Where are small and mid-sized firms finding top management talent? Right in their own backyard. Today's Wall Street Journal features an article by Erin White on the growing trend of investing in local talent and transforming high-potential employees into high-profile managers:
[M]any U.S. companies [are] paying more attention to grooming their next generation of leaders. Selected employees typically enter multi-year programs involving management classes, coaching sessions and so-called stretch assignments that throw them into big, unfamiliar challenges.
What's driving the trend?
The tight labor market puts a premium on retaining top talent and raises the cost of outside hires. And leaner corporate structures make it harder for managers to naturally hone their skills through incremental steps up the ladder; companies must instead formally teach them. Demographics play a role, too: The looming retirement of baby boomers is forcing companies to think about replacements.
White focuses on the Schwan Food Company, a $3.5 billion prepared food maker which has 35 employees in its Senior Executive Development Program and is about to create a similar program for 50 lower-level managers. According to White...
Participants in the senior program are thrown into new jobs, take business classes, and are given mentors and coaches for support. They're also assigned to team projects with other program members. Participants must be willing to change jobs and relocate whenever the company asks.
[Schwan CEO Lenny] Pippin says the program has created a more worldly and self-confident work force. It also has developed a roster of potential future leaders -- unlike when Schwan reached outside to hire him, Mr. Pippin says. "I can go to the board, and I can talk to them about succession and the future leadership of this company for many years to come," he says.
I love my job working to help Stanford MBAs develop their leadership skills, and I'm deeply grateful for the opportunities that allowed me to enjoy the benefits of that same graduate education, but what I find so exciting about Schwan's program and others like it is the recognition that management talent doesn't necessarily come with a blue-chip degree.
But I'm sure it took a substantial effort on Schwan's part to get this program off the ground. What's needed is a pre-fab management training curriculum with executive coaching support that small and mid-sized companies could tap into and adapt to their own purposes without having to reinvent the wheel on their own. Sounds like a job for someone working in leadership development at a top-flight business school...
