Dear Aunty B,
I run a medium-sized company of about 90 staff and I am playing around with developing a high achiever group to move over time into my leadership team.
I want to do this for several reasons: firstly to retain some great staff and secondly to develop some of the leadership skills early on. My current leadership team, which is mostly homegrown, have gaps, because none of them had any formal leadership training.
There are a few things holding me back though including:
You don’t have to answer all of these questions yourself Aunty because it’s a lot, and even the process of writing to you helped clear my brain.
Robert,
Sydney
Dear Robert,
So you can channel me! Marvellous. I don’t have to say anything and I sound good.
I love the idea of your high achiever group. Just because I have all the time in the world and you are such a busy man Robert, I went off and did some reading on your behalf. First off, I think you should change the name to “High Potential Group” or “Potential Leaders” as that focuses on the future, not the past. There is another reason to change the name: your high achievers might not be your high potentials. In fact, most of your high achievers are not your high potentials. How do I know this? Well I read it. Duh.
Plus, in my industry I have spent decades watching high achievers earmarked for the next step up the management ladder when it is perfectly obvious that they are totally unsuitable to be anything but what they were. And often they were not very good at that. Meanwhile obvious management material was completely overlooked.
Okay, here is what you are going to do. The first step is to align your strategy and values with the type of high potential pool you want to develop. Are you focused on aggressive fast growth in local markets? Then your potential pool might have in it very focused, disciplined people who have great local networks. Are you expanding through Asia? Then your high potential pool might include Australian educated Asians who have global networks. (And don’t discount hiring people and putting them straight into your high potential pool.)
Secondly, you identify them through performance reviews. Don’t let people nominate themselves as many men and some women think they have far more leadership potential than they actually do. And make sure managers are free to nominate anyone as this stops a particular manager blocking a potential high performer because they like to hire in their own image.
One suggestion which I quite like comes from an insurance company profiled in October’s Harvard Business Review. You categorise individuals into three groups: lateral (they can move positions at the same level), potential (ready for promotion in two years) and high potential (the ability to do two major moves upwards in the next five years).
Be honest about who is in the high potential group. It will get out anyway. And let the high potentials know that the money comes when they actually make the cut. Meanwhile they are developing valuable skills because they are part of the program. As for an iron guarantee that the high potential makes the cut: that comes down to you clearly defining business basics – vision, strategy and execution and knowing the types of skills and attitudes you need in that next generation.
Be smart,
Your Aunty B
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