Building Bench Strength
Three Criteria to Use When Selecting Future Leaders
BY DAVID SPADER
WHAT HAPPENS when you don’t have a
strong bench? The Indianapolis Colts
found out this season. Quarterback great
Peyton Manning did not lead his team
onto the field at the start of this season
for the first time in 227 consecutive
games. Apparently the coaches were
caught off guard. The Colts were left
scrambling and had to bring 38-year-old
Kerry Collins out of retirement; they
were scrambling again to find another
replacement when Collins was injured
early in the season! The result? The Colts
finished the year 2-14! Unfortunately,
we see this same pattern played out in
business every day.
“How strong is my bench?” It’s a
question that every business leader
should be asking, and one that we
recently presented at the Toronto
International Boat Show. It is an area
that is easy to put on the backburner
during the day-to-day firefighting that
engulfs most businesses. The result is
that less than 15% of companies in
North America believe they have the
bench strength to fill key positions in the
future. The actions you are taking today
to nurture your future leaders will: (1)
determine how quickly and strongly
they develop; (2) dramatically affect the
growth of your business; and ( 3) significantly affect your succession planning
process. Given what you are doing today,
how well are you growing your next
level of leaders? STOP and seriously
answer that question before going on.
One of the toughest questions when
looking for the future leaders in your
business is, “How do we determine which
employees are best suited for leadership
roles?” In order to better select those who
have future potential we suggest evaluating them in three areas.
Culture Fit
First, your future bench needs to
demonstrate a strong culture fit. The
people you select for your leadership
bench should be inspiring models of
alignment with the values that are critical to the success of your business. If
they don’t model these behaviours now,
what makes you think they will do so
when they have more influence, power
and control? Don’t think that promoting
a high-producing salesperson who operates in gray areas of integrity will get better in a management position because
they are good at hitting his or her numbers. Great individual performers are
often not great leaders. As much as 70%
of the environment and culture in your
business is directly shaped by the
actions of its leaders. Therefore, it’s critical that you build your bench with people that are models of the values and
