very week, I review blogs that cover talent development to find the very best talent development posts. This week, you’ll find pointers to pieces about identifying future leaders, investing in leadership development, motivation without money, evaluation perils, and learning from the Mark Hurd affair (probably not what you think).
From Industry Week: Identifying Your Future Leaders
“Sustained, committed leadership development can be a key differentiator between the most successful manufacturers and the also-rans. Are you taking care of your talent pipeline?”
Wally’s Comment: This article draws on survey data from Deloitte and from Hewitt. It looks at links between stock market performance and leadership development and it identifies some practices that separate top performing companies from others. How can you pass this up?
From 4th Gear Consulting: Leadership Development… Are You Investing, Or Just Spending?
“Most of the companies I work with dedicate some percentage of their revenue toward developing the leaders in their business. One of the discussions we often have up front is the difference between spending money to train leaders and investing to grow them.”
Wally’s Comment: Randy Hall makes an important distinction between investing and just spending. You’ll read echoes of insights in the Industry Week article above. But you’ll also find recognition that leadership development happens mostly on the job and what that implies for you.
From TLNT: Why It’s Always Easier (and Better) to Motivate Without Money
“In any economy, it’s important to focus on the non-financial motivators for three key reasons.”
Wally’s Comment: Since Frederick Herzberg we’ve know that money may be short-term motivator, but for most of us most of the time, money is a hygiene factor. Well, if you can’t pay more, what can you do? This post suggests a few things.
From the Performance Improvement Blog: Evaluation Ethics: Going to the Movies
“Sometimes our work as evaluators, whether measuring the impact of a corporation’s leadership training program or measuring the results of a program to keep teenagers in school, can negatively affect the welfare of participants.”
Wally’s Comment: Stephen J. Gill offers this thoughtful post about the ethical challenges that can arise from program evaluation. It’s worth a slow read.
From ERE Net: Learn From HP’s Errors — a Checklist for Designing an Effective Succession Plan
“Most organizations do a weak job at succession planning, but as recent events highlight, Hewlett-Packard deserves some sort of award for completely blowing it! While the “entire story†behind the departure of CEO Mark Hurd has yet to be uncovered, it is clear the issues leading up to it were a complete surprise to the board and that no succession plan is in place. Within five days of Hurd’s separation, HP had lost nearly $11 billion in market value and become the corporate punching bag for reacting stupidly.”
Wally’s Comment: Most of the many, many, many posts about the Mark Hurd incident deal with why Mr. Hurd did what he did or whether HP made the right decision. But Dr. John Sullivan suggests that you can learn a very important lesson from the fact that there was no one ready to succeed Hurd when he jumped or was pushed from the executive suite.
