The Management Landscape The management landscape is changing, and since the mass redundancies and corporate downsizing of the early to mid 1990s, the role of a manager has changed radically. We no longer have layers of „middle managers‟ whose only function is to manage staff; managers carry sales and performance targets, have direct interaction with the supply chain and are expected to deliver all of this on top of their line management responsibilities. At the same time, employees are becoming better informed, more autonomous and more demanding. With „Generation Y‟ now entering the workforce, the pressure on managers to deliver staff development is increasing, yet the investment that they make in themselves often takes second place. The current economic climate has only served to focus this situation further, and at the same time, small and medium sized businesses become more and more dependent on their staff. Capturing tacit knowledge and providing a working environment that encourages loyalty is a major concern for business owners today, because so much of their organisational value is held within Intellectual Property that can‟t be locked in a safe because it‟s inside the minds of a minority of employees. In the corporate world, the notion of „talent management‟ and „succession planning‟ has long existed to prepare „high potential‟ employees for future leadership positions. There‟s no guarantee of a future promotion, or even that the employee will still be around to step into a leadership role, however a succession plan must be part of any corporate strategy, because people are fundamental to the survival of any business. A succession plan now sits as a board agenda item alongside such issues as risk management, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility. What happens when organisations don‟t adopt a strategic approach to succession planning? Kneejerk appointments at senior levels leave the organisation exposed to rapid culture change, impacting on both employee and customer relationships. Tacit knowledge, intellectual property and goodwill literally walk out of the door, and a thriving business can disappear altogether within months. Popular TV series such as „The Hotel Inspector‟, „Back to the Floor‟, „Kitchen Nightmares‟ and „Troubleshooter‟ show, time and again, how a business suffers when the owner/manager stays too close to the business for too long and fails to take a long term approach to succession planning. It‟s not just the owner‟s financial interest that must be considered; the entire business ecosystem of suppliers, customers and employees are dependent on a seamless transition from an owner managed business to one where professional, well trained and experienced managers drive growth and ongoing success through operational excellence. The risks are similar in the corporate world, where senior managers build an „empire‟ and fail to consider the wider impact when they hand that empire on to an inexperienced successor, or worse, fail to care about what happens to the business that they are moving on from. When Babcock, a global engineering group, appointed us to support their „future leaders‟ in a two year talent coaching programme, their situation was fast approaching a cliff edge. 50% of their most highly skilled and experienced technical design staff were due to retire within three years. Historically, their solution to this problem meant one of two things; either bring the retired employee back as a contractor or make a highly reactive and ultimately unsuccessful internal appointment based on entirely subjective selection criteria. Neither of these options were good for the business, its employees or its customers. The retirement problem was one that could have been foreseen much sooner, but when a business is successful, the owner or the senior managers often put off issues that aren‟t causing an operational problem today. Succession planning is a simple, strategic approach to minimising the risk of those issues and protecting the business both today and long into the future.
© MTD Training 2012
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