IBM: long bench mechanism for cultivating leadership

Most of China's outstanding companies are currently confused, that is, the lack of excellent leadership talents. So how can we get a good lead? In this regard, it is worth learning from the practice of cultivating long-standing IBM companies.

In general, although IBM's famous leader, Guo Shina, was introduced from outside, IBM is clearly a company that does not like airborne troops very much. IBM has a special set of understandings and practices for its leaders, which is the long bench program for cultivating leaders ".

The term "long bench" is used for reference in American baseball games. At the baseball stadium, there is often a long bench with many bench players on it. When the competition is about to change, the first person on the long bench will play, and the second person on the long bench will sit in the first position, the person just changed will sit in the last position.

IBM's long bench program to train leaders is named for it. At the beginning of his tenure, IBM's supervisor had a hard goal: determine who will take over his position within a year or two? Who will take over in year 34? Even if you leave suddenly, who can take over from you?

Many may say that this is not our "Cadre Echelon" in China? Good. In form, this is very similar to our "Echelon Cultivation", but there are fundamental differences behind the similarities on the surface.

What is real leadership? At IBM, the term leadership is clearly defined. The mission of a leader is not simply to increase business growth, but to help its subordinates grow and improve their team competitiveness. What a leader requires is not to do your business well, but to help your subordinates do well. Here, the criteria for leadership selection are not common "personal performance" in our "Echelon" practices, but how you help your subordinates and teams grow.

Personal performance can be disguised. How can I disguise the progress of subordinates or teams?

Every year, IBM's "bench long program" takes nearly 300 of the world's more than managers as the key training targets. The cultivation of these 300 people usually goes through four stages. The first stage is to train various vocational skills and cultivate professional competence. In the second stage, the training targets are trained in different jobs in a horizontal rotation mode. The third stage is to implement performance-oriented assessment to release personal abilities. The fourth stage requires the leader to expand his personal success to the team.

To ensure that the leader is truly a leader, rather than just a business master, IBM has implemented the famous "job rotation ". For example, the head of the Human Resources Department can go to the marketing department, the production department, or even a very professional department to work. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it.

At IBM, a person's career has to go through the rotation of many departments, and it is difficult to reach a senior level in less than ten years. IBM believes that if he is only in one professional field for a lifetime, his leadership skills will be problematic, because it is easy to cause a narrow angle to the problem.

Since IBM implements a global selection program, this means that any manager who enters the training program may become CEO of IBM in the future. As a CEO, the most important leadership capability is not completely the business ability, but the ability to lead the team in a strategic direction. Therefore, send a marketing manager who does not understand the technology to manage R & D; or assign a production manager who does not understand the market to manage the brand and lead things that he does not understand, this is undoubtedly a huge challenge. Once these challenges have been met, such leaders not only have experience in different departments, but can better understand the interests of the departments and truly have the ability to overcome various difficulties and challenges.

Of course, the basic reality is that in the "long bench program", the number of reserve leaders is usually much larger than the number of actual leaders. What should I do? Here, IBM has a very valuable practice called the substitute leadership system. What does it mean? When an on-the-job leader is on vacation, in a meeting, or leaves, he or she must submit the job to the person to be trained.

This practice is very valuable, which gives many potential leaders the opportunity to practice. In fact, this practice is very common in many excellent companies. Why do leaders at all levels of foreign excellent companies always have time to take vacations? The reason is that these companies have systems to support their vacation. Why don't our boss have time to take a vacation? It is because even if you leave, things will still fall on your head. How do you take a vacation after a call in the middle of the night?

Therefore, IBM has not only designed the system, but, more importantly, freed high-level leaders from specific transactions through an effective execution system, focus on the most important part. That is to say, IBM has successfully achieved a wealth of leadership talent through the "long bench program.

Under the same conditions, some companies can succeed in expansion, and some companies may suffer problems in expansion? Or why are we always worried about some fast-expanding companies?

If a company's market is good enough, the business is not a problem. The problem arises from how to ensure human resources? Where do leaders come from? Although from the perspective of Talent Selection, it is right to say "Drop talent without restrictions", IBM's "long bench program" tells us that, A good leader is not a miracle, but a long-term practice under the guidance of a clear strategic thinking. Therefore, if we want to build a great company that does not depend on anyone, we should first establish a "long bench" mechanism to cultivate leadership talent like IBM.

 

Source: http://www.vsharing.com/Topic.aspx? Id = 2148