Baton passing

As a passionate follower of leadership and its workings, I can vouch for the fact that Grow Your Own Leaders has tremendous value and will help fill today’s leadership vacuum. Currently, India Inc has a significant succession issue as successful leaders have been at the helm for a substantial period and will be soon retiring in the next 10 years, creating the urgent need for new leaders. This in itself is a significant challenge.

Additionally, India’s economic growth has created a huge demand for top leadership, straining the pool of available talent in the country, especially with Indian leaders finding lucrative global roles in multinationals. This is further compounded by the aspirations of young talent, which is changing rapidly with an increasing number of young leaders choosing to either start their own businesses or move out of the corporate sector altogether. These three trends create a significant succession challenge.

The authors of the book William Byham, Audrey Smith and Matthew Paese provide insight on how we can combat this challenge. They explore the methods of retaining and building top talent. And I consider them among some of the leading authorities on succession planning. The authors have highlighted relatively common, yet profound leadership crisis that has, or will impact virtually every enterprise. While the book provides a global view, the wisdom can very well be undertaken to re-haul firms in India.  

Grow Your Own Leaders, “is designed to help you understand and implement systems that will identify talent and develop the high-potential people your organisation needs to grow and prosper.” I believe this approach will help organisations retain highly talented people, who are ambitiously seeking growth.

Today, we are faced with ageing leaders who covet their title and guard their positions from ambitious young achievers by not having systematic succession or a talent retention plan in place. All leaders need to develop a sustainable organisation, by creating opportunities, for future leaders to focus on their professional and personal development. This is no doubt the preferred alternative to the revolving door of expensive executives hired from outside to effect miraculous change. 

The crux of the book lies in the highly detailed explanation of “acceleration pools”. Acceleration pools can be best described as a managerial face-off. Two managers are brought together, compete, solve problems and the manager with the best score wins. Perusing through, I greatly appreciated the emphasis placed by the authors on developing “bench strength” which was further strengthened by several case studies. What I found most engaging, was the advice provided by the author on identifying high potential participants, such as optimising the size of the pool and considering morale effects of various inclusion, exclusion techniques.

In terms of readership the book is jargon-heavy and has a consultant’s approach to leadership. However, the message of the author comes across clearly through the course of the book especially when each chapter starts with a quote. 

I would strongly recommend this book to all CXOs who have the responsibility of succession planning. Also, managers who have the responsibility of creating strong teams will greatly benefit from reading this book. After all, in a well-funded, high growth economic environment, it is imperative for India Inc to craft effective leadership transfer mechanisms. Be it family-run businesses, PSUs or professionally-managed companies, the responsibility rests with the leader to ensure minimal disruption and dislocation when the leadership baton is passed!