OEC Consultant's Corner
Talent
Management print
page 
By: Karen Brethower, Ph.D.
When someone says to me, “This is the fourth person
we’ve had in this job in six years; I hope he can make
a go of it,” I respond, “It’s not likely.”
Why? There is clearly a systemic performance failure: a problem
with the position and the system around it. Instead of looking
to the individual, you need to look to the staffing and talent-management
processes—including succession planning.
Faced with constrained resources, many companies have trouble
justifying an investment in talent management or succession
planning beyond the traditional use for top executives and
high-potential individuals. Following are all-too-common,
real-world examples of systemic problems where succession
planning becomes an urgent need.
Situation #1: Business growth
dilutes experience in key positions.
Example: Most organizations
regard growth as a good thing. What they may fail to recognize
is that if you have an informal talent-development system—time
and grade—growth brings dilution. Such was the case
for a company that targeted aggressive expansion based on
several years of sales growth. If it continued to add sales
staff by entry-level hiring and promoting from within, in
two years it would find itself with sales managers that had
only three years of experience. Previously, sales managers
were required to have 12 years of experience, because the
market placed a high value on their ability to deal with clients’
business issues.
If you are filling the same position with less experienced
people, they obviously do not have the same capability for
making business judgments. The rate of change is no longer
slow enough for people who come in at the bottom to assimilate
before reaching upper-middle management. When a company fails
to recognize that requirements in key positions are changing—whether
due to internal change, such as rapid growth, or alterations
in the business environment—it puts itself at risk.
Situation #2: A key position
is suddenly no longer easy to staff because the number of
available positions has increased or the talent pool has shrunk.
Example: As a U.S.-based multinational increased
its global presence, it began having difficulty finding sufficient
talent to go overseas as country managers. It experienced
relatively high rejection rates for these critical senior
jobs, as well as collateral damage: people were coming back
early, experiencing family problems while abroad, etc. When
it had only a few of these positions, the company could “troll”
for the people who wanted them. That pool was exhausted.
The immediate solution was to aggressively rotate people at
the levels prior to candidacy for country manager between
U.S. and overseas assignments. The longer-term answer was
putting processes in place to identify, prepare, transition,
and support appropriate candidates.
Situation
#3: An urgent demographic issue arises.
Example: This example is
closest to the traditional application of succession planning.
In a typical scenario, a board of directors suddenly recognizes
that a significant number of senior executives will reach
retirement age in the next five years and asks, “Where’s
our bench strength?” This situation occurs because the
corporate focus has been elsewhere: winning business, lower-level
staffing, etc. Replacements for top positions are too often
dealt with on an emergency staffing basis when an unanticipated
exit occurs. At this point, the company, suddenly realizing
it should never have allowed itself to be in this kind of
crisis, launches a flurry of succession-planning activities.
The way to prevent systemic problems from recurring is to
have renewable solutions in place. Successful organizations
optimize their succession planning by balancing the individual
perspective (labor pools, pipelines, competencies) with the
position perspective (changing requirements, the position’s
role in the business, and the system around it). That’s
a very different perspective.
Selection and
development tend to be individually oriented; systemic
structure tends to be ignored. You may need to rebalance,
paying more attention to the position, structure, and systemic
problems that cause failure. In times of change, you need to
continuously monitor actual circumstances—including the talent
supply and demand sides—and adjust position requirements and
development as needed.
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For more information,
please contact Joan Caruso, Managing Director of Organizational
Effectiveness Consulting at The Ayers Group — (212)
889-7788.
Karen Searles Brethower is an Ayers Group executive coach
and consultant with extensive experience in talent management
and succession planning. She has worked with organizations
in a variety of industries experiencing radical change.
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