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Project EBS: Building Executive Bench Strength
Ensuring leadership agility in complex times
:: completed list main ::
The economy may have cooled a bit, but the need for leadership is hotter than ever. Senior executives today live with incredibly complex, rapidly changing, and virtually unpredictable business conditions. Large, global organizations have become so dispersed, so diversified, and so interconnected that no one can “see” the whole anymore. Work is more fluid, organizations are flatter, and collaboration and consensus have replaced command and control as a management culture.
At the same time, the pressure for performance – now – is more intense than ever. Couple that with the demographics of the aging “baby boom” generation and the smaller numbers – and different mindsets – of younger managers and mid-career executives, and it is clear that leadership development and succession planning are facing game-changing challenges.
- Finding executive talent can be tough. Almost half the participants in our research expressed concern about their ability to replace key executives when faced with sudden departures. Placing executives entails much more than matching the skills demonstrated by an individual with those historically demanded of a job. To keep the “pipeline” full of talent, you need to articulate what types of leaders are needed both now and in the future.
- Bench strength is a Board-level priority. The CEO, Board of Directors and executive team are accountable for the long-term health of the corporation. In companies with renowned bench strength programs, the executive team and board give regular and focused attention not only to the placement of key executives, but also to the overall quality of succession planning and leadership development.
- One size does not fit all. The bench strength approach used successfully in one company will not necessarily work in another. The right approach for you depends on business strategy and performance goals, rate of business change, organizational structure and dynamics, and corporate culture and attitude toward talent.
- High-potentials get individual treatment. Today’s high-potential employees want to have control over their careers. They demand great influence over their job placements, competency development, work-life balance requirements, and performance goals. HR systems and processes must support bench strength processes and the growing number of “custom deals.”
- Run EBS like a business. Building executive bench strength is serious business, because the future performance of the corporation likely rests on it. Bench strength should be managed with the rigor applied to other key business processes. That means setting strategies, articulating clear objectives, and measuring performance against those objectives.
This Re.sults® report provides insights, provocative thinking, and frameworks, tools, and techniques to facilitate the development and enhancement of successful executive bench strength programs.
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