3 Steps For Elon Musk To Pick Twitter’s Next CEO

Originally published at Forbes.com

Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk clearly didn’t ask for my advice on CEO succession. And, given how bright and successful a leader he has been, Musk doesn’t really need it.

But, as a thought exercise about CEO succession, it may be fun to review the research—what “the book” says about searching for CEOs the right way—and then compare or contrast it with Musk’s actual decision-making process.

The bottom line from longstanding research and experienced practitioners is that there are three stages to bringing in a new CEO and empowering that individual with the best chances for success. All three stages have to be done well, although it is complicated by the fact that the second and third stages are progressively more difficult to get right than the first stage.

Stage One: Matching “must-have” specifications to job requirements

This is the easiest part to get right, since essentially all external searches for CEO jobs have the same top-six “must have” specifications:

1. A demonstrated history for getting results

2. The ability to think strategically

3. Superior communication skills

4. Fit with the company culture

5. Interpersonal skills (high E.Q.)

6. Previous comparable experience

This particular research on CEO searches actually comes from the book I wrote, “Secrets from the Search Firm Files.” Working with one of the top five search firms in the United States, I had access to all of the CEO, president, and chairman searches that the company executed over a two-year period. The partners on these searches ranked a long list of attributes by degrees of “must have.” The results were quite uniform in terms of the three key skills and the ability to get results, in addition to cultural fit and previous relevant experience.

While cultural fit is essentially the second stage, that and the previous “comparable” position are the two that Musk’s Twitter search will have to tailor to his unique circumstances and overall strategy. Interestingly, previous “industry” experience barely makes the top 10. Therefore, “comparable” has more to do with matching where Musk wants to go with Twitter, not just reaffirming the company’s status quo. It means finding candidates with experience dealing with the kinds of challenges in other places that Twitter will be facing in the near future.

For Twitter specifically, the questions become: How do you find a stable revenue model? Does that mean re-establishing credibility with a broader user and advertiser universe? Or does it have more do with becoming a new paradigm of public forum?

Stage Two: Understanding the culture

Does Twitter simply maintain its current business model? Does the company shift certain degrees of emphasis? Or does it undergo a wholesale reworking to match where Musk needs to go?

It is clear that Musk has already put an emphasis on finding a whole new business model for Twitter, and he is prepared to act radically to get there. What makes the second stage much more challenging for Musk than the first is matching the leadership styles of his CEO candidates with what Musk’s culture strives to become in the years ahead.

In the research for my book, all of the partners involved with the search firm relayed the same message: Companies can easily find candidates that score 9.5 to 9.8 on a 10-point scale of matching their specifications, but the actual predictor of the CEOs who will succeed is cultural fit. That is the secret sauce.

To find a CEO who fits Twitter’s culture, Musk cannot just rely on his gut instinct—knowing “it” when he sees it. Working with search firm partners, I built a mental model that helps calibrate the candidates’ fit with a desired culture. It involves two broad categories: decision-making and style.

Musk should place his CEO candidates and his desired culture along a spectrum of each element of decision-making:

1. Autonomous on one end, collective on the other

2. Rules-based or person-based

3. Cautious or aggressive

4. Emotional and intuitive or fact-based

Similarly, style has three dimensions:

1. Candid, blunt communication versus a discrete, coded communication ethos

2. Looking “right” and fitting a particular background versus diversity (assuming competence)

3. Values conformity versus results-oriented tolerance

Twitter’s owner and current CEO should map out where his candidates sit along these seven spectrum lines. Only the subset that can move the culture in the desired direction—based on decision-making and style—will actually be successful in the end.

Stage Three: Managing the handoff

Far too many CEO succession plans that are well-designed blow up early because the proverbial handoff gets botched. In some cases, the current CEO never actually wanted to leave, so they at least unconsciously sabotage the process. Think Robert Allen at AT&T or Armand Hammer at Occidental Petroleum, which went through multiple “successors” under his watch.

In other cases, the current CEO picks a friend or close colleague, even if the cultural fit was never right in the first place. For Disney, then-CEO Michael Eisner’s 1995 selection of “super agent” Michael Ovitz was a profound misjudgment of the culture that Ovitz brought with him.

For public companies, the CEO handoff can take several forms. All can be successful under the right circumstances. Bringing in an outsider with previous success at the CEO level generally requires a quick “pass the baton” program, with the retiring CEO withdrawing visibly and quickly from the board of directors and company premises. Internal candidates, meanwhile, can often benefit from a version of “the longer goodbye,” until they demonstrate a full range of executive skills and former colleagues accept that new leadership. But a fixed, relatively short run as chair of the board of directors for the current incumbent is typically the outer limit of a happy ending.

In Twitter’s case, Musk is the shareholder, so he is the constituency that the new CEO must serve and satisfy. The key for those two individuals is to have an agreement up-front about how that collaboration is to work, and then stick to it.

A variety of styles may work. It could be a “Batman and Robin” situation, where the owner picks the battles and the CEO executes the game plan. Or it could be a case of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” with the two improvising together as new challenges arise. What cannot work, however, is either partner allowing other officers to shop between them for a desired decision. Musk and his new CEO need to demonstrate zero tolerance for that tactic, speaking with one voice—no exceptions. And, unless specified in advance for a particular issue, that voice must be the CEO’s.

It will be fascinating to see Musk’s CEO succession process play out. For Twitter’s sake, we all wish him success with the final outcome of a new Twitter that is reinvigorated and ultimately useful to public discourse.

(Mr. Musk, my editor at Forbes has my direct phone number, if you want to reach out for any advice.)