Page 107 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

Getting Great People on Board 97

and strategy and give everyone the sense that you take your employees’
career growth seriously, which can be a major selling point in attracting
even more good talent.

Put your time into top talent
Jack Welch used to say that he only had two ways of making an impact on
GE: one was to allocate financial resources differentially, and the other was
to ensure that his various business units had the best possible leaders to
take advantage of that financial capital. To make that happen, Welch spent
a huge amount of personal time reviewing and sharpening leader- ship
succession plans and decisions, interacting with promising leaders, and
conveying messages about leadership themes to various groups inside and
outside the company.
How involved you should be in talent development depends on your
personality as well as the size, scope, nature, and maturity of your organi-
zation or unit. But you do need to be personally involved to some degree;
this can’t just be delegated to human resources or consultants. After all,
you are in the best position to connect the vision and strategy with the
talent development plan. And when you’re directly involved, you send a
message to all other managers and employees that development is a serious
business endeavor and not just a nice perk to make people happy.
One way to structure your involvement is by participating in the tal-
ent and leadership planning review process like Welch. Another way is by
personally participating in special events, programs, and training sessions
with your team members. Often senior people feel that development ses-
sions are just for lower-level people, and if they participate at all, it’s just a
ritual appearance or speech. Joining in more intensively, however, can be
a powerful opportunity to get to know your team members and future
leaders, share your views about what’s important, and send a signal that
learning and development is for everyone.
For example, shortly after Kenneth Frazier became the CEO of biophar-
maceutical company Merck, his human resource team organized a series
of development sessions for high-potential leaders (fifty at a time) in con-
junction with a prominent business school. Frazier met with the designers