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Research Briefs
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Week of 5 September 1997 |
Vol. I, No. 2 |
Research Briefs
Help Wanted: CEO. A great deal of media attention has focused lately on the disastrous reigns of CEOs such as Gilbert Amelio of Apple, Michael Ovitz of Disney, and John Walter of AT&T. Professor of Organizational Behavior Douglas T. Hall and Professor of Management Policy Fred K. Foulkes, both of the School of Management, have a solution to the problem of hiring a competent CEO: a well-informed, hard-working corporate board to guide the organization. Some guidelines for the board are:
- Be clear about the direction of the business and the specific competencies your CEO should have. Get accurate, specific information on the capabilities and track record of the candidate -- don't depend solely on the search firm.
- Link the compensation of the search firm (such firms recruit most major CEO candidates) to the success of the hire, not, as is usual, to the pay of the new CEO. Pay the firm partially when the search is done and the balance after the CEO has completed a year or more of service.
- Don't allow a CEO to pick his or her own successor. There are too many psycho-logical traps: CEOs can subtly sabotage their succes-sors; they can try to clone themselves or could be in denial about their departure and have a fantasy of con-tinuing to control the firm through their successor.
- Have a succession plan at all times for the top executives of the firm, and preferably more. There is too much at stake to do otherwise.
- Long before a succession crisis looms, the board should get to know potential inside candidates. Successful organi-zations must create a next generation that is strong and different from current leaders in order to avoid cloning and help companies adapt to change.
Research by a national executive search association found that more than two out of three new CEOs recruited from outside the firm will fail. "CEOs don't like to face succession, as it implies mortality and the end of their reigns," says Hall. "Boards sometimes must force the issue -- but if they don't take the long-term view on the next generation of leadership, who will?"
Tail(s) of a Comet. Boston University astronomers recently released a composite photograph showing three distinct tails extending from Comet Hale-Bopp. The photo confirms a discovery made in April by European astronomers, who found that the position of Hale-Bopp's tail was different from the ion and dust tails associated with most comets. "We made our observations in March at the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas," says Jody Wilson, postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Space Physics. "We were analyzing our data in early April when reports came from the Canary Islands about the new tail. It then took just a day's work to get our results."
Although sodium gas has been detected in previous comets, such as Halley's Comet in 1986, "the position of this sodium tail and its pattern of brightness away from the nucleus are very different from normal comet tails," says Michael Mendillo, CAS professor of astronomy. "This implies that the source of sodium is not necessarily on the nucleus, but extended from it."
Wilson, an expert on the extended sodium atmosphere produced by volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io, plans to use his models of sodium flowing from a tiny body to explore possible sources of Hale-Bopp's sodium tail. Images of Comet Hale-Bopp's three tails can be found online, at: http:// vega.bu.edu/cometc.gif (color) and http://vega.bu.edu/cometbw.gif (black-and-white).
"Research Briefs" is compiled by the Office of Public Relations.