Building Emotional Resilience

In the lead up to the end of the financial year a major Australian bank asked us to deliver a series of practical workshops to help their employees cope with the inevitable stresses associated with major change.

One of our facilitators, an experienced clinical psychologist, delivered four sessions on strategies for ‘Stress Mastery’ to an audience of approximately 120 people. The feedback we received from participants was extremely positive - some participant comments include:

• I like the explanations of why people react to stress the way they do
• Easy to follow and understand
• It was thought provoking – situations you usually take for granted can be challenged
• Applicable to daily living
• Group exercises were extremely useful to help manage stress – will definitely try some of the techniques to help manage stress.

Navigating Change at Qantas

We continue to work closely with Qantas Airways and in the last few months have rolled out several interactive programs designed to help senior leaders effectively manage change. Our Navigating Change program has now been delivered with great success at Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne airports and the remainder of the year will see this program delivered to Adelaide, Cairns and Perth airports, as well as several smaller regional airports.

The most recently completed workshop was delivered by two of our experienced facilitators in the Yarra Valley for senior leaders from Melbourne Airport and received excellent feedback. Some participant comments include:

• Excellent two days which have left me feeling I will manage change better.
• Excellent facilitators and a well delivered course. Focus kept on track at all times.
• Your knowledge of our industry made what you were teaching us very genuine. You understood our business and issues affecting us.
• Both the facilitators were great, knew our business (very important), didn’t assume we knew what they meant, very easy to listen to and easy to engage.
• The best course I have attended. Gave me real tools and a better understanding of what I need to do as a leader for my team.

Succession Management Best Practice

We were recently involved in a Succession Management ‘best practice’ audit for a major oil and gas company. The organisation was particularly interested in ensuring the audit included significant academic research to validate that the approach undertaken qualified as best practice.

In order to examine what is deemed as best practice we looked at recent research involving over 700 members of the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI). This research found that only 44 percent of respondents reported having a formal succession management program (Taylor & McGraw, 2004). Of these organisations, 61 percent adopted a ‘pool’ approach (i.e. they developed a reservoir of qualified candidates capable of filling vacancies), 27 percent adopted a ‘react’ approach (i.e. they waited until a position opens then start searching for a replacement) and 12 percent adopted a ‘heir’ approach (i.e. they identified and nurtured a single heir for each position).

This research suggests that more effective succession management programs incorporate multiple succession management practices (e.g. performance management, training and development, career planning, recruitment and selection and management development programs). The authors conclude that ‘organisations benefit most when multiple techniques are used in concert and succession management integrates with other HR systems and strategically links to the overall business plan’.

Other researchers (Eastman, 1995) suggest that effective succession management programs should contain several critical elements, such as:

• Visible support from the CEO and top management
• Ownership from line managers and supported by staff
• Simple and tailored to the needs of the organisation
• Flexible and linked to the strategic business plan
• Evolved from a thorough HR review process
• Based upon well-developed competencies and objectives of candidates
• Incorporate employee input
• Be part of the broader management development effort
• Include plans for development job assignments
• Be integrated with other HR systems
• Emphasise accountability and follow-up

More recently Conger and Fulmer (2003) suggested that the five ‘rules’ for succession management include:

1. Focus on development (this is the fundamental rule that the remaining rules are built on)

2. Focus on ‘linchpin’ positions (i.e. jobs that are essential to the long-term health of the organisation)

3. Make succession management transparent (i.e. no secrecy)

4. Regularly measure progress

5. Keep it flexible

The authors also suggest that ‘at the foundation of a shift toward succession management is a belief that leadership talent directly affects organisational performance’ (Taylor & McGraw, 2004).

Evaluating candidate capability deserves special comment. Taylor and McGraw (2004) suggest that when evaluating candidates for succession, recommendations (96 percent) and performance management data (93 percent) were the two most common methods used. In addition, respondents who reported having highly effective succession management systems were significantly more likely to use a range of methods when evaluating candidates, including multi-rater instruments and assessment centre methodologies. It should be noted that the authors suggest that the issue is not so much about the actual assessment techniques used but more so the application of a ‘comprehensive approach’ to candidate assessment.