who also are some of my very best friends in the world, are people who I've either helped recruit into the firm over the years, and mentored with and partnered with, I love that. And these are some of our senior most partners in the world. But also some of our analysts and Associates, I just get huge energy from creating opportunities and having great people involved in really meaningful conversations and experiences and exposure. And developing them as a mentor is something that as probably, if not first time for first. But the other is placing leaders into organizations that truly make them much better places. I keep an active count of all of my placements over the years, and I'm up to 870 placements. And there are some amazing ones, and I see people and that place, whether it's this year, or 20 years ago, you change their lives. And when it works really well, you really, really play a meaningful part. And I feel like our profession is one where the team is critical, but also the role of each of us and saying, well, because you can come up with the idea and say, Chris, you'd be great for X and effect spark of the idea doesn't happen. And that moment, that never would have happened. So placing great people and making them really happy and successful and making their organizations happy and successful is something I'm just hugely proud of.

Chris Hare  48:11  
Yeah, I love that. It's not just about effectiveness, right. And getting to the finish line and, and winning, right. It's about how you got there, who you took with you and who you became in the process. And you're definitely modeling that.

Jim Citrin  48:24  
I do like to say, Chris, that for every placement, there's a little bit of us in there, a little bit of alchemy that never would have happened without us. And it makes you very, very proud. And having done this now, for over 25 years. There's so many organizations that we've touched and have experienced with and it makes the world a really interesting place. Well,

Chris Hare  48:49  
thanks, Jim. This has been an absolute pleasure and looking forward to continuing to follow your journey. Thank you for joining me for another episode of The Story future. What part of Jim's story did you find most impactful? Did anything shift and how you're thinking about your future and how you're thinking about your narrative about how you want to tell your story? I encourage you to find someone today and tell them your story. Ask them about their story, because when we tell stories, it can change us. It can change others and it has the power to change the future. And that's it. Please subscribe, leave us a review and be sure to visit TSF pod.com For more information about Jim Citroen and Spencer Stewart For show notes and to check out other episodes. The story future podcast is a production of the story future LLC produced and edited by Ray Sylvester audio engineering by Allianz by and fi music by the bruise your host is me Chris hare learn more about how I help leaders use the power of narrative to transform themselves, their companies and their industries at WWW dot the storied future.com