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Developing and sustaining corporate leaders By Mitchell Weisburgh Editor's note: The sustainability of knowledge management is not the only corporate function affected by the turnover of leadership. Here is a report on four cases where companies are working to improve leadership sustainability. On October 21, 2004 our local ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) chapter sponsored a panel discussion on how corporations develop and sustain corporate leaders. Participating in the panel were
Leadership is a hot topic in professional development and there were some common themes in the successful programs that are being utilized in all four of these companies. First, there was a real business need that drove the implementation of the leadership development program. Second, the existing leadership of the organization had an articulated vision of where the company is going and what types of leaders it will need in the future. Third, leadership development programs have been an effective way to change from a loosely managed organization into a centrally managed corporation. Here are what the four individuals said about the programs that they are managing. Avon Avon is in 140 countries. Up until Jung's tenure, Avon operated like a holding company; each country was run independently; as long as it met the numbers it was left alone. Jung's goal was to integrate the parts into one global corporation for faster growth and a higher ROI. The leadership program's role has been to work with the top 100 leaders of the organization and prepare them along 4 competencies. The program was based on business objectives: based on projections, Avon determined where there were gaps in talent. For example, the company has implemented an integrated supply chain and has worked hard on brand building. The program worked on the skills necessary to implement these initiatives, which were different from the skills used in the old ways of doing business. One business objective is to have a backup to every one of the top 100 positions. This is a metric that the board uses to measure the effectiveness of the CEO. Himsel notes that effective leadership development does not happen when you're in your office. If you want a great program, you have to go out and work and talk with middle managers; for an international corporation like Avon, this also means going to the different countries. One piece of advice for others wanting to implement leadership programs is not to over-engineer. You can get lost in trying to build the perfect program and you'll miss out on the opportunity to meet a need. Sometimes a fast response is more important than the perfect system. A key is cadence, you want to be slightly ahead of the managers in order to get them what they need. Fuji Sawyer believes that a successful leadership development program starts with confirming what the business is trying to accomplish; develops a model of effective leadership in that environment, and then links and aligns current managers and leaders around that vision and current corporate capabilities. MasterCard People used to get promoted because they got results; but with no attention to how, how many bodies they burned out or what type of customer satisfaction or turnover they hit. Before they could start managing for these types of metrics, they had to give managers the skills for this type of management. The assumption for leadership development was that leadership is not skills based, that all of the leaders or potential leaders already had the line skills. An initial step was to implement a leadership program based on emotional intelligence; how emotional intelligence ties into leadership styles. As part of this huge change, the leadership development program targeted 120 managers to take MasterCard apart and put it back together again. Subgroups were brought together and given major business unit problems to solve in 2 12 days. The results of this group were brought to Senior Management to flesh out and act on. One of the key elements was the Cadre program. Cadre selected 55 people with the potential to become senior management and made sure that they had the mentoring, training, and experiences over at least a two to three year period in order to prepare them to move up. Before Cadre, virtually all managers were hired from outside the firm. MasterCard was viewed as a good place to start, but there were very few opportunities. The program was not publicized because it was such a departure from the way things had been done in the past. The feeling is that now, there is a strong bench that can fulfill growth and turnover demands. One issue is managing expectations. People are told that Cadre is a long-term program. They are told that the program is not a guarantee of promotion, but that it makes sure that they will be given assignments to build competencies. And people are given case studies of those whose success has been boosted through Cadre. But Ripley still sometimes hears from people "I don't understand why I haven't been promoted." With the success of the leadership development program, now everyone wants to put their thumbprint on the program; which often means they want throw out what's there and start something new. Ripley wants to be sure that she keeps what works, gets feedback, and changes what isn't working. Pfizer
Pfizer looks over 4 levels of leadership and has 9 different streams of skills. They forecast managerial demand for at least the next 5 years; and then look to fill those demands with a leadership pipeline. The core belief is that leadership development is about 70% on the job training, 20% coaching, and 10% learning activities. They plan in order to be ready to fill positions when they are needed. Pfizer is basically a scientific company and this trickles down to HR. The company invested $30,000 to determine if people who had gone through the leadership development program were more effective. They determined that for each dollar invested, the company got back that dollar plus $1.45 of results. There are three criteria for skills in the leadership development program. They have to be core to Pfizer as a corporation. They have to be common across functional areas and countries. And they have to be critical to moving the company forward. While there is a certain amount of localization, the view is that about 70% of the material is applicable to everyone and only about 30% has to be localized. Lambert views the job of leadership development as looking where the business is going to be in 5 to 10 years and then build and mold the leadership development program backwards from there. Conclusions There is a big debate over whether leadership can be taught. These are all successful companies with leadership development programs that they view as successful. Part of the success is certainly due to selection: they try to make sure that they choose candidates who will be successful senior managers. Part the success is due to their narrow operational definition of leadership. But given those constraints, it would seem that when an organization can articulate a vision for leadership, when it can implement a program that combines practical experience, hands-on joint problem solving, mentoring, and some training, that leadership skills can be taught. Mitchell Weisburgh |
