CEO’s Checklist for 2012: Two key trends

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Gurgaon, Haryana, India, Republic of (Free-Press-Release.com) February 7, 2012 -- One of the key trends that will be observed in 2012 is the grooming of the next generation of leaders.

In today’s business context, it has been observed that leadership issues are posing a clear and present danger. There is a shortage of leadership skills for the expected leadership roles of today, leading to an immediate need for building a leadership pipeline in organizations. When organizations and societies become excessively focused on short-term and narrow thinking, we have a leadership crisis. Today, corporations have realized that as India Inc. goes global, it has the added responsibility of building leaders equipped to lead global businesses.

This will be definitely a key trend expected to set the momentum in 2012 and organizations will thus address top teams to decide who should and should not serve on a team; how to manage, motivate and coach a senior team; and, how to provide direction and context.

The journey needs to start with a deep introspection of the self. Next-gen leaders need to understand themselves at a deeper level – who they are, what energizes them and what doesn’t, and then understand the demands of leadership. This will help them make a vision of leadership for themselves.

Many organizations have already created a well-identified pool of Hi Potentials. But how do they take these Hi Pos to the next level and truly accelerate their growth to leadership, how do they provide “stretch” but not “snap” to this pool of next-generation leaders, what is the best mix of developmental mechanisms – education, experience, relationship-based development, is the best learning structured or self-directed? These are the questions that most corporations are struggling with. Hay Group has been conducting research on what the best companies for leaders do; and we, at Hay Group, feel that exposure to the real work and context will take next-gen leaders to the next level.

The second key trend is that 2012 will demand organization structuring to maximize creativity, productivity, and efficiency of the employees. Corporations have to provide a work environment that doesn’t require people to leave their creativity, inspiration, and ingenuity outside the door. Instead, they will have to embed the principles of innovation and creativity into the organization’s design, leading to increased efficiency and productivity of employees.

Today, we have a younger workforce, and to address their issues, coordinated, holistically-applied principles will have to shift a bureaucratic, rigid and uncreative organization towards flexibility, and adaptability at all levels, making new ideas an abundant currency. This can be done at the level of organizational design and structure. For instance, non-hierarchical relationships among collaborators are enabled by matrix structures – or project- and team-based organizational design – in which people work in a flatter and more diverse setting. Although not without their own challenges, matrices allow for cross-functional cooperation and communication, enabling employees with different perspectives and experiences to ‘clash’ and then co-create. Project-based design is also less rigid, more flexible, adaptable and responsive to the ever-changing opportunities and demands of the marketplace. In tandem with a matrix structure, rewarding teams (rather than individuals) encourages collaboration and information sharing, minimizing the negative and creativity-crushing effects of internal competition.

Coalitions of interest can attract the most appropriate participants to a project, those most naturally interested in the particular topic. Self organization can provide the right amount of autonomy necessary for workers to individually create the most appropriate group design for the objective at hand, given the circumstances and resources that are unique to their situation. Through the usage of self-organization and coalitions, organizational design and team composition become recipients of innovation in themselves, by being placed in the hands of the people closest to the action. These two design features can manifest the principles of autonomy and trust; a leader will have to trust the employees enough to give up a measure of control over the group and the project.

Such radical approaches will increasingly become prevalent in 2012 to attract the most talented individuals to companies and thus increase their productivity.

Source:http://emerge.nasscom.in/2012/01/ceo%E2%80%99s-checklist-for-2012-two-key-trends/

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