“Bob, I’m a little shocked!” This is how my executive coaching client, Danny, the Vice-President-Production Operations with a large energy firm in the oil patch responded at the beginning of our conversation when asked, “How are things back at the ranch?” He went on to explain that when he had been nudged by their Human Resource function to get a sense of forecasted turnover over the next few years through retirements, attrition, etc., his people had collectively come to the conclusion that 70% of the staff in Danny’s division would turn over in the next 3 years. “Well, what are you planning to do to prevent the potential adverse consequences?”, I asked.

In response, Danny stated, “We clearly have to start identifying successors to the key Production Operations leadership positions, and in parallel with this identify and accelerate the development of High Potentials.” “What are your other glimpses of the obvious?” I asked him. “That’s a darn good question. I guess we’ve got to review other critical roles and specifically any flight risk staff!” 

“What generally would be the outcomes you and your leadership team would likely look for by doing this?” I asked again. He quickly responded with increased energy, “Well for one, identify key talent at the senior levels of our division, get a solid sense of our bench strength, get those we identify to be clear on their needed development activities, and agree with our senior team as to what exactly the key succession management metrics should  be!”. Danny had quickly created excellent strategic direction around this challenge that’s common to most private and public sector organizations.

When asked, “What’s really driving all of this?”, Danny said “That’s another great question. We’re anticipating continued strong growth once the economy gets back on its feet and obviously anticipating turnover of our key people. The increased challenge of filling these key roles along with our questionable current bench strength and readiness to backfill are clearly wanting, as well as our lack of being able to identify HiPo’s right now and having them ready to step into senior leadership roles when we need them to surface. I think these are the real concerns here.”

“How do you feel about all of this?” I asked. “Quite frankly, I’m disappointed, mad as hell for allowing ourselves to get into this position, and I’m damned anxious about what might happen if we don’t get on top of it . . . and yesterday! It’s now one of our top priorities!”

“So, what do you want to do about it?” I asked him. “Well, it’s clear that we’re engineering experts and not Human Resource experts so we’ll need to get together with HR and soon. I’ll put this at the top of the list at our next Production Ops executive leadership team meeting this coming Tuesday.”

“If you thought you knew what needed to be done in terms of the overall process for moving this forward quickly, what might that be?” Being the quick thinker he naturally is, Danny stated, “OK, do you just make these questions up? Well first, I would think that we need to scope out what actually needs to be identified through our succession management initiative. Second, we would no doubt have to assess and review our current engineering talent for levels of performance and potential. Third, we’d obviously have to start figuring out what key leadership and individual-contributor engineering roles need to be replaced and when. Last, I’m thinking it’s about making sure we have a top notch development action planning process in place that can be quickly designed and implemented. Does that make sense?”. “More importantly, does it make sense to you?” I responded. “You know, it does. Thanks.”, said Danny.

“So what’ll your next steps be given what you’ve said so far?” I asked him. “Again, the questions Uncle Bob!”, Danny said jokingly. “Well let me see. I’m thinking we start right away by initiating a succession planning meeting between us and HR early next month to agree on role expectations, determine critical roles in the Production Operations division, identify high impact engineer flight risks and begin a talent review to develop a list of HiPo’s.” “Then what?”, I asked. “OK”, Danny said, “Later in the month, we’ll make sure we have a talent replacement plan in place. In the following month we can shoot for having a development plan nailed down, and the month after that have our succession metrics in place with a solid progress plan established. Yeah, that’s sounds like it would do it.” 

Lastly I asked Danny, “So how will we know you’ve done what you’ve said?” “Again, with the questions!” he responded tongue in cheek. “I’ll send you a one page copy of our general plan for making this happen with target dates. I’ll send you an email once I believe each of the key milestones have been achieved. We can also carve out a small portion of some of our future executive coaching calls for us to discuss what’s happening. Will that work?” “It’s sounds like a plan my friend.” said I.

What insights in the foregoing were there for you? What one word captures your reaction? How do you feel about the subject of talent management and succession planning. What do you want to do with it? I would love to receive any gems this may have conjured up for you. For those interested, a wonderful book on this subject is ‘The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company’, by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and James Noel. Take care and have a great day!

Over the years many of my clients who find themselves in the position of having to look for a new job usually begin by dusting off their outdated resumes (if they have one) and shot gun the local market with it. This action comes out of a compulsion to quickly find another job as soon as possible. On the surface, their situation and associated anxiety around being jobless is quite understandable. However, as George Odiorne shared with me over a lunch while attending a workshop in Toronto, Ontario, Canada many years ago, “Bob, if you don’t know where you’re going then any road will get you there, and in all likelihood it will not be where you ever wanted to be!”

So given George’s advice, I encourage my executive and professional clients who anticipate being or who are in career transition to consider the following.

• Get aggressive around narrowing your focus on what it is you really want to be doing next and what it is you don’t want to repeat.
• Ensure you clarify exactly what it is you do want so that you’ll quickly recognize it when it does show up (and it will).
• Then get clear who is in your social network that will help you mine for your targeted career opportunities.
• With this clear picture of what better truly looks like you now have a compelling reason directing and motivating you through the ups and downs of your job search campaign.
• This also gives you a solid opportunity to assure that you’re constantly moving in the right direction and on time with your job search campaign plans.
• Lastly, it gives you the structure you will need to assess your ongoing professional progress no matter where you are in your career.

Doing the foregoing will solidly position you to define and clearly articulate your Career Purpose Statement which should include a number of the following key components.

1. Over – Arching Career Goal (“to start . . . .”, “to secure . . .”)
2. The Position (level, challenge, accountabilities, scope, leader, individual contributor . . . )
3. The Organization (size, private sector, public sector, not-for-profit, dynamic, industry, reputation, . . . )
4. Your New Boss (leadership style, detailed vs. strategic, . . . )
5. Culture (the way the organization does business (how people work with each other and their customers, global vs local, entrepreneurial vs. bureaucratic, high vs. low structure, decentralized vs. centralized, individual vs. team focus, . . . )
6. Geography (local, regional, national, global, where? . . . )
7. Compensation (salary, benefits, incentives, non-financial support. . . )
8. Your Strengths you bring to the table (your special selling points experience, expertise, languages, style, emotional intelligence, . . . )
9. Potential Barriers (geographic preferences, competing applicants, family preferences, . . . )
10. Backup Alternatives (other types of organizations, markets, industries, functions, roles . . . )
11. Next Steps (what do I need to do now, what resources do I need now, making it happen . . . )

While the foregoing will be different for each and every one of you in your career transition experience, it will form the core of your job search campaign. Now you can proceed with developing your marketing collateral such as resumes and  powerful job search campaign correspondence, exploring and researching the marketplace, engaging in strategically connecting with those familiar with your target market, proactively interviewing, and then engaging in successful integrative negotiations for that ideal position you’ve worked so hard at finding and securing . . . and you will!

What in the foregoing for you was the gold nugget . . . the take away? What will you do next? By when? How will you know you’ve been successful? What do you need to say ‘yes to’ and ‘no to’ to assure success? I would love to hear your insights and reactions. Have a great day!

So what is the difference between bad, good and great when it comes to leadership and performance opportunities? This came to mind when Joe Bentley, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Management and Organzational Behavior, University of Utah, was talking on the inaugural conference call of Pepperdine University’s MSOD alumni group’s ‘fireside discussion’ on subject of ‘Taming Wicked Problems’. The alumni showed up from various parts of the world to listen and engage in a rich discussion with this pioneer and leader in the field of organization development.

Following the call, I was able to connect with Joe and ask him for clarification about a particular point that he had brought up concerning performance opportunities that dealt with bad, good and great organizational situations. I was most interested in hearing further about this area as it resonated with much of our executive coaching with corporate clients. The following is what Joe shared with me.

“Here are some thoughts on the “Performance-Opportunity” problem model. First of all, all professional work is problem-centered, that is professional people engage in activities designed to make things better, to get them back on track, to correct discrepancies, to remove “noise,” to increase efficiency, health, income, knowledge, quality, productivity etc. etc. Included here are professional activities in government, the law, medicine, science, education, therapy, economics, public health, etc. etc. If there were no problems, or if they were not important, we would have no concept of Professional Activity.

The Professions exist in order to change and improve things. Included here of course is OD (organization development). And as I mentioned in the Fireside, all human action is problem centered, when we define a problem as a gap between a present state and a desired future state, (which is the essence of motivation).

For these reasons I have become tired of some people insisting that problems are bad, too negative, irrelevant, unimportant, etc (I am thinking of course of AI (appreciative inquiry) as a primary advocate of this position). They are all playing a semantics game. There is no interest in change, OD type or otherwise, without something that isn’t working and needs to be changed, i.e. a problem.

My work, over the past dozen years has been in teasing out in what ways not all problems are alike, a principle that turns out to be extremely important when change is the goal.

One of the ways that not all problems are like is that some are “Performance Problems”, that is when behavior, results, etc. do not meet standards, and fall short. Most of what we call problems are “performance” issues, when change means moving toward the “good”, the “acceptable”, the “desired”, the “expected”.

Another kind of problem in this model is where results are acceptable, but cannot remain the same. There is a “Better” or “Great” standard out there in the future, and so the Gap here between the acceptable and the “Best” is an “Opportunity Gap”.

If you draw on a page three vertical lines perhaps two inches apart, the one at the far left is “Bad” or “Unacceptable,” the one in the middle is “Good” or “Acceptable”, and the one on the far right is “Excellent” or “Great”.

The Gap between the Bad and the Good is the “Performance Gap”, and the Gap between the center (Good) and the far right is the Opportunity Gap. So, looked at this way, none of these is necessarily bad or negative, but represent possible interventions. Closing the gaps between the Bad and the Good, and the Good and the Great is one way to think about change, change in any domain of experience: personal life, relationships, organizations, societies, etc. etc.

So, for me, all change is a process of Bridging and Closing Gaps, between the present state and the future state. How that is done varies depending upon how people think about change. That is, there are many interventions that could be used to Bridge and Close Gaps. But the Gaps themselves can best be described as Problems. I mentioned the UN Millennium Goals program (in the MSOD conference call) as a classic example of Performance Gaps as problems. “

Thank you Joe! I found Joe’s perspectives on performance opportunities of great value. What’s your reaction to the foregoing? How might his ideas be used by you back at the ranch? I’m always curious about what you readers think and feel. Have a great day!