Focus on your Talent : The Importance of Succession Management
Developing strong talent and building bench strength within an organization’s workforce enhances the financial value of an organization.1 However, the market has been faced with a talent shortage, leaving key roles unfilled or filled with personnel not fit for the position.2,3 This requires a strategic approach to succession management, that includes:
Over the past two and a half decades, researchers have studied the positive impact of emotional intelligence (EI) on enhanced leadership performance. Yet, EI is still often underappreciated because many continue to associate the concept with “soft skills” unrelated to concrete business outcomes. As we leadership development practitioners well know, EI is a characteristic underlying much of the success of top business leaders. In today’s complex business environment, the key differentiator between good and great performers is their strength in social and emotional competencies.1
As the business environment becomes increasingly complex, executive coaching has gained popularity as an effective method for talent development. This is quite a departure from the past when coaching was viewed as a remedial means of fixing behavioral problems. A growing number of organizations are shifting their perspective as they begin to realize the positive impact of coaching on leadership performance. Executive coaching is a targeted way to significantly impact individual growth and organizational success. The ROI for the organization includes better engagement and productivity, higher profitability and reduction in costs.1 Coaching also builds a leader’s emotional intelligence, a key driver of performance, and strengthens alignment with the organization’s mission and values.
It takes great leadership to build great teams. Whether in the workplace, professional sports, or your local community, team building requires a keen understanding of people, their strengths and weaknesses, and what motivates them to work with others. Team building is both an art and a science and the leader who can consistently build high performance teams is worth their weight in gold.
Psychometric assessments are becoming a more common tool to support the talent management process. These assessment tools are utilized assessment and selection, succession planning, coaching, and team development. Individual and team assessments are used to identify common group behaviors, demonstrate gaps in perceptions and provide opportunities to think more openly and work together in a manner for a wide range of measurement purposes including that creates shared group understanding and increase effectiveness.
Accountability
Undoubtedly, accountability plays an important role in the workplace to ensure that set goals are being achieved in a timely manner. So, why is it that leaders have trouble holding others’ accountable. The state of accountability today is ambiguous to say the least. More often than not the lines between individuals’ responsibilities are blurred, making it difficult to discern what each person is designated to contribute. And, the rewards and consequences contingent upon performance are frequently ill-defined or misapplied, creating a disjunction between results and recognition.1 Thus, individuals lack motivation to keep themselves and others accountable for tasks.
Retaining Top Talent: How to Create an Engaged Workforce
Many business executives are missing the boat when it comes to their organization’s human capital. The mantra, “Our people are our most important resources,” is often touted, yet seldom acted upon. With unemployment rates steadily declining1, organizations are beginning to find that their best people are looking to the job market for new opportunities. Now more than ever, leaders need to put their words into action and demonstrate that their employees are vital to their organizations.
Joshua J. Ofman, MD, MSHS, is the Senior Vice President, Global Value, Access and Policy at Amgen ensuring the integration of reimbursement needs into the product development and commercialization process. In prior roles, Dr. Ofman was an academic gastroenterologist at Cedars-Sinai Health System and Senior Vice President of Zynx Health Inc., focused on evidence-based clinical information for quality improvement and reimbursement, and health economics strategy for life sciences companies. Dr. Ofman received his advanced medical training in Gastroenterology from UCLA and his Health Services Research training from the RAND/UCLA/VA program.
Carman Ciervo, D.O., FACOFP, is the Executive Vice President and Chief Physician Executive at Jefferson Health New Jersey (JHNJ). As a member of the senior leadership team since 2010, Carman has played a key role in Jefferson Health of New Jersey’s continued growth and transformation, working directly on hospital and health system initiatives related to the employed-physician model, population health, and clinical excellence. He has also overseen the progressive growth of the Jefferson Health New Jersey (formerly Kennedy) Health Alliance, a consumer-friendly network of primary and specialty medical practices throughout southern New Jersey.
Barry H. Ostrowsky is President and Chief Executive Officer for RWJBarnabas Health, New Jersey’s largest not-for-profit integrated health care delivery system and the largest private employer in the state. Mr. Ostrowsky joined Saint Barnabas Medical Center in 1991 as Executive Vice President and General Counsel. He served in the same role at Barnabas Health, when the System was created in 1996. He assumed the title of President and Chief Operating Officer in 2010, and became President and Chief Executive Officer in January 2012. Prior, Mr. Ostrowsky was a Senior Partner in the law firm of Brach Eichler. He received a BA from Rutgers University and a JD from the University of Tennessee School of Law.
TLD Group partners with clients on the design and implementation of innovative and impactful leadership development solutions.
