A CEO's Point Of View On Developing People
By Rob Wright, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
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By Rob Wright
If you had the chance to have an informal discussion with the CEO of a publicly traded company doing business in the life science sector, what would you ask? I get to have these discussions on a somewhat regular basis. I have to say, it never gets boring. During one such conversation, I learned about the CEO, his company’s business, and his approach to people development, when he stated, “I keep getting forced to learn that younger people are completely different, in terms of how they manage their time, and how they think about the world.” I was expecting him to say they had adopted/developed a new system, using the latest technologies designed to accommodate the new learning styles of the younger generation when I asked him to elaborate on what he meant by “forced to learn.” He surprised me with his initial response — “I don't try very hard to adjust.” So what can you learn from this CEO about people development? A lot, starting with taking it seriously.
Don’t Take People Development Casually
“We’re very serious about how we develop people,” he says. “There's nothing casual about it. About seven years ago we went through a significant restructuring, and even though we seemed to be on a pretty good path, I was very frustrated. I felt like I was doing too much, if that makes sense. I'm sure part of it was my problem. I'm also sure part of it was a real lack of understanding about how I would like to see things work, on behalf of people who spent time working with me and for me. I've had some experiences in that area at other points in my life. Whatever the cause was, it was on my shoulders to resolve it.”
In order to resolve his frustration, he engaged the help of a person whose work he really respected — Noel Tichy from the University of Michigan. “His whole life is about organization development and the change management process that makes things work,” he states. “He has a simple model best described as action learning. It's all about engaging people in meaningful things and taking the time to ensure that you're teaching them, as part of that process.” The company developed a robust activity based on Tichy’s principles. “We get a lot of opportunity to teach young people how we became successful, and our approach to moving the company forward,” he explains. “We are a product company in a technology industry. The work is hard, technical, and the results are sold to engineers. It's not about being groovy and socially networked.” Okay, so he dated himself a bit when he dropped the word “groovy,” but that doesn’t mean he isn’t right. Though we might not agree on the possibilities social media present, there is something we did agree on.
Learning Takes Time
I have always been a proponent of “anything worth doing is worth doing well.” I recall the legendary basketball player “Pistol” Pete Maravich once being asked about how much he practiced as youth. He claimed that by the age of 12, he was practicing 8 hours a day. One of my favorite quotes is when he replied to a doubting reporter, “You don’t get here [the NBA] by wishing.” In other words, learning to do something well, takes repetition, practice, and time. On this, we can agree. “I think to really get into something in a meaningful way, you have to spend time with it, rather than all the instant gratification nonsense that happens today,” states this CEO. “We certainly accommodate a lot of things that you wouldn't have accommodated 20 years ago, but we think we have a pretty good model for how we get products developed and introduce them to the marketplace. We're trying to teach employees what we think it takes to be successful in this type of world. There's a lot of wisdom being transferred, and we're very methodical about it.” Though some of the tools may have changed, there is a reason that certain time-honored techniques for problem solving, consensus-building, and prioritization remain in use. They work.