Every week, I review blogs and other publications that cover talent development to find the very best talent development posts. This week, you’ll find pointers to pieces on succession planning, C-Suite skills, picking a CEO, and attracting top college talent.
From Tim Sackett: The Skills That Really Make Great Leaders Great
“The reality is, in most of our organizations, we hire using the ‘next-man-up’ philosophy. ‘Hey, Jill is the best producer in the group, so congrats to Jill! You’re now the next boss!’ About 90 percent of leadership hires happen like this! Most of you will attempt to call that ‘Succession Planning,’ but it’s not, it’s ‘convenience planning,’ and it’s bad HR.”
From Boris Groysberg: The Seven Skills You Need to Thrive in the C-Suite
“What executive skills are most prized by companies today? How has that array of skills changed in the last decade, and how is it likely to change in the next ten years? To find out, I surveyed senior consultants in 2010 at a top-five global executive-search firm. Experienced search consultants typically interview hundreds (in many cases thousands) of senior executives; they assess those executives’ skills, track them over time, and in some cases place the same executive in a series of jobs. They also observe how executives negotiate, what matters most to them in their contracts, and how they decide whether to change companies.”
From Jena McGregor: Boards don’t know their next CEOs
“But while some called the lack of a ready-to-go CEO a succession crisis, the truth is Microsoft is hardly alone. Only about half of the directors in a survey released last week by Stanford University’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance and the Institute for Executive Development (IED) said their companies were grooming a specific person to be their next CEO.”
From Sanjeev Agrawal: How Companies Can Attract the Best College Talent
“Over the past year, my firm Collegefeed met with more than 300 companies to understand their college hiring strategies and tactics — from employers with large university hiring infrastructures to recently funded start-ups looking to hire fresh grads, interns, and young alum.”
