The CODE: Charge, Outcome, Deliverables, and Efforts

The Charge is the statement that captures the essence of the position. The Charge allows you and everyone else involved in the hiring process to have common language around what's most important from this role.

We have a simple four-part formula to help us create our charge:

• The title +
• Style adjective +
• Change you seek +
• Company state or phase

The Outcome is the tangible way to describe how the business will be better by having filled this position with the best person possible.

The Outcome quantifies the Charge. Let's get really specific about that number one change, that positive impact you want this individual to have on the company. There are four elements to the outcome formula to help us do that:

• Timeframe + 
• Change This Key Metric + 
• By How Much + 
• Critical Requirements

Our goal is to define the Outcome so anyone would have the same interpretation. Ideally, you'll be able to create a single sentence that successfully covers the positive impact you want this person to have on the organization. However, sometimes that single sentence isn't enough to provide the other members of your hiring team clarity on what success looks like in the role. This is especially relevant in less quantifiable roles, or where there's specific jargon that's helpful in the Outcome statement but needs to be better clarified for the broader set of stakeholders who will be helping you in the interview process. If necessary, you can add a couple more bullet points in the outcome section of your cipher to provide any critical clarifications. 

The Deliverables are the five to seven most critical accountabilities
that will accomplish your Outcome.

At this point, you know how to broadly describe the role you're recruiting for, that's the Charge. And you know how you'll define success, that's the Outcome. Let's get into the depth of the specific accountabilities that will make the role successful.

• Crafting the right set of deliverables is all about identification first, and then prioritization. The goal is to ultimately identify the top five to seven deliverables that must be completed over your timeframe, which as you'll remember from creating your outcome, is ideally over the next two to three years.

• That number of five to seven is important, because it sets a cap on the number of deliverables and therefore serves as a forcing function to help you prioritize. By prioritizing down to the top five to seven deliverables, you'll arrive at what is most crucially critical success rather than a bunch of extra nice to haves or things that will be generic and common to most candidates, and therefore not critical to measure during the interview process.

• You may find that for entry level roles and less complex roles four or five might be enough. But again, we recommend focusing your deliverables on the next two to three years so that they're long enough to measure what you need to build towards but sure enough so that you know exactly where you're going.

• Rather than a specific formula like we had with the charge and the outcome, we have guidelines for deliverables because they're so unique. So therefore they don't fall into a nice little formula. Instead, make sure you adhere to these following three guidelines as you create your deliverables.

Business Objectives are the tactical components of achieving the role outcome. If you take your outcome and you look at the four or five most critical drivers to achieve that, you'll have a great first pass at your business deliverable.

If you're hiring a manager, what else is more important than Team Management? Think about that for a moment...

Most of the time a Company Culture deliverable will end up sounding something like "Fit in with our existing culture" or possibly bring some specific additions, if the person will be leading a culture shift.

There are a few challenges that people face when they're trying to create Efforts. Often times, they've never thought about the Efforts required before, or at least not in this way. They haven't thought it through to the level of detail required.

"I know I need new reporting, but reporting on what?"

You have to tease that out. Ask yourself questions to get those creative juices flowing. Really think about what you are most unhappy with in the position right now, and what you hope that this new candidate will help fix. 

Sure, we want to grow sales. At similar companies, they want to grow sales, too. They might do X, but our company, we're different, so we do Y.

You want to make sure that you're really nailing the Y so that you and your hiring team understands what to look for.