HR Pulse - Winter 2007 - (Page 32) Building a Leadership Infrastructure A Road Map for Strategic Change By Michael Abrams and Bill Ott We believe that an investment in leadership infrastructure is the path to creating a culture that maximizes performance, adapts to market changes and attracts the most skilled employees. What is leadership infrastructure? It is a structured process that • Identifies and leverages talent across the organization • Engages employees in career path planning and development and supports accountability • Ensures the necessary leadership for the organization to succeed, now and in the future • Delivers direct return on investment by reducing time- and cost-to-fill for open positions • Enhances the organization’s position as an employer of choice. Such an infrastructure not only includes processes to facilitate integrated strategic planning, it also offers an organization-wide view of rising talent to enhance internal advancement opportunities, makes systematic people development possible and supports succession planning. Building the Infrastructure This diagram (see opposite page) provides a framework for understanding how to build a leadership infrastructure. Job Charters The process of building leadership starts with creating definitions for critical roles in the organization. Using an approach that engages key constituents to ensure buy-in, key roles can be redefined, with the results captured in a definitional base called job charters. Job charters define: • The strategic relevance of a role or management level, including the expected input into strategy development/implementation, as well as the translation of strategy to enable the action of others • Key accountabilities of the role, in areas such as strategy and planning, leading people, developing processes, managing resources and modeling collaboration to the organization • Key relationships, both internal and external • Decision-making authority, matched to accountabilities. 32 HR Pulse Winter 2007 Existing HR systems are often insufficient to support the implementation of a major new strategy, and relying on them to do the heavy lifting can be dangerous. he human resources function is at a defining moment in its evolution. Most organizations are developing bold new strategies to contend with rapidly changing market dynamics, presenting HR professionals with the challenge of translating these strategies into organizational structure, redefining roles, accountabilities and competencies and aligning work processes. In the absence of strong HR leadership to drive this strategic reassessment, even the most thoughtful strategic plans can rapidly unravel. Implementation of a new organizational strategy frequently starts with an initial burst of energized chaos, which all too often loses its luster fairly quickly as the workforce settles back into old roles and processes. The common outcomes are failure to achieve the targeted performance goals and increased employee cynicism about the future and capabilities of the organization’s leadership. The HR Business Challenge An organization’s ability to meet its leadership and staffing needs—both current and future—is one key to success in today’s increasingly dynamic environment. Existing HR systems are often insufficient to support the implementation of a major new strategy, and relying on them to do the heavy lifting can be dangerous. Ultimately, HR must redesign and implement systems that are practical, effective and aligned with new organizational objectives. T
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