The crucial promotion is into the group from which tomorrow’s top people will have to be selected.
If a company is to obtain the needed contributions, it must reward those who make them. Decisions on people and especially its promotions affirm what an organization really believes in, really wants, really stands for. They speak louder than words and tell a clearer story than any figures.
The crucial promotion is not a person’s first—though it may be the most important one to her and to her career. Nor is it the final one into the top position; there a management must choose from a small, already preselected group. The crucial promotion is into the group from which tomorrow’s top people will have to be selected. It is the decision at the point where the pyramid in an organization narrows abruptly. Up to this point, there are in a large organization usually forty to fifty people to choose from for every vacant spot. Above it, the choice narrows to one out of three or four. Up to this point also, a person usually works in one area or function. Above it, she works in the business.
“There are only people who make people decisions right… and people who make people decisions wrong and then repent at leisure.”
“I know,” Mr. Sloan continued, “you think I should be a good judge of people. Believe me, there’s no such person. There are only people who make people decisions right, and that means slowly, and people who make people decisions wrong and then repent at leisure. We do make fewer mistakes, not because we’re good judges of people but because we’re conscientious.”
Decisions on people usually provoked heated debate in the General Motors executive committee. But on one occasion the whole committee seemed to be agreed on one candidate—he had handled this crisis superbly, solved that problem beautifully, quenched yonder fire with great aplomb—when suddenly Mr. Sloan broken in. “A very impressive record your Mr. Smith has,” he said, “but do explain to me how he gets into all those crises he then so brilliantly surmounts?” Nothing more was heard of Mr. Smith. However, on occasion Mr. Sloan could also say, “You know all the things Mr. George cannot do—how come he got as far as he did? What can he do?” And when Mr. Sloan was told, he would say, “Alright, he’s not brilliant, and not fast, and looks drab. But hasn’t he always performed?” And Mr. George turned into a most successful general manager in a big division at a difficult time.
“If we didn’t spend four hours on placing a man and placing him right, we’d spend four hundred hours on cleaning up after our mistake.”
During the years in which I attended the meeting of GM’s top committees, the company made basic decisions on postwar policies such as capital investment; overseas expansion; the balance between automotive businesses, accessory businesses, and nonautomotive businesses; union relations; and financial structure…. I soon realized that a disproportionate amount of time was taken up with decisions on people compared to the time spent on decisions on policy. On one occasion the committee spent hours discussing the work and assignment of a position way done the line…. As we went out, I turned and said, “Mr. Sloan, how can you afford to spend four hours on a minor job like this?” “This corporation pays me a pretty good salary,” he said, “for making the important decision, and for making them right… If that master mechanic in Dayton is the wrong man, our decisions might as well be written on water. He converts them into performance. And as for taking a lot of time, that’s horse apples” (his strongest and favorite epithet)…. “If we didn’t spend four hours on placing a man a placing him right, we’d spend four hundred hours on cleaning up after our mistake—and that time I wouldn’t have. The decision,” he concluded, “about people is the only truly crucial one. You think and everybody thinks that a company can have ‘better’ people. All it can do is place people right—and then it’ll have performance.”
The most critical people decision, and the one that is hardest to undo, is the succession to the top.
The succession to the top decision is the most difficult because every such decision is a gamble. The only test of performance in the top position is performance in the top position—and there is very little preparation for it. What not to do is fairly simple. You don’t want a carbon copy of the outgoing CEO. If the outgoing CEO says, “Joe [or Mary] is just like me thirty years ago,” that’s a carbon copy—and carbon copies are always weak. Be a little leery, too, of the faithful assistant who for eighteen years has been at the boss’s side anticipating his or her every wish, but has never made a decision alone. By and large, people who are willing and able to make decisions don’t stay in the assistant role very long. Stay away, too, from the anointed prince. Nine times out of ten that’s a person who has managed to avoid ever being put in a position where performance is essential, measured, and where he or she might make a mistake. They are media events rather than performers.
What are the positive ways to handle the succession decision? Look at the assignment. In this institution, what is going to be the biggest challenge over the next few years? Then look at the people and their performance. Match the need against proven performance.
There is no such thing as a perfect record in making people decisions. Successful executives follow five ground rules.
First, the executive must accept responsibility for any placement that fails. To blame the nonperformer is a cop-out. The executive made a mistake in selecting that particular person.
But second, the executive does have the responsibility to remove people who do not perform. The incompetent or poor performer, when left in his or her job, penalizes all others and demoralizes the entire organization.
Third, just because a person doesn’t perform in the job he or she was put in doesn’t mean that that person is a bad worker whom the company should let go. It only means that he or she is in the wrong job.
Fourth, the executive must try to make the right people decisions for every worker. An organization can only perform to the capacity of its individual workers; thus people decisions must be right.
And fifth, newcomers best be put in an established position where the expectations are known and help is available. New major assignments should mainly go to people whose behaviors and habits are well known and who have already earned trust and credibility.
The most important thing is that the person and the assignment fit each other.
General George C. Marshall followed Five Simple Decision Steps in making people decisions.
First, Marshall carefully thought through the assignment. Job descriptions may last a long time, but job assignments change all the time.
Second, Marshall always looked at several qualified people. Formal qualification, such as those listed in a resume, are no more than a starting point. Their absence disqualifies a candidate. However, the most important thing is that the person and the assignment fit each other. To find the best fit, you must consider at least three to five candidates.
Third, Marshall studied the performance records of all three to five candidates to find what each did well. He looked for the candidate’s strengths. The things a person cannot do are of little importance; instead, you must concentrate on the things they can do and determine whether they are the right strengths for this particular assignment. Performance can only be built on strengths.
Fourth, Marshall discussed the candidates with others who had worked with them. The best information often comes through informal discussions with a candidate’s former bosses and colleagues.
And fifth, once the decision was made, Marshall made sure the appointee understood the assignment. Perhaps the best way to do this is to ask the new person to carefully think over what they have to do to be a success, and then, ninety days into the job, have the person commit it to writing.
Don’s hire a person for what they can’t do; hire them for what they can do.
A very great leader of men, General George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the U.S. Army during World War II, had the most remarkable record of putting people into the right time. He appointed something like six hundred people to positions as general officer, division commander, and so on, almost without a dud. And not one of these people had ever commanded troops before. A discussion would come up, and Marshall’s aides would say, “Control So-and-So is the best trainer of people we have, but he has never gotten along with his boss. If he has to testify before Congress, he’ll be a disaster. He is so rude.” Marshall would then ask, “What is the assignment? To train a division? If he is first-rate as a trainer, put him in. The rest is my job.” As a result, he created the largest army the world had ever seen, thirteen million people, in the shortest possible time, with very few mistakes. The lesson is to focus on strengths.
The first sign of decline of an industry is loss of appeal to able people.
In the area of people genuine marketing objectives are required. “What do our jobs have to be to attract and hold the kind of people we need and want?” What is the supply available on the job market? And, what do we have to do to attract it?” It is highly desirable to have specific objectives for manager supply, development, and performance, but also specific objectives for major groups within the nonmanagerial workforce. There is need for objectives for employee attitudes as well as for employee skills.
The first sign of decline of an industry is loss of appeal to qualified, able, and ambitious people. The American railroads, for instance, did not begin their decline after World War II—it only became obvious and irreversible then. The decline actually set in around the time of World War I. Before World War I, able graduates of American engineering schools looked for a railroad career. From the end of World War I on—for whatever reason—the railroads no longer appealed to young engineering graduates, or to any educated young people. As a result, there was nobody in management capable and competent to cope with new problems when the railroads ran into heavy weather twenty years later.
