Initiatives
Name
Institution
Course
Date
Succession planning initiative at International Business Machines Corp. (IBM).
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) is an information technology company, which provides integrated solutions that leverage information technology and knowledge of business processes. IBM carries out its operations through five segments: Global Business Services, Global Technology Services, Software, Global Financing and Systems & Technology (Rothwell, 2015).
In 2011, Ginni Rometty was announced as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of IBM, which marked a significant transition at IBM and celebrating the firm’s first female top executive. Such kind of transition portrayed an example of world class succession management. It is the tradition of the company that its CEOs usually leaves their jobs at the age of sixty years. Thus, when it happened in this case, everyone expected it which shows results of years of development planning (Rothwell, 2015).
Ginni Rometty had been in the company for years and had worked her way up to managing the integration of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and most recently before her appointment ran sales and marketing. Her appointment to the CEO’s position is merited and the customers, IBM employees and Investors see this as a well-planned, safe transition. IBM’s talent management process very mature, global and integrated.
Typically, at the executive level, the firm takes development planning and succession very seriously (Rothwell, 2015). The Company has a high business-integrated strategy to identify and develop high-potentials. In such a case as the IBM, one would have done nothing differently since all the stakeholders were prepared psychologically and seemed to like the new CEO (Rothwell, 2015).
How to avoid making costly mistakes when naming successors.
Most companies do not invest the time, energy, and money to build such a disciplined process. Serious succession plans for top executives are critical to business continuity. So as to avoid mistakes when naming successors, a business ought to make an investment in the high-potential identification, succession planning, developmental activities, and executive assessment. In doing so, there are various considerations that the business ought to make (Rothwell, 2015).
One of the considerations should be whether to hire from within or bring someone new. Just as in the case of IBM, developing leaders internally takes time and effort. However, these homegrown candidates are usually more likely to be successful than external candidates. Bringing in new talents may be costly to a firm. These talents may take time to learn the culture of the company and thus take time to get along with the other stakeholders of the organization. Thus, it is always advisable to consider homegrown talents for succession as opposed to new talents (Gay and Sims, 2007).
Another consideration that a firm should make so as to avoid costly mistakes is considering high potentials or everyone else in the firm. In a working environment, there are various kinds of individuals thus different thinking among them. Some may feel that they are being neglected by the firm despite putting much efforts. Some firms focus all of their succession planning efforts on the high potential individuals whereas others create a succession plan for everyone from the moment they are onboard (Gay and Sims, 2007).
One can argue that the significance of focusing on high-potential workers is that the management can channel more resources and coaching toward those employees with the greatest promise. However, there is a greater risk of doing so. The management tends to overlook great people and alienate and frustrate the rest of the talents, which in turn could have an impact on motivation or morale and turnover. Thus so as to avoid such, it is imperative for the firm to focus on everyone (Rothwell, 2015).
References
Rothwell, W. (2015) Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity and Building Talent from Within. AMACOM.
Gay, M and Sims, D. (2007) Building Tomorrow’s Talent: A Practitioner’s Guide to Talent Management and Succession Planning. AuthorHouse.
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