It is encouraging to see an increasing use of in-house training programs, sometimes referred to as corporate universities, for developing employees, refreshing key skills, teaching new ones for new technology or for new assignments, and for grooming managers for increased responsibility. This is a responsible and intelligent approach to helping ensure the sustainable health of an organization. Those who pursue it will be rewarded for their foresight as the baby-boomer generation prepares to retire or to leave traditional positions for more individualistic endeavors.
Nevertheless, many organizations still engage in a reckless sort of hunter-gatherer approach to finding or replacing managers. Their attitude is that when they have a suite of managers they’re happy with, they don’t have a problem. When that situation changes, only then do they acknowledge and act, after a fashion, on the problem. They poach from other organizations, they pluck from MBA programs, they hope that someone promising will happen to appear among their own staff.
Admittedly, many organizations lack the resources for stand-alone internal training departments. But they can all have a thoughtful and effective program, however seemingly informal, for cultivating talent from within. This, combined with judicious infusions of fresh blood from without, can help managers maintain a robust organization that grows, anticipates, and adapts in a healthy way to both internal and external change.
Prominent among management‘s responsibilities is the obligation to identify, develop, marshal, and allocate resources in pursuit of the organization’s goals. These resources extend beyond material inputs, and they extend beyond what are commonly called “human resources” – they reach right up to the executive suite and even the board. This is only a part, albeit a key one, of what “managing leadership” truly means.
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