You make some interesting points about Succession Planning in the review– I would like to share some of my own experience as being a part of these discussions on succession.
In my role – I have a key responsibility in articulating a strategy for planning succession of General managers for a mid-sized international pharmaceutical company. We are structured as the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ parts of the world – and my interest currently is in the ‘developing world’. Well I guess ‘ Developing world’ is a misnomer considering the potential of the BRIC countries as well as some of the rising powers like
Korea. However I will use that somewhat simplistic term for lack of another.
For succession at a GM (General manager) level we look for a mixture of qualities that may not be inherent in a single individual. Typically these are individuals who have had successful stints at delivering ‘Sales’ numbers – which by their inherent nature are fairly short-term and operational. Sales people who have been successful at providing results on a quarterly basis struggle when faced with a challenge to take a 5 – 10 year perspective for an entire country, especially when they still have to deliver the agreed operational margin year on year. On the other hand we consider individuals who have worked in extremely strategic marketing roles at a head quarter level. This lot is burdened to deliver on short-time scales and we have seen them fail more than once. An ideal GM is a combination of these 2 diametrically opposite skills sets. He/She needs to deliver on the short-term; but be ready to take some difficult decisions in the short-term to benefit in the long term. Managing this paradox does not come easily to most.
I often wonder if it is even possible to combine these qualities. Yes – I have seen some individuals who are able to walk this tightrope – but these are few and far between. And then comes in the question of mobility. As all multinationals we would like to move these ‘few’ talented people around the globe. But they have families to cater to and may not look forward to such uprooting their existence too often. But that’s another discussion…
We are now experimenting with something which we believe can work. Being strong believers in ‘Real experience as the best teacher’ – we are rotating the sales people in strategic roles and vice versa – before actually giving them GM roles. And instead of giving the ‘small GM jobs’ to ‘Ready now’ candidates – we are taking a risk and giving them to individuals who have the ‘potential’ and the ‘right’ mix of experience. Now ‘potential’ is a big word – and very difficult to predict in spite of the slew of psychometrics. Often ‘high performance’ in the current role is a prerequisite for being considered for the next role – but we know that high performance at one level cannot really predict the same at the next level. We have decided to take a slightly easy way out – leaders require a basic set of competencies (we term them as leadership competencies) to be successful. If we put enough effort in identifying what this set is and if an individual possesses those competencies then half the battle is won - and my firm belief is that a leader who is successful in one company with its own set of culture and values – may not necessarily be successful in another organization. The irony of the matter is that most global organizations use consultancies to ‘create’ their competency models – and I know of too many consultancies that will regularly put ‘old wine in a new bottle’. So it all comes down to spending a considerable amount of time in identifying what works in ‘your company’ – with its own ‘history’ and a set of ‘values’ and its own ‘culture’…All of these fancy terms that are so difficult to ‘define’ in an ever changing ‘world’. As a practitioner I have been guilty of taking the ‘easy way out’ – and accepting the ‘generic competency model’ sold by a well known ‘global’ consultancy. And often thinking…if only I could spend more time on doing this right…
SW
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