Talent Management - September 2008 - (Page 50)

application by Gwen Callas-Miller Talent Transformation at Textron Multi-industry ﬁrm Textron initiated a transformation of its talent strategy that emphasized employee development and succession planning and promoted active input from leadership councils in key divisions. Since 2001, Textron has been making radical changes in every functional area of the company to shift from buyer and seller to builder and grower. Internally, the changes are known as a transformation, and senior leaders are committed to becoming the premier multi-industry company recognized for powerful brands, world-class enterprise processes and talented people. Textron’s more than 40,000 employees serve the aviation, aerospace and defense, industrial and commercial ﬁnance industries globally. At the core of Textron’s transformation is the networked enterprise concept that creates value by applying common processes and tools, and leverages scale and talent to help the company’s businesses build and maintain powerful, proﬁtable customer-supplier relationships. Textron is doing this in two ways. It uses enterprise management to help create world-class operating capabilities, common processes and tools to leverage scale and talent. Second, portfolio management allows the company to identify, acquire and integrate attractive new businesses and divest businesses that do not support its vision or meet value-creation expectations. Talent management efforts have seen success as leaders ﬁnd the right way for Textron to manage and develop employees. Three initiatives demonstrate the depth of commitment to developing and managing talent across the enterprise: Textron University (TU), succession planning and leadership councils. Building and Growing Enterprise Knowledge After Textron’s transformation launched, it became clear that to accomplish the vision the company needed to become a learning organization. Development of TU provided a delivery mechanism to support the transition from siloed businesses to a networked enterprise culture — from disparate business approaches to common processes and from limited company-wide em- ployee development to consistent, high-quality learning programs. Textron’s senior leaders demonstrate support by teaching key leadership programs and sessions related to their area of expertise. They understand talent development is directly linked with overall company performance, retention of employees and success in the organization. Senior leaders also attend development programs for their personal career growth. Since TU’s inception in late 2005, more than 9,000 have participated in instructor-led programs around the world and nearly 400,000 online courses have been completed. 50 September 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - September 2008

Talent Management - September 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance: Stop Wasting Money on Training Leading Edge: No Whining, No Excuses Learning Connections: Do You Get It? The Untapped Resource Reinventing HR Doing Compensation Right: The Winning Spread Managing Performance in the Knowledge and Innovation Worker Age Stop-The-Clock Time Management Preparing for the Future in the Public Sector SAS: Connecting People, Process and Products Talent Transformation at Textron The Price of Finding the Right Gen Y Candidate Advertiser's Index Editorial Resources Full Potential: Do What You Love, Love What You Do

Talent Management - September 2008

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