A Search Process as Values in Action
HR Process Innovation
Values-Based Organizational Design · Developmental Evaluation Approach
In collaboration with Work.Shouldn't.Suck. for Opera Philadelphia
When Opera Philadelphia's General Director David Devan invited Tim Cynova and I to reimagine their executive search process, the ask was specific and ambitious: deconstruct how hiring is typically done and reimagine it from the ground up, centering equity, inclusion, and candidate care.
The role was Vice President of HR and Inclusion — a new role for the organization that would ensure that equity and inclusion principles would factor into HR strategy at the highest level of decision-making. The organization was already actively engaged on a DEI journey and knew that a process designed to find the right person had to model the values it was looking for.
Before designing anything, we listened. Thirty-minute conversations with eleven members of the Opera Philadelphia team gave us a textured understanding of the organization's culture, dynamics, goals, and challenges that would be relevant to this role. We reviewed the website, personnel manuals, strategic plans, values statements, job descriptions, and press materials.
From that listening, we built the position description and the posting, articulating a realistic context and set of priorities for the role, and the three key anchors that would shape our search for the ideal candidate.
The search outreach was designed as a marketing campaign to find interested and qualified applicants where they were, the applicant screening was broadly connected to the required knowledge, skills, and experiences (KSEs) for the role, and the interview process balanced the uni-directional power dynamics typically present in hiring.
The process was deliberately developmental and responsive at every turn, as the emergence and acknowledgement of characteristics of white supremacy culture such as sense of urgency, either or thinking, fear of open conflict, etc. invited learning and adaptation in real time.
A Liberating Structures approach shaped how selection committee conversations unfolded. Candidates received detailed prep materials, honoraria for intensive prep-work, cumulative FAQs , and debrief conversations as their candidacy progressed. Real-world scenarios were drawn directly from anonymous feedback invited from the whole Opera Philadelphia team. Pre-recorded leadership context discussions and a bespoke writing prompt, and 2:1 informal conversations expanded the process well beyond the standard question and answer format.
The result was a rigorous, values-aligned process transparent enough to have pieces integrated into the organization’s standard process, a successful hire, and the foundation for an onboarding plan designed to build on the trust and rapport developed during the search itself in service to the role’s priorities. A search at this level offers real complexity and challenge; it can be stressful when the outcome is uncertain. As we wrote to David at the close, what made this process so remarkable was that alongside the complexity and discomfort of uncertainty, joy played out so frequently in a process where it seldom does.
