Reconnaissance surveying of Bechevin Bay, AK using satellite-derived bathymetry

Recently, a remote sensing study has been conducted over Bechevin Bay Channel, Alaska as part of a collaboration project between NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). The goal of the study to develop a procedure to prioritize survey areas and plan the annual deployment of Aids to Navigation (AtoN) along the channel. Bechevin Bay is considered a priority for marine surveying because it constitutes the easternmost passage through the Aleutians from the Bering Sea to the Gulf of Alaska. The channel is located in a mud flat area, where every winter the passage is closed due to ice cover. As a result, the path of the channel may change after sea ice has melted. Because of the geographic location of Bechevin Bay, many resources are required in order to conduct an annual survey to map the channel’s path. The surveys are typically conducted by the USCG buoy tenders using small boats and reconnaissance-style single beam lines. This paper presents the use of single-image satellite-derived bathymetry (SDB) as an economic alternative approach. The study compares the performance using different band ratios. Datasets that were used in the study included Landsat 8 and WorldView 2 (WV-2) imagery

The Chief HR Officer’s Role in CEO Succession: The View from the Board

Interviews with 22 members of public and private company boards revealed their beliefs about and expectations for CHROs in the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) succession process. Board members distinguished between credible CHROs who can add significant value to the process and those CHROs who they do not want to see included in almost any aspect of the process. When credible, board members want CHROs to have confidential conversations with the current CEO, to create processes and development plans for potential successors, and to provide their own independent insights regarding candidate strengths and weaknesses. Directors noted that CHROs who add value must display expertise, honesty, transparency, courage, and the ability to build trusting relationships

CEO Succession Success: A Board Perspective

In order to examine how boards define “success” in CEO succession, we interviewed 22 members of Fortune 200 boards (as well as some smaller boards), who sat on over 100 combined boards, about their experiences with CEO succession as board members. Of the CEO successions of which they had been a part, we found that unplanned successions were more likely to fail than planned ones, but surprisingly, that internal successions were at least as likely as external ones to fail. We found that they tend to take longer to conclude a CEO is a failure than a success, and that they use more qualitative metrics than might be expected in their evaluation. In terms of process, we found that practices for success in managing CEO succession include: starting the process early, correctly defining the role’s specifications, and gathering as much information as possible about CEO successor candidates. Finally, some board members discussed the causes of CEO failure, and many described failed CEOs as those who displayed excessive egos, failed to listen to others, and eschewed feedback. In short, failure was often associated with personality problems rather than competence issues

The Impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Employment Strategies: Results of the 2014 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers

In order to assess how firms have responded to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as part of the 2014 HR@ Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers we asked CHROs how they have experienced different aspects of the health insurance and health care system and how they have changed their employment strategies. The results show that 78% of the respondents indicated that their health insurance costs have risen (by an average of 7.73%) and 37% reported that their labor costs have increased (by an average of 5.6%) as a direct consequence of the PPACA. Companies have sought to mitigate the increased cost by pushing cost and responsibility to employees, as 73% have moved or will move employees to Consumer Directed Health Plans and 71% have raised or will raise employee contributions toward health insurance. In addition, while not nearly as prevalent, 30% of firms have or will move their pre-65 retirees to ACA exchanges, have or will cut back coverage eligibility (27%), have or will more rigorously ensure part-time workers work fewer than 30 hours per week (24%), have or will increase the proportion of part-time workers (12%), and have or will limit the number of full-time hires (10%)

The Critical Role of CHROs in CEO Succession: 2013 HR@Moore Survey of Chief Human Resource Officers

The 2013 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers (formerly the Cornell/CAHRS Survey of Chief HR Officers) focused on the Chief HR Officer’s (CHRO) role in the CEO succession process. The survey revealed three key internal actors to the succession process: The incumbent CEO, the potential successor candidates, and the Board of Directors (BOD). Quantitative results revealed that over 80% of BODs design exposure for successor candidates, have a defined ownership of the succession process, conduct ongoing assessment of candidates, and schedule conversations with the CEO. However, 60% or fewer companies have developed a role profile for the future CEO based on a 5+ year strategy, provide a feedback process for candidates, have tools for talent assessment, include succession discussions in board minutes, develop role profiles for potential successors, or explore the external market for successors. CHROs play a key role in helping successor candidates through the process. They begin by designing development plans using the CEO competencies as the ideal profile, then coach the candidates, identify development opportunities, oversee 360-degree feedback assessments, and secure external coaches for them. CHROs act as critical partners to CEOs regarding succession through helping them to identify the profile of the “future” CEO, encouraging CEOs in ways to develop their potential successors, providing assessment tools and development plans for the successors, and discussing candidates with the CEO. On the other hand, discussions about the capabilities and potential of specific candidates and the timing for succession tend to be the most difficult conversations CHROs have with CEOs. CHROs help the board by providing an effective process for succession, forcing the development of a “future” CEO profile, providing objective assessments of candidates, and providing ways of exposing the various candidates to the board. CHROs reported a number of different ways of enabling BODs to gain exposure to potential successors through mechanisms such as having them attend BOD dinners, one-on-one meetings, and accompanying the candidates on customer visits. CHROs also help develop their own successors similar to how firms develop CEO successors. They provide successors exposure to the board, to the CEO, and to the Executive Leadership team. They provide experiences in generalist, talent, and executive compensation roles. Finally they educate successors through mentoring/coaching and sending them to formal educational events

CHRO Succession: Results of the 2014 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers

This report discusses the results of the 2014 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers, particularly focusing on the section that explored Chief HR Officer (CHRO) succession. The results show that a vast majority (60%) of the CHROs were hired either from outside the organization or outside the HR function, with only 32% attaining the role through a normal internal succession process. Most outside hires suggested that the reason for the outside hire was due to a lack of sufficient internal talent. In addition, CHROs reported that they were least prepared for dealing with the board around issues of executive compensation, and that the prior assignment that was most valuable for preparing them for the CHRO role was serving as a business partner to a large business. CHROs who describe current efforts to develop an internal successor report that it requires getting the potential successor visibility with the CEO, ELT, and the board, and this usually occurs through special projects. It also requires developing their skills/experiences/perspectives through rotating the individual through difficult roles

The Changing Chief Human Resources Officer Role: Results of the 2016 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers

The 2016 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers continued the tradition of exploring different aspects of the CHRO role to identify trends while also delving deeper into some new and less explored issues. This year’s results finds little change regarding how CHROs allocate their time to various roles. They continue to spend the most time as the Leader of the HR Function, followed by Talent Architect and Strategic Advisor, and Counselor/Confidant/Coach. Delving into the question of what they counsel their CEOs about, we found that the most popular topics concern executive team talent and its effectiveness, followed by business issues, and finally board relations. We found that 94% of CHROs responding report directly to the CEO and that talent issues continue to dominate the CEO’s agenda for the CHRO and the HR function. CHROs continue to spend the most time with the board of directors around executive compensation, but this has decreased and CHROs are increasingly included in discussions around CEO and other executive succession. Our results show 62% of CHROs have additional departments other than HR reporting to them, with Communications being the most common. We also found that 60% of CHROs have experience outside of HR, with the most frequent being operations/ manufacturing. Finally, the trend toward directly hiring CHROs from outside the organization (61%) continues unabated. This tendency continues to run in sharp contrast to how CEOs (22%), and CFOs (35%) advance into their roles. Finally, while only 24% of CHROs serve on public company boards of directors, 76% serve on nonprofit, professional society, or university boards

CEO Narcissism, CEO Humility, and C-Suite Dynamics Results of the 2016 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers

The 2016 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers explored the CEO’s leadership style, particularly in terms of narcissism and humility, and some aspects of C-suite dynamics. The results showed that while some CEOs can be described as narcissists, the vast majority fail to fit this negative stereotype, and in fact, most would be described as relatively humble. CEOs have relatively positive perceptions of the board, but have some concerns with the extent to which the board may get involved in more operational decisions, thus, overstepping their boundaries. Executive leadership teams were described in terms of Agreement, Camaraderie, and Trust. They scored highest in trust, followed by camaraderie, and finally agreement. Finally, we explore how CEO narcissism and humility relate to ELT dynamics, the ELT’s view of the CEO, the CEO’s perceptions of the board, and both the CEO’s and board’s involvement in CEO succession. CEO narcissism and humility were unrelated to agreement among ELT members, but strongly related to camaraderie and trust. They were also strongly related to the ELT’s view of the CEO, the CEO’s view of the board, and both the CEO’s and board’s involvement in CEO succession. In all cases, narcissism resulted in lower scores and humility in higher scores on these measures

Current Practices in CEO Succession: Results of the 2016 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers

The 2016 HR@Moore Survey focused on CEO succession practices firms currently implement to maximize the likelihood of success in the choice of the next CEO. The report asks questions regarding non-public data. Here, we aggregate the results to describe current practices of CEO succession across organizations. The results suggest that both CEOs and boards are heavily involved in CEO succession. They also show a large number of firms are not prepared for an unexpected CEO departure, having no successor candidates fully prepared for such an event, and would instead be forced to settle for “readyenough” candidates. And while the diversity of CEO successor candidates has improved over the past five years, CHROs still report the diversity of the candidate pool is less than desired. The results also indicate that CEO successor candidates tend to be more aware that they are candidates than they are of who the other candidates might be, and this awareness increases the closer they are to the potential succession decision. CEO successor candidates are not likely to serve on other public boards, even when relatively close to the succession decision. However, they are far more likely to serve on nonprofit boards than on public boards at all stages of readiness. With regard to succession planning, the two most frequent board activities are to engage in formal conversations with the CEO about succession timing and to design events to gain exposure to successor candidates. The least frequent board activity is to explore external candidates. It is also notable that companies tend to use third parties far more when exploring external candidates than when pursuing internal candidates. Finally, in terms of the influence of the board relative to the CEO in the final succession decision, respondents currently say that there is almost a 50/50 balance between the two; this reflects a minor increase in the board’s relative influence on the decision over the past year, which continues a trend seen over the past few years. In terms of transitions, firms that have undergone a CEO succession in the past 5 years often used a COO or President role as a chance to develop and evaluate the candidate before naming him/ her CEO. CHROs continue to state that the biggest challenge during this time period is the division of responsibilities and accountabilities between the current CEO and the COO/President

C-Suite Succession Failures: Causes, Effects, and Prevention: Results of the 2015 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers

This year’s HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers examined traditional aspects of the CHRO role. It also examined the weaknesses of a CHRO’s predecessor and what current CHROs believe determine success in the role. The survey also examined the processes associated with succession failures among members of the C-Suite (CEO, CFO, CMO, CIO, CHRO, Business Leaders etc.); this report concerns this last issue. We began by interviewing 7 CHROs each of whom had over 10 years experience in CHRO roles, and most across different companies. These interviews consisted of the critical incident technique where we asked them to recall and discuss a C-suite hire (one an internal promotion and one an outside hire) that within 6-9 months it became apparent that this person was the wrong hire. Based on the interviews, we developed questions we then asked participating CHROs in the 2015 HR@Moore survey of CHROs. CHROs estimated in the survey that approximately 12% of external C-suite hires failed (compared to 30-50% estimates in our interviews) and that roughly 9% of internal promotions to C-suite positions failed (compared to 10-20% estimates in our interviews). The combination of our interviews and the survey also revealed that while it is typically clear within 6-12 months that a succession mistake occurred, the individual often remains in the position for more than two years, likely compounding the mistake. The survey results also make it clear that mistakes for outside hires are more costly than mistakes associated with internal hires. Our findings also show that the primary cause of failure unique to internal promotions was an inability to scale an executive’s capabilities to the requirements of a new, more demanding, role. The primary cause of external failures appears be an inability to develop trusting relationships, particularly with members of the Executive Leadership Team (ELT). Results also indicated that failures were also likely (for both internal promotions and external hires) if there was a mismatch of the job requirements and the person. Our interviews and surveys also revealed that the succession process is often adversely affected by decision-making biases. By combining the role that decision-making biases play in creating failures with the reasons why promotions or new hires fail, we develop specific suggestions for how to improve the process. These suggestions are in the general categories of building the job profile, assessing the candidates, and the process by which decisions should be made