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Leaders at All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)

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Ram Charan's "Leaders At All Levels" takes on a major crisis that exists today in most large US corporations - the shortage of leadership talent. Companies while focused on the next quarters' earnings target have ignored the hard work of building future company leaders. In a recent poll of 1380 Human Resource (HR) directors of large US companies, sixty percent said their firms have no CEO succession plan in place.

The top jobs are harder now than in the past due to hyper-competition, changing technology, and a raft of emerging players from every corner of the globe pressuring companies to keep changing their game to survive and thrive. And the evidence shows that a lot of firms are not responding to it well. Why? Charan argues the state of leadership development is faulty and companies must abandon traditional leadership practices. The severe shortage of leaders is an unmistakable sign that the typical approaches to leadership are fundamentally flawed. We urgently need to get at the root causes, faulty conventional wisdom about what leadership is and how to develop it.

"Leaders At All Levels" lays out a radically new leadership-development model, "The Apprenticeship Model," which transforms leadership development from a discrete activity run by the human resources staff to an everyday process that is fully integrated into the fabric of the business and in which line leaders play a central role. The model centers on customizing and accelerating a potential leader's development and growth path.

"It is designed to give each promising leader the opportunities that are right for him/her at the fastest pace of growth he/she can handle, defining the learning in each new job and making sure the learning in fact took place before helping the leader take the next step or leap forward." It allows leaders to develop increasingly "sophisticated and nuanced versions of their core capabilities in an astonishing short time."

While Charan points out that the model is not for the faint-hearted, it does work. He validates this approach with real-world examples of its success at General Electric (GE), Colgate-Palmolive, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Textron, and WellPoint, Inc.

The book is organized into sections including: how to recognize leadership potential (including GE's leadership criteria); how to develop a leader; how "Apprenticeship" turns potential into leaders; leadership growth through concentric learning; freedom to fail; how to manage "Apprenticeship" systemically: and choosing the CEO. It also includes tools for: rating a company's ability to develop leaders at the highest level; spotting a leader; what makes a good boss-mentor: and what to coach on.

"Leaders At All Levels" is a must read for CEOs and Boards of Directors concerned with CEO succession and leadership development. The book will also appeal to anyone who aspires to a leadership role, particularly those who feel trapped in a faulty development process. For this last group, the last chapter, "What can a leader do?" will more than justify the cost of the book.

If you have read the Leadership Pipeline (co-authored by the same guy) then you have seen most of the thoughts expressed here. It is focused on the top end of the management chain and the failure of many corporations to adequately foster the growth and development of leaders from within the company. Other than that it is a good book with noble and respectable intensions. This is not a good "how to" manual, more of a conceptual description of the kinds of poor leadership issues that impact most large companies. I would have liked to have seen a better description of the root causes of poor leadership thinking with some pointed examples of how this can be fixed and an explanation of why the fixes work. For example I as a manager have conceived and implemented the best plan or solution vs. I put the challange to my team to develop the best plan or solution and then partnered with them to achieve a superior result, etc. If you are looking at ways to cultivate new CEOs within your complany this book will make more sense than if you are looking at moving your company toward a great leadership culture by teaching new leaders the meaning and value of leadership skills.

Now more than ever before, organizations need leadership at all levels and within all areas of their enterprise. The "succession crisis" to which the subtitle of this book refers includes but is by no means limited to C-level executives. With all due respect to formal education and institutional training programs, on-the-job training is (by far) the best preparation for completing more demanding tasks, assuming increased responsibilities and duties, etc. Moreover, Ram Charan is absolutely correct when asserting that organizations "are short on the quantity and quality of leaders they need...[We must] abandon our traditional leadership development practices. They're not working. Tinkering and fine-tuning won't solve the fundamental program. It's time for a completely new approach to finding and developing the kinds of leaders businesses need... To fix the problem, you have to get to its root, which is the faulty conventional wisdom about what leadership is and how to improve it."

Charan offers what he characterizes as a "radically different approach," one "that is not for the fainthearted": the Apprenticeship Model. (What it involves and how to implement it are best revealed within Charan's narrative rather than discussed now, out of context.) Any model is based on certain assumptions and Charan's is no exception. By now, he has concluded that not everyone can become a leader, that leadership ability is developed through practice and self-correction, and that the CEO job requires "giant leaps in learning." The Apprenticeship Model is based on these assumptions. As in all of his previous books, Charan is again a pragmatist when presenting his insights and recommendations in this book and thus almost wholly preoccupied with explaining what works, what doesn't, and how to achieve the desired results. For example:

Chapter 1: How to measure the "leadership talent deficit" in an organization and then fund efforts to reduce (if not eliminate) it

Note: This has serious implications for both hiring and subsequent training.

Chapter 2: How apprenticeship develops effective leaders

Chapter 3: How to recognize leadership potential

Note: My personal opinion is that the material in Chapter 3 should precede the material in Chapter 2.

Chapter 4: How to customize each leader's growth path

Chapter 5: What the crucial role of "bosses" is

Note: Personally, I dislike the term "boss" but agree with Charan that one standard of measurement for a supervisor's performance evaluation should be the extent to which that supervisor developed skills in those for whom she or his is directly responsible.

Chapter 6: How to manage apprenticeship initiatives and relationships systematically

Chapter 7: How to select the CEO candidate who is most likely to provide the leadership and produce the results that are needed

Chapter 8: How to institutionalize the Apprenticeship Model

Once again, I am in total agreement with Charan's assertion that leadership must be development at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise. The Apprenticeship Model is uniquely, indeed ideally suited to help achieve that objective because it is based on a sometimes misunderstood or neglected business reality: those who function as mentors (i.e. "masters") to their direct reports learn much of value while doing so; moreover, their direct reports, in turn, can and should serve as mentors to those for whom they are responsible. This interactive process is precisely what Thomas Davenport, Carla O'Dell, Peter Senge, and others mean when advocating a "total learning organization."

In the Epilogue, Charan observes that individual leaders can and should embrace the Apprenticeship Model even if their companies don't and take ownership of their own development. Those who believe they have leadership potential that is undiscovered should take charge of their own learning and development. They should make their own luck." Quite right.

Two final points. First, the model that Ram Charan recommends does not replace an organization's formal training programs. On the contrary, both should be mutually supportive and carefully coordinated combinations of earning opportunities. Also, what Charan recommends can be implemented in any organization, whatever its size or nature may be.

Leaders at all Levels: Deepening Your Talent Poll to Solve the Succession Crisis by Ram Charan is the first book by a major leadership guru to discuss the development of leaders as an apprenticeship process. That's a good reason to read it, but there are many more.

You will get the most out of this book if you keep in mind that Ram Charan works with the top executives of large companies. That's who he writes for, too, so if you're in a smaller company, plan to adapt what you read here to your situation.

Keep in mind that Charan has been involved in leadership development for a very long time, well before it was the fashionable topic it is today. He is the co-author of the best book on the subject for large companies, The Leadership Pipeline. He brings deep knowledge and experience to the subject.

The core of the book revolves around the insight that leadership is an apprentice trade. You learn about 20 percent of it from courses and books. You learn 80 percent on the job, by taking action, getting feedback, and learning. You learn most through a series of developmental experiences, some which are planned and some which are not.

I know that this works because I've been applying it in my writing and consulting practice for years. Charan writes about it in this book with an almost single-minded focus on what are called "high potential" leaders, the ones who wind up in the C-suite, but you can use the principles for leadership development for leaders in any company or for yourself or a protégé.

The premise is very simple, though Charan is the first big-name consultant to write about it in book form. People learn about leadership in classes and from books. But they learn leadership by leading. If you structure your leadership development program so that it makes use of this natural process and accelerates it, you will do a better job.

Here are the things that are likely to need to change in most companies to make an apprenticeship model work. They come directly from chapter 2. I present them with my comments.

Identify leadership talent early and correctly. This is absolutely necessary. Charan talks about identifying high potential individuals who are already in management positions. I would go a step farther back and put emphasis on improving the selection process of anyone we put in charge of a group at any level.

Plan the apprenticeship for fast growth. This is critical. It may mean that in some cases you will be seeking out the right job for a developing leader instead of looking for the right leader for a job you already have.

Your plan should include developmental assignments, both temporary and permanent. It should incorporate lots of feedback to accelerate development. That's why the boss's role must include something new.

Boss as mentor. Charan recommends making the development of other leaders part of every leader's job. That's a good idea. But it doesn't go far enough.

In real life you will have excellent leaders who are not good at mentoring, don't like it, and consequently don't do it well. That's why you need to evaluate bosses on their leadership development work and tie preferment and pay to those evaluations. But you must also make use of the leaders in your company that love to mentor and do it well, so that the developing leader stuck with a non-mentoring boss still has growth options.

Beyond that, Charan expects your company to do what all the companies who are great at leadership development do. They identify high potential leaders early and pay them special attention. They constantly and religiously review their leaders with a view toward development. They see developmental experiences as opportunities to develop both skills and relationships. And they see training as a carrier of culture.

Beyond the big picture, there are many other good things in this book. One is the concept of Concentric Learning. This holds that leaders expand their capabilities through deliberate practice of core skills in increasingly complex situations. That concept will work no matter what your leadership development challenge.

There is an excellent and insightful chapter on how to recognize leadership potential. It includes ways to evaluate basic leadership skills, cultural fit, and broad business acumen. As with other sections of the book, there are simple lists of questions you can ask to aid your analysis.

There are also excellent chapters on customizing leaders' growth paths and the important role of bosses as well as a chapter on how to manage a system like this in a large company. The book concludes with material on picking the next CEO and advice on adopting the apprenticeship model of leadership development. An appendix on "Building Blocks of the Apprenticeship Model" gives advice for both individuals and companies.

As usual, Ram Charan has written a book for the senior executives of large companies and those who aspire to those positions. As usual, there's lots of value for you in this book, whether you are one of those people or not. If you're concerned with leadership development for yourself, for a protégé or for your company, you should read this book.

One of the most significant challenges facing companies is poor succession planning at all levels of the organization. There are multiple facets to this problem, beyond the obvious absence of breadth and depth of internal talent. Many organizations don't recognize the need for leadership development and those that do - typically do it poorly. However, business advisor and author Ram Charan believes businesses can take proactive steps to fill their future leadership voids. In his book Leaders at All Levels, Charan recommends a revised model to help companies identify and develop potential leaders. The author dubs this approach the Apprenticeship Model, which hearkens back to the colonial method of professional development of learning by doing. Charan shows how to accelerate the process, while seamlessly integrating potential leaders into frontline, day-to-day decision making. However, the positive revelations the author lays out are tempered with realistic recommendations of organizational and attitudinal shifts that must occur as well as the admonition that this model is time intensive. But Soundview recommends this book because of the resounding endorsement from more than a dozen companies cited in Leaders at All Levels where Charan's leadership development practices are producing results.

Everyone in the corporate world knows how important a CEO is. A CEO can make a weak company strong and a good company great. Conversely, a bad CEO can do harm that may take years to correct or even destroy a company. Although corporate board members know all this, few boards adequately develop future leaders or prepare for CEO succession. They ignore this vital task until dire need confronts them. Then, one day, the CEO quits, becomes ill, dies or must be removed. Board members are bereft and bewildered, wondering how to find a suitable replacement. Respected consultant Ram Charan offers an alternative scenario: the "Apprenticeship Model." General Electric, Colgate-Palmolive and other well-known firms have found that this proactive development plan works for them. getAbstract recommends this stellar book on leadership training and CEO succession planning as a must read for anyone who is - or should be - involved in grooming, training or selecting future CEOs.

http://www.getabstract.com/summary/8839/leaders-at-all-levels.html

As an admirer of Ram Charan, I found that "Leaders at All Levels" had most of the "markers" by which a very good business book should be judged: clarity of thought, pragmatism, depth of research and capable of being implemented. It is an important contribution to the literature for sure.

Ram's apprenticeship construct was especially appealing and worthy of emulation. Sadly however, in my experience it is the rare CEO who will commit to what Ram calls for despite the sensibility of the theory he puts forth. To many CEOs, "time is money" and they would not see it being worth the investment (and I don't mean financial).

Companies such as General Electric, IBM, Procter and Gamble and others have long been recognized for their enduring commitment to leadership development. Authors ranging from Charan to Noel Tichy to Warren Bennis have nicely chronicled them in recent years.

As I read "Leaders at All Levels" I kept asking myself:
* Will apprenticeships be attempted in many of the nation's best hospitals and health systems?
* Can the apprenticeship schema be adapted for use in our finest colleges and universities?
* Would the apprenticeship in modified form work in the myriad of our country's not-for-profit organizations?

I have long believed that a CEO's foremost responsibility is to ensure his or her institution or organization has a workable and successful system for identifying and grooming future leaders. I am cautiously optimistic that when executives read this book they will follow Ram's counsel that "individual leaders can...even if their companies don't."

Over my 30+ year career I have tried to develop an organized way to spot and grow those who possessed potential to be future leaders. In some cases, I have had to counsel many of those to embark on self-directed leadership programs for lack of institutional will. I remain hopeful that Charan or others will address ways smaller organizations--for profit and not-for-profit--can tailor his innovative thinking so many more organizations become rich leadership pipelines.

Ritch K. Eich, Ph.D.
President
Eich Associated

Some CEOs contribute an enormous amount of value to their companies, but most, it would seem, are worth far less than the large sums of money that they are paid. How do you go about choosing a winner rather than a loser? Is every company looking for pretty much the same person to be their CEO? Is it possible to take someone and train them up to become a good corporate leader? Ram Charan addresses these and many other questions in this book.

According to the author, leadership development usually happens on an ad hoc basis when a seasoned leader takes a special interest in a junior person and provides that person with the experiences and coaching to help him or her flourish. But why leave leadership development to chance? The book advocates an apprenticeship model of leadership development and recommends that the recognising and development of leadership potential in others become one of the primary duties of every leader within an organisation.

If you take the author literally, you will be devoting an enormous amount of your organisation's time and resources to leadership development. If you subscribe to the theory that leadership ability is more an acquired art than an innate talent, and that the right sort of leadership makes an enormous difference in organisational outcomes, then what the book says is very helpful. I think I am a believer, but not such a fanatic as the author.

Author Ram Charan has become one of the most prolific and highly respected consultants in the world today. He is a pragmatic educator and this book is no exception. Ram is not afraid to challenge the status quo and he does so boldly in Leaders At All Levels.

The typical lifespan of CEO's is shorter today than ever before. Obviously, when a CEO departs an organization, his or her role must be filled. Many feel we are in the midst of a crisis. As Charan remarks, "At all levels, companies are short on the quantity and quality of leaders they need." But where do these leaders come from and how well were they prepared to assume the role of a CEO?

The traditional business model attempts to develop future leaders as a responsibility of Human Resources by providing classroom training, spending large amounts of money on training, developing a universal set of competencies and putting everyone on a standardized career track as openings become available. In place of this outdated ineffective model, Charan offers the Apprenticeship Model. This is a new approach to the entire leadership development process.

The eight chapters that comprise Leaders At All Levels discuss the introduction and application of the Apprenticeship Model. It is a philosophy where all top level executives, supervisors and virtually everyone takes responsibility for developing leaders within the organization. With this model Human Resources becomes the trustee of a process that is now a companywide priority. This also means that the present leaders and supervisors take ownership of developing the next CEO succession candidates. The result is that succession development becomes part of the everyday fabric of the organization and nurtures feedback, practice, course corrections and even more feedback.

Leaders At All Levels is a beneficial book that breaks down Charan's Apprenticeship Model into an effective teaching tool to create change in how leadership development is performed. Like any tool the challenge is in implementing new ideas that go against a prevailing culture. This book also provides some helpful charts and stimulating questions to promote deeper thinking. The epilogue is especially interesting. Charan talks directly to any reader who believes they have leadership potential. After encouraging the reader to adopt the Apprenticeship Model even if their organization doesn't, he stresses the importance of taking charge of your own development and learning. In addition, the author provides coaching advice on how to guide your own career progression including possible pitfalls. It is for these reasons that Leaders At All Levels is a valuable book that hopefully will give birth to a new and better way for organizations to develop leaders.

"The first law of holes--when you're in one, stop digging--tells us what to do: abandon our traditional leadership development practices. They're not working." And with that blast across the corporate training bow, best-selling author Ram Charan delivers a revolutionary, but thoroughly practical new look at how to rebuild succession and leadership development from the ground up.

His remedy: the Apprenticeship Model with real-life practice, feedback, corrections and more practice. Calling his model "radical and not for the fainthearted," it gives mega-roles to line leaders who supervise other leaders. "Preparing future leaders becomes part of their job description," he adds. Creating the talent for your organization is not HR's job. Every leader must be constantly focused on the talent pool. Healthy organizations, he pleads, find their future CEOs in their own pools.

Charan wants you to scratch your traditional performance assessments and, instead, mentor emerging leaders with the "gap question." For example, Novartis Pharmaceuticals U.S. asks its people to identify any big gaps between the target job and the leader's current capabilities. They ask, "What would happen if we put the person in the job right now?" and then they look for ways to close the gap "and thus minimize the risk, with assignments tailored to prepare the person."

The author warns, "The CEO job requires giant leaps in learning. Leaders will not be prepared to lead large companies unless each job is much more complex than the one before." Mentoring apprentices will get you there, he promises. So, would you spend $18 to ensure your organization's future? Business and nonprofit leaders (especially board members) will find Ram Charan's "Succession Solution" difficult to ignore. If you're comfortable with your current faulty conventional wisdom, don't buy this book.