A good effort We'll see what happens
Friday, September 30, 2005
I’m working with a new client group – a West-coast based marketing company with some stake in the marketplace. This company created an internal program that identifies the high-performer/high-potentials, sticks them together, and tells them to be the company’s leaders of the future.
Interestingly enough, the execs told them nothing else. They gave them little other direction, little other visible support, and no expectations. Not surprisingly, little has emerged from the project.
What this situation calls for is a bit of a gut check where the old guard senior partners pony up to the table and determine what they are in the game for. I mean, I really have seen how hard it is for the 58-year old senior exec to take his (high) 6-plus figure salary – and all of the power and trappings that comes with it – and turn some of that over to a 24-year old kid who finished his or her MBA two years ago.
In my work with senior and junior leaders in companies, I try to get a couple of key points across. For one, letting a younger person in on the “top secret” discussions and decisions that happen behind the board room doors isn’t immediately followed by corporate anarchy, and then the senior exec who let the kid in initially getting fired. As true as that may seem for some of you, it’s just false.
Secondly, when you give younger people a little taste of power and wisdom, they don’t jump ship to your closest competitor where they can leverage their insider secrets into a fat salary with stock options.
Actually, just the opposite happens more often than not. By you letting some younger folk into the fold, you are actually doing everyone a service. The younger person gets a boost of commitment and support in continuing to work hard for your company, your company gets some fresh insight and perspective that is in woefully short supply at the senior leadership level -- face it, there isn’t a single person in upper management who doesn’t remember the time before CDs (the music ones, not the money ones). Also, you may be seen as the genius who is willing to take some risks in ensuring the company’s future. Additionally, when you let people in the process that way, they are more likely to become more committed to you and your company, not less. They are unlikely to jump ship and take their secrets with them
--MB
