Right Quarterly 2nd edition 2014: Succession Planning

Right THE
Quarterly Second Edition 2014
Succession Planning for Talent Management

ManpowerGroup at a Glance…
Nearly 3,100 offices across
80 countries around the
Over 400,000 clients
ranging from SMB’s to
Gl b l F t Interviewed 12 million
people in 2013 and
world Global Fortune 100
companies
connected 3.4 million to
meaningful work
The world’s largest IT
professional f i l resourcing
i
firm
USD 20.3 Billion revenue in 2013
i h d
Global leader in
Recruitment Process
with over 85% generated
outside the U.S.
Over 30,000
l
Nearly 70,000 people
placed in permanent
Largest global vendor-neutral
MSP provider
Outsourcing
The world’s largest
outplacement firm
employees
across brands
roles each year
p More than 600,000 associates
on assignment daily
More than 11,000,000 candidates
have received training
and development

EDITORIAL & FOREWORD 02
by Chaitali Mukherjee
POINT OF VIEW
Strengthening your leadership pipeline 04
by Pierre Jauffret and Jacques Quinio
CLIENT REFERENCE STORY
Assessing leadership capability to deliver turnaround in business 08
performance
by Nick Grage-Perry, Cyrus Cavina and Dr. Colin Couzin-Wood
Organization transition from replacement planning to 12
succession management
by Chaitali Mukherjee, Divya Jain and Shruti Dhupia
FEATURE INTERVIEW - Leader Speak
An interview with Mr. Banmali Agrawala - President and CEO 16
GE-South Asia
by Chaitali Mukherjee and Divya Jain
SUCCESSION PLANNING FOR TALENT MANAGEMENT 1
Copy Editor
Tuhina Panda
Layout & Design Editor
Ritesh Hellan
For a copy of ‘The Right Quarterly’, write to us at
right.quarterly@right.com

2 THE RIGHT QUARTERLY
Editorial & foreword
by Chaitali Mukherjee
Managing Director – Experis APME Region &
Country Manager – Right Management India
The objective of any business is to achieve
sustainable growth. There have been
many studies that have been conducted
to understand what drives sustainable
growth. Some of the contributing factors
are having a clear business strategy, the
right amount of investment, a strong vision
and the right manpower. Being a talent
management and career management
consulting company, Right Management
has always worked with its clients to ensure
they have at least the last factor in place –
the right TALENT. But how does talent link
to sustainable growth? It’s simple. Having
the right talent in the right roles within your
organization is a good starting point. But
supporting them to achieve success drives
the organization forward. Understanding
the necessary capabilities that are required
for your key roles and supporting high
potential employees to step into those roles
is essential.
In our previous edition of the Right
Quarterly, we spoke about Coaching and
how important a role it plays in building
our leaders. We also explored the different
aspects of coaching and how it seems to
evolve differently in different countries. But
coaching is one element of the long journey
of building talent. In this edition we explore
the subject of Succession planning
for talent management. Succession
Planning encompasses identifying the
right successors to take over critical
roles, building leadership capability in the
successors to succeed and also empowering
them to take the organization forward.
We start this edition with an article on
Strengthening your leader pipeline,
and share the basics on building a talent
pipeline. Right Management’s recent white
paper released on Talent Management:
Accelerating Business Performance was
launched in 2014. It shared how only 13%
of HR leaders believe they have an ample
leadership pipeline. This result is very
alarming when we think of the growth in
the available workforce, especially in the
developing countries. But why is there
such a shortage and how are organizations
addressing this challenge? Do we have to
work with only the high performers in the
system and build on from there? What do
we need to invest in? Read on to know more
on how to identify the right set of leaders
to help build your succession planning
initiative.
Our second article, Assessing leadership
capability to deliver turnaround in
business performance, dives into a real life
client challenge that the Right Management
Australia team helped to address. An FMCG
client was operating in a tough competitive
market where the only way to grow was
to change the business strategy. The
new Managing Director brought in fresh
perspective to the challenge ahead and
one of his first priorities was to review the
overall leadership bench strength to deliver
on the new strategy. Right Management
partnered with the client to help identify
the talent who had the right capabilities the
organization wanted to see in its leaders. It
also worked with the identified leaders to
make them more self-aware and understand
how they can add value to the business.

Whenever we talk about succession
planning, many organizations think of
a high potential leader development
program. But succession and workforce
planning is not just a program. It is a
culture built into the existing system
that helps the organization to work with
employees who are high potentials across
different phases of their career. If the
program is not institutionalized well, the
organization becomes dependent on just
a few identified leaders and is not able to
ensure a continuous leadership pipeline
who can take on from those critical
role holders when they leave. The third
article Organization transition from
replacement planning to succession
management, shares the journey of an
Indian organization that wants to be make
its mark on a global scale. The first step
they have taken up is to understand the
‘People Readiness’ of its leaders and how
succession management can become an
integral part of the internal system. Read
on to know how the organization has made
building an internal talent pipeline, its top
priority.
Though we always love to share stories of
our client journeys, for our last article we
would like to share the journey of a leader
who has been on the inside. Through
his own words! We had the privilege of
speaking to a very charismatic leader this
year, and got him to share his story with
us. A story of a High Potential employee
who has himself been through succession
planning initiatives, while also having
driven them as a leader! Our last article
is a Feature interview – leader speak
with Mr. Banmali Agrawala, President
and CEO of GE – South Asia. Mr. Agrawala
talks about his career highs and challenges,
along with the factors he thinks have
motivated him along the way.
Our current edition has helped us
reconfirm how Succession Planning for
Talent Management is top priority for
organizations across the world. But what
we also hope to have achieved here is to
get organizations to realize how succession
planning isn’t just a one-time engagement
or investment. It is an evolving process
which has to become one with the internal
processes and systems of the organization.
Hence, for any organization that wants to
ensure its foot print in the ever-changing
world of work, we believe succession
planning is one of the first steps. Hope you
enjoy reading this edition as much as we
have enjoyed putting it together for you!
- Chaitali Mukherjee

Strengthening
your leadership
pipeline
Leadership talent tops boardroom agenda
Boardrooms around the world are
increasingly focused on the need for top
talent that will ensure sustainable growth
over the long term. As a result, not only
does Human Resources (HR) have a seat
at the executive table, it’s at the top of
the agenda as executive teams struggle
to identify their next bench of leaders in
the face of persistent talent shortages.
Ultimately, the strength of an organization’s
leadership pipeline is a major indicator
of business success giving HR a key role
to play in driving sustainable competitive
advantage. And when growing talent
internally is the number one strategy to
address talent shortages, CEOs must look
inwardly to grow their future leaders.
Identifying high potential talent and
creating the right plan for leadership
development is a vital investment and
an important step in ensuring continued
growth and business continuity. For too
long, as companies made financial cuts
due to recessionary pressures, investments
in leadership development were placed
on the back burner. As a result, companies
are now recognizing they have weak
leadership pipelines that threaten growth.
Point of View
If fact, according to Right Management’s
latest talent management research, only
13 percent of HR leaders believe their
organizations have ample leadership
pipelines.
To move forward, organizations must
increase their commitment to a sustained,
strategic approach to developing their
future executive teams. Right Management’s
extensive experience in helping global
organizations build a robust pipeline of
leaders demonstrates the need to address
three types of challenges:
Identification
Drive
Agility
Performance

Effective high potential programs:
Many organizations look at high
performance in one role to try to predict
future success in another. Some use tenure
or exposure to specific types of experiences
to identify the next generation of successful
leaders. Often, a company’s success profiles
– the required capabilities for leadership
roles today and in the next three to five
years – have not been refreshed in many
years. This means organizations are looking
for the wrong traits in leadership candidates.
They are investing in the wrong people
by mistaking high performers for high
potentials.
Research indicates that potential is best
predicted by three major characteristics:
Career Drive and Aspiration, Agility
(Strategic, Operational and Interpersonal
components) and Work Performance. Right
Management’s best practice assessment
techniques ensure identification of the
optimal candidates for key leader positions
moving forward.
Our model assesses the whole person by
uncovering underlying drivers of successful
performance and identifying gaps to close
through development.
Development
Oftentimes, high potential candidates lose
interest because development investments
have missed the mark, are irrelevant to
business needs or fail to engage them
intellectually and emotionally. To build a
global leadership pipeline that is both deep
and wide, companies must continually
identify, develop, nurture, engage and retain
leaders.
In many organizations there is little
connection between what is desired in
terms of leadership competencies and the
capabilities that are being developed. Using
our 3E (Education, Exposure, Experience)
model and best-in-class peer-to-peer
learning frameworks, we help you create
development programs and journeys that
build relevant skills in your candidates.
We tightly link learning objectives to
your business drivers and priorities, and
ultimately help you move your business
forward in tangible ways.
Measurement
If a leadership development program
cannot demonstrate impact on both
individual participants and at an
organizational level, it does not succeed.
Success must be defined in ways that are
meaningful to your business.
Through customized key performance
indicators (KPIs), we provide quantitative
and qualitative ways to measure results
and the return on development investment.
Measurement data points include both
individual high potential leader analysis and
wider talent pool trends and patterns.
Overall, with insufficient or unfocused
leadership investments in recent years,
companies are now paying the price of
not investing in building a steady stream
of “ready-now” leaders. Organizations that
have are much more likely to outperform
their peers in the marketplace, which
translates into substantial financial gains,
both in shareholder return and market
capitalization.
Customised development paths linked to strategic priorities
Flexible and configurable program components
Research-based, globally relevant curriculum
Technology enabled/enhanced experience
Measurable and linked to targeted business and leader results
Global footprint ensures quality, consistency and local relevance

How to avoid the 3 most common pitfalls in
managing your high potential program
Ensuring the success of high potential programs is more important than ever,
as companies struggle to identify, assess, develop and manage the careers of
top talent to fill leadership gaps. Here are three of the most common traps in
managing a high potential program and how to avoid these pitfalls.
Confusing high performance with potential
All high potentials are high performers but not all high performers are high potentials. In
fact, research indicates that only about 20% of high performing managers are rightfully
considered to have high potential for advancement. So the first common pitfall lies in the
identification of high potential talent and the criteria used by organizations to do so. Yes,
past performance is important, and companies need to take this into account, but it is not
sufficient. Also, excluding high performers from the high potential list is not an easy decision
to make from a management point of view as it often requires providing disappointing
feedback to valued employees.
Trap avoidance:
High potential identification requires a two-step process : first, solicit management input to
draw up an initial list of candidates and then confirm with a multi-trait assessment of the
individuals to assure accurate selection. Gut feelings, observations and intuition are fine,
as long as they are matched by proven high potential assessment methodologies that can
measure for essential characteristics such as career drive, aspiration, agility, flexibility, and
organizational confidence.
Using outdated success profiles
Very often, a company’s high potential success profiles — the required knowledge,
experience, personal attributes and leadership capabilities — are not regularly revisited and
checked for validity and relevance. We frequently encounter companies using selection
criteria that were created up to five years earlier. Also, it can take some companies so
long to agree on the success profile that when they finally reach consensus, the business
situation or internal issues to be addressed have changed. As a result, organizations may be
identifying, assessing and developing their future leaders on capabilities better suited for the
company’s present than for its future.
Trap avoidance:
Define the critical traits for success in key roles over a three to five year horizon. Focus on
four to seven essential requirements — the core criteria that, if possessed by a critical mass
of leaders, will propel the organization toward success. Revisit your model every year to
account for new challenges, and look for external research as food for thought to build your
success profiles.
Failing to create a credible, trustworthy and structured development
program
Some companies spend considerable energy, time and money to identify and develop
future leaders but, when the need for succession arises, they do not choose an individual
from within the high potential pool to fill the position. This jeopardizes the credibility and
1
2
3

trust that high potentials may have in the process. When high potentials are not managed
under a structured development process that provides meaningful assignments, consistent
feedback, and development and career opportunities, many lose faith in the company and
may leave to pursue their careers elsewhere.
Trap avoidance:
Three success factors are important to avoid this pitfall. First, to develop trust and
confidence in these initiatives, companies MUST rely on their deliverables and results when
managing the careers of their high potentials. Succession plans cannot allow exceptions
when nominating individuals for new leadership positions – they must come from the high
potential ranks. Second, top executives should be meaningfully engaged with the leadership
development programs so they can be confident that participants are being developed
with the required capabilities. Third, in addition to educational activities, high potential
development programs need to include job-based exposure and stretch experiences so
that future leaders are prepared to function in new positions as they become available.
That requires the organization to have the mindset and the process to support experiential
learning activities.
Pierre Jauffret
Senior Vice President Talent
Management Solutions
EMEA
Jacques Quinio
EMEA Leadership Development
Solutions Director & UKI Talent
Management Principal Consultant

Assessing leadership capability
to deliver turnaround in business
performance
Situation
The Australian fast-moving consumer goods
(FMCG) market is dominated by 2 major
supermarket chains, which between them
account for nearly 80% of the market for
this Australian subsidiary of a global hygiene
products manufacturing organisation. The
dominance of these two major players
places high pressure on suppliers to
provide competitive margins (through lower
prices) and gives little room to move in
terms of expanding markets other than by
winning market share from the other major
competitors in the product sector.
For this organisation, the challenges of
succeeding in this market environment were
compounded by the need to deliver value on
a significant capital improvement program,
and a local joint venture ownership structure
that would see equity partners expecting a
business performance turnaround.
The new Managing Director had established
an executive team that brought a fresh
perspective to the business, which had
manufacturing and national distribution
operations in Australia and New Zealand.
The MD now wished to review the
overall leadership bench strength of the
organisation to ensure it had the capability
to deliver on the strategic business
objectives, including an aggressive growth
agenda.
Workforce solution
The organisation’s Executive Manager-
Human Resources had already identified
the key leadership capabilities required as
part of the strategic planning process, and
now wished to engage an external partner
to design and implement an approach
for conducting a leadership capability
assessment exercise to give a picture of the
individual and overall levels of capability
in the senior leadership group (n=45) for
the organisation. This information would
allow for more effective planning of talent
development strategies for the business.
The key leadership capabilities for the
business were:
• Own the strategy
• Drive results
• Build outstanding teams
• Embrace change
Right Management was successful in
winning a competitive process through its
proposal to use a multi-faceted assessment
approach that would look at the dimensions
of leadership potential and performance.
The approach included:
Developing the assessment
approach
• Developing a bespoke 360o assessment
and feedback instrument based
on capabilities drawn from Right
Management’s leadership capability
library. Right Management worked with
members of the Executive Group to map
the relevant Leadership Capabilities
to the specific strategic leadership
requirements of the organisation. (see
Reference 1.1: Right Management leader
capabilities library).
• The 14 capabilities were built into an
online 360o assessment tool that would
provide results for the ‘Performance’
element of the leadership capability
assessment.
Client Reference Story

A Note about potential
As important as it is for an organisation to
be able to measure and identify potential,
it is equally critical that the organisation
be clear on its definition of what potential
means. In this case, the term was used
to define potential alignment and fit
with the leadership requirements of
senior roles in this organisation. Other
organisations might take an approach
that more strongly aligns with a definition
around potential to progress to roles
at a higher level in the organisation.
Different definitions will require different
assessment approaches.
• An assessment approach for measuring
leadership ‘potential’ was developed
by mapping a combination of elements
of personality and cognitive ability,
using SHL’s Occupational Personality
Questionnaire (OPQ), and verbal,
numerical and inductive reasoning
assessment tools.
• Developing an individual assessment
report that integrated results from the
different assessment tools into an overall
picture of leadership performance and
potential for each member of the senior
leadership group.
Results feedback
Right Management consultants conducted
a 1.5hr assessment feedback session
with each individual to provide an insight
into the results of the 360o, cognitive and
personality tests and identify initial areas of
development focus.
Consultants also met with members of the
Executive Group to provide an overview of
the individual results and team profile for
each Executive’s leadership team.
Executive review
Right Management developed an overall
report of the leadership capability
assessment exercise and presented this to
the Executive Group in a 2 hour briefing
session that covered:
• Overall strengths and areas for
development in Performance and
Potential across the leadership capability
areas
• Differences in results across the four
leadership capabilities and across each
business unit
• A consolidated, comparative mapping of
all individual performance and potential
Reference 1.1 Right Management leader capabilities library
Strategy Domain
Building organisational capability, business and financial management, coalition/
relationship building, customer focus, entrepreneurial, global awareness, innovation/R
& D, market expansion, market penetration, market savvy, planning, risk taking, sets
goals and expectations, strategic business development (sales planning), strategic focus,
strategy execution, visioning
People Domain
Building teams and teamwork, builds trust, coaching, commitment, communication,
cross-cultural savvy, delegation, developing organisational talent, inclusiveness,
inspirational leadership, integrity, managing conflict, negotiation, networking,
organisational sensitivity, partnering, professional adaptability, resilience, self-development
Execution
Account management (sales), agility/flexibility, continuous improvement, decision
making, facilitating change, fosters accountability, judgement, learning agility, managing
performance, monitoring, personal accountability/achievement oriented, persuasion
and influence, problem solving, providing recognition, results orientation, technical
excellence, tenacity

Reference 1.2 Overview of leadership capability assessment results
Leadership
Manager 33
Manager 38
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
results for the whole senior leadership
group and for each business unit. (see
Reference 1.2)
• Interpretation of the leadership and
business implications of the results
from an outside perspective – drawing
on Right Management consultant’s
extensive experience in conducting
leadership capability and development
exercise across a wide range of industries
and organisations. This included
recommendations that
o Confirmed the importance of the
focus on performance and capability
— Maintaining a focus on individual
performance
— Ensuring risks through capability
gaps do not emerge
— Considering opportunities to move
talent across the business
o Identified priority areas of
development for current talent
— Individual development planning
based on 360o feedback
Manager 41
— Developing a consistent
performance management
approach for the SLT
(accountabilities, skills, systems)
Manager 24
Manager 1
o Suggested priorities for recruitment
— Drive results, build outstanding
teams
Results and outcomes
Following the presentation of the cohort
results, the Executive Group were themselves
interested in gaining greater understating
of their own leadership capabilities.
Right Management was again asked by
the organisation to undertake the 360o
assessment process with each Executive
Group member. The assessment capabilities
were re-mapped to confirm the common,
and different, leadership requirements at the
strategic leadership level.
The Senior Leadership capability assessment
exercise subsequently formed the basis of a
talent and capability planning activity led by
the Executive Manager-Human Resources.
This exercise required each member of
the Executive Group to present an overall
Manager 2
Manager 3
Manager 4
Manager 5
Manager 6
Manager 7
Manager 8
Manager 9
Manager 10
Manager 11
Manager 12
Manager 13
Manager 14
Manager 15
Manager 16
Manager 17
Manager 18
Manager 19
Manager 20
Manager 21
Manager 22
Manager 23
Manager 25
Manager 26
Manager 27
Manager 28
Manager 30
Manager 31
Manager 32
Manager 34
Manager 35
Manager 36
Manager 39
Manager 40
Manager 42
Manager 43
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Potential (Percentile Rank)
Performance (Percentile Rank)

analysis of the talent capability for his or her
group, and a plan for developing capability
to cover key role and succession risks.
Individual participants in the process
continue to undertake development
activities aligned with areas identified
through the individual assessment reports.
For the organisation, progress against the
overall talent development plans is reported
regularly to Executive Group colleagues as
the business continues to plot its progress
towards achieving performance turnaround.
Meanwhile, the managing director has a
clear picture of the leadership capabilities
he has that will support him and the
organisation in confirming the value of the
business to its ownership partners.
Nick Grage-Perry
Principal Consultant
Melbourne, Australia
Cyrus Cavina
Account Director
Dr. Colin Couzin-Wood
Senior Consultant

Client Reference Story
Organization transition from
replacement planning to
succession management
A structured process to institutionalizing
high potential development
Indian organizations today have come a long way from just being led by
the promoter. The new age savvy and progressive promoters are just not
looking at building an enterprise that is growing and sustainable, but also
the organization that is world class and has a pipeline of home grown
leaders who can further build, strengthen and foster the organization’s
growth.
Organization context
One such experience for Right Management
India has been on our journey with India’s
leading auto component companies.
Known in the industry for its strict quality
regime, interaction with customers and an
eye on emerging needs, the organization
has carved a niche to cater to some of the
world’s leading automotive manufacturers.
On the strength of their experience and the
depth of their technological expertise, the
organization has now geared up to launch
themselves on the high growth global
circuit.
The focus on high potential
need – the next level of
growth
As it continues on its journey for high
growth in the next five years, it is imperative
that the organization looks at various
facets of growth and focuses on aspects
that will harness such growth and ensure its
sustenance.
In its attempt to ensure that the growth is
holistic, fast paced, customer centric and
above all sustainable, the management of
the company decided to look at the ‘People
Readiness’ of the organization to ensure that
the organization and its leadership is geared
to meet the business needs.
For this critical initiative, organization
partnered with Right Management to build a
structured and systematic approach towards
pipeline building and adopt a matured
process for workforce planning, which
would focus to transition from being a mere
replacement hiring for key positions to a
systematic process for succession planning
for critical roles, building talent pipeline for
key roles for the near future and ensuring
the process of succession management gets
institutionalized in the organization.

HiPo process
A very detailed step by step process was
followed to ensure that each stage of HiPo
identification, notification, developing and
focusing on expected returns was taken into
consideration. Let’s understand each of the
stages in greater detail.



Identification of HiPo:
A very robust process was adopted for
identification of high potentials. We
obtained data from multiple sources to
provide a holistic insight on each individual.
The key data points were:
- Personal data on background, tenure,
qualification etc.(as shared by Internal
HR)
- Performance evaluation data for last
three years (as shared by Internal HR)
- Leadership confidence on the individual
(based on one on one discussion with
Reporting manager)
- Personality data (based on psychometric
tool i.e. Birkman)
- Potential data (based on one day
development center for each individual)
- Perception (based on 360 feedback)
- Technical ability
- Career aspiration (based on career
aspiration survey)
Mapping of HiPo to possible
future roles
On the basis of the above data, we
have mapped the talent pool for all the
critical roles in the organization as either
successors or potential talent.
• Successors are employees identified
within the system who are fairly ready
or can be made ready to take on the
role with no additional inputs to focused
Reference 2.1 Comprehensive employee data
Reference 2.2 Possible roles the person
can be groomed for

Reference 2.3 Success of succession
planning
E
E
E
E
I
I
I
developmental inputs. They would be
ready to take up the next role in less
than three years’ time.
• Potential talent is seen as an employee
having potential to grow in the long
term. Can be mapped to critical roles but
would need to be supported by focused
developmental interventions. They would
be ready to take up next role beyond
three years’ timeframe.
Individualized HiPo talent development
plan:
For each HiPo talent, we created an
individualized development plan basis the
identified roles and his/her development
gap areas. This development plan was
done in joint discussion with the Reporting
Manager of the HiPo talent.
Development interventions: broad
interventions which are common across
the HiPo talent.
Post creation of individualized development
interventions, Right Management collated
the data and identified broad interventions
which are common across the HiPo talent.
There were multiple interventions identified
which could be run either internally
or through external support. Their
development interventions are under the
4E development approach adapted from
the corporate leadership council research
on best practices for leader development.
The ideal mix of development should be
comprised of 25% education, 25% exposure
Mapping of each HiPo to development intervention was based
on the premise that the intervention would meet his/her specific
developmental needs
Executive coaching
To have focused individualized
development to
1. Developmental for future- build
perspective for future role
2. Developmental for current role
– build additional capabilities
/skills to perform better in
current role
3. Remedial - work on
individualized behavioral
challenges which could be
potential de-railers
Action learning project
To provide exposure to the team in
1. Handling projects outside their
comfort zone
2. Developing a larger business
perspective
3. Developing competence
amongst individuals and
teams in problem-solving and
decision-making
Mentoring
People do very specialized work
and a lot of domain knowledge
does not get transferred. The
intervention is
1. To build capability so that
the mentees can acquire the
technical skills
2. To eliminate the indispensability
of critical role holder to ensure
Business As Usual doesn’t get
impacted
3. To build bandwidth in the
organization to ensure current
role holders can take on larger
roles in the future
4. To lay the foundation for the
culture of mentoring to make
it a sustainable system in the
organization

most organizations start this journey, not all
are able to achieve the results. In case of
this organization, one of the most important
success factors for implementing this
initiative has been the sponsorship of the
MD and the senior leadership. Ability of the
MD and the leadership to treat this as one of
the most important priority items – by giving
it due importance and allocating time and
leadership attention, has ensured that the
initiatives were successfully implemented
and the focus continues.
But as it’s said – ‘To improve is to change; to
be perfect is to change often’; this is just the
start of the real journey.
Chaitali Mukherjee
Divya Jain
AVP - Consulting Services
India
Shruti Dhupia
Program Manager
India
and 50% experience along with a measure
of effectiveness.
The above interventions are being rolled out
and the organization has commenced the
journey to develop the leaders for tomorrow.
The way forward
For the organization, this is just the start of
its journey of building high quality leaders,
who are able to add greater value in their
current roles, manage larger and more
complex roles in the organization and
most importantly build cross functional
capabilities so as to build multiple leaders in
the organization who can work across roles
in the organization.
Most importantly, the organization by
implementing the succession management
process on an annual basis will be able to
ensure that increasingly going forward the
organization transitions from buying talent
completely to achieving the right balance
between buying and building talent.
The winning proposition
Almost all organizations plan to make
the transition from being an organization
completely dependent on buying talent
from the external market to progressively
building talent within the organization to
meet its current and future needs. While

Feature Interview - Leader Speak
LEADER
SPEAK
In a candid heart to heart conversation with one of the industry
known figure, who has been a High Potential throughout his
career, Mr. Banmali Agrawala, President and CEO, GE South
Asia; share his own journey, his career highlights and what all
it has taken to be out there and doing what HiPos can do- for
themselves and for their organizations…
Sharing insights from his interview which HiPos of today will find
relevant and worthy of learning from the expert’s experience ….
RMI: If you go back to the time when you were identified as a HiPo, what
was the biggest impact on your professional life?
Banmali: First of all , If I kind of look back I am not sure if there was anyone who came and
told me explicitly that look you are a Hi-potential employee! This is of course about ancient
history when I started my career way back in 1984. At that point in time, the whole concept
of HiPo etc. was used in different way- It wasn’t so much about someone saying that you are
HiPo, but about the signals being given in terms of more responsibility- than what it could
be given to others, recognition by leaders in terms of being given the opportunity to speak
up, to represent the Organization in various forums and platforms etc. So I believe that
these were signs that stated in a certain way that I was being looked at more seriously as
compared to the others.
A HiPo journey in
his own words “
”
An interview conducted with Mr. Banmali Agrawala during
Right Management HiPo week 2014

When these signs came across towards me, the first reaction was that of acceleration- you
feel special & great, but at the same time, it also bordered on becoming arrogant and to get
a feel of superiority which then had to be corrected very quickly. And that was done in my
case and I would come to that in a while.
So these were all the moments and reactions when I realized that I was kind of picked out as
a HiPo.
RMI: What you think was or is the biggest impact on your personal life of
the same?
Banmali: The biggest impact would be, as I said, the feeling of recognition and that too at a
young age goes a long way in inspiring people and getting them to do better.
That was indeed satisfying that I am being valued for what I have been doing in the
organization and that was truly accelerating. I think the other thing it did was to infuse
a feeling to do more- how to use the opportunity to do something even bigger, to do
something even faster, contribute even more because there is a certain sense of expectation
that has been placed on my shoulder, I think I grew up and matured quicker as the
consequence of the confidence placed in me.
However, what it also meant that since I was pretty young as compared to my peers and I
was moving much faster and I am sure you would appreciate that in the Indian context and
in many other countries in Asia, Age is a very important criteria in leadership and if you are
a young leader or in a responsible position with a number of older people around, either as
your peers or as your subordinates, it requires you to be humble rather than wear my pride
on my shoulder. That’s a very typical Indian or Asian concept that I learnt to deal with, though
in a hard way but very quickly. So I believe these were some more changes that came about
as I got signals that I am on a fast track.
RMI: What do you think has been the factors that have motivated you the
most throughout your career and has kept you going?
Banmali: I’ll just pick 3 or 4 things to answer this question –First is your attitude, more than
anything else, more than qualification, more than training, skill or anything else. I think it’s
all about the right attitude and if the attitude is not right, I believe nothing can work. And
if the attitude is right, it would help develop all required things around the fundamental
foundation. We could keep debating whether you can change attitude overtime, whether you
can build it overtime etc. but the bottom-line is, I would say, that the attitude is single most
important criteria and if you kind of go deeper when you talk about attitude-what does
that mean, I think the first thing it would mean is humility, one needs to be humble

enough to understand that there is a lot that you don’t know, there are others who are better
than you ; and that you are indeed in a privileged position or fortunate enough to be in a
position that you are in. The second aspect of the right attitude is the willingness to
learn , I think one has to be extremely hungry and curious all the time and the more one
assumes that since I am in “the” position that I don’t need to learn or listen to anyone is the
beginning of the downfall. The third is willingness to take risk and specifically- to take
personal risk especially in the early age of one’s career. I think if one wants to move fast, if
one is identified as HiPo then I think you have to be willing to take risks. Risk I think benefits
us in many ways, risk of taking new jobs- new assignments, relocating to new locations/
new cities- for all these are elements one should be very willing to embrace.
In my case, I don’t even remember how much I have moved around while being at Wartsila,
when the opportunity to move to Finland came my way, I didn’t hesitated at all to say yes
to it and that wasn’t an easy choice as Finland is not one of the easy countries to work in
and to live in- given the climate conditions etc.; and I think that decision paid back to me
so many times because I was flexible enough in accepting that risk and accepting that
challenge.
Finally I believe it is one of the most important aspects as sooner or later everybody would
have a partner in life- so I believe the role of a partner in life is extremely important and
useful and when I talk about attitude, just to acknowledge the fact that in your success, your
partner is paying a price- is needed to be very well understood and appreciated. In my case ,
when I was living in Finland and even otherwise, when I was always busy in work , it was my
wife who was taking care of my children, bearing the brunt of everything and without her
support it would have been impossible for me to do whatever I was doing and have done
so far. It was not that she was not capable or qualified of going out and doing something,
some work etc. But the point I am making is that the role of a partner becomes extremely
important and would like to conclude this answer with this point that if we want to correlate
HiPo with some kind of success, I think it’s important to know and I would like to put like it
that “The price that one pays for the success is, more often than not, the family” and I think
as long as one is sensitive towards that from an attitude perspective, one is well grounded.
RMI: Would you like to highlight one thing that you did differently in your
journey of being a HiPo and it helped you in a positive way?
Banmali: While I was in Wartsila, there was one member in my team who use to handle
projects, he used to report into me, and his son was of the same age as I was – so you can
just imagine the dynamics of such a situation where you have such a fairly wide gap in age.
The way I handled that was - I was extremely respectful for this gentleman, for his age and
for his experience and I made sure that I made this message loud and clearly visible around
the organization, in return what I got was great acceptance by this gentleman, he committed
himself to delivering to our joint success, he displayed trust and respect towards me which I
think was necessary for a fantastic relationship between two of us and it worked very well.
When I came to GE, the first shock I got was that from being the youngest in the team, I was
the oldest and that was an eye opener for me- to accept young leaders with myself on the
other side of table now, was a new lesson that I learnt at GE. So handling the age difference
both ways is a challenge and I think it has to be handled with care and sensitivity.
RMI: Among the various companies you have worked with, have the formal
or informal HiPo identification, notification process & development been a
norm?
Banmali: Let me consider my organizations one by one- First was Wartsila, where we
did not have a formal process of identifying HiPo candidates, but I think it was giving the
promising talent an opportunity, so identification and development happened in an informal
way as opposed to a formal process.
In the Tata’s as you know they do have a system called Tata Administrative Services System

where they select people and these are the people who find their way into various
managerial positions across the Tata group.
In GE of course we have a very robust and systematic process of identifying HiPo candidates.
We may or may not share the information with the candidates themselves, depending
on the case, but I think we certainly have a highly mature system that works beautifully
for developing our HiPos. So among the three, I would say in GE is the organization that
identifies and nurtures talent in perhaps the most phenomenal way.
RMI: Specific to GE India / South Asia what have you seen is the biggest
benefit for the business from the HiPo interventions that have been
implemented
Banmali: The biggest benefit business clearly has is that you always have a constant
pipeline of leaders. One thing that is constant with organizations like GE is that you will
always have people who will move on and leave GE- because they are well trained people
and have a market value that is extremely high. We at GE are cognizant of the fact that we
will have this kind of problem all the time and since we are the leadership fountainhead for
global industry, it follows that we got to be prepared to handle this situation and therefore
we must have a constant pipeline of available leaders at any given point of time, to fill in
any openings that come up. One of the outcomes of our HiPo framework is that we have a
constant pipeline that runs extremely deep into the organization. So we are never ever short
of leaders.
The second benefit is that it gives the younger talent more responsibility even when they are
not 100% ready- my experience tells me that at least 8 times out of 10 they come out better
so the reward for the organization is much more than the risk! Further, as a consequence of
the confidence organization puts in its HiPos, the confidence level that you see in such HiPo
people is amazing and we have young effective leaders across the organization dealing with
huge and critical responsibilities.
Hence I can say that by establishing such effective process the company has benefitted in
great deals.
RMI: How to manage work and life, can we have it all in our journey of
being a HiPo?
Banmali: I wish I had an answer to this question of work life balance that would fit
everyone’s life and journey of being a HiPo. But I believe that each one of us has to find our

own answer, make our own peace with ourselves. As long as we don’t take our partners for
granted you will find an answer. The mistake we normally make is to take what we have for
granted. You need to assure the partner and family around and then simply just play along
whatever you choose to do specially in your journey of leadership excellence.
Chaitali Mukherjee
About Mr. Banmali Agrawala
Mr. Banmali Agrawala
President and CEO
GE-South Asia
Divya Jain
AVP - Consulting Services
India
Banmali Agrawala is the President and CEO for GE South Asia and is
responsible for all of GE’s operations in the Region. A veteran in the Energy
domain, Banmali has over 29 years of global experience. He has served in
several senior leadership roles in the Wartsila Group and in The Tata Power
Group. He is acknowledged in the industry to have built and led successful
teams that have driven business growth globally.
In his previous role at Tata Power, Banmali served as a Member of the
Board of Directors and the Executive Director – Strategy and Business
Development. He was also nominated to the Board of other Tata Group
Companies and joint ventures.
Prior to Tata Power, Banmali was with the Wartsila Group for over twenty one
years and at the time of leaving the Group, he was the Managing Director
of Wartsila India Limited and a member of Wartsila Global Power Plant
Management Board.
An active member of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Banmali
has held several official positions within CII such as Chairman of the Western
Regional Council, an elected Member of the National Council, Chairman of
the National Committee on Power and Chairman of the Maharashtra State
Council.
Banmali is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from the Mangalore University
and is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program of the
Harvard Business School.
As told to:

LEADER
DEVELOPMENT
Leadership Pipeline
Development
Leader Coaching™
Succession Management
Performance Management
ORGANIZATIONAL
EFFECTIVENESS
Strategy Implementation
Strategic Workforce Alignment
Change Management
Right Management’s Talent and
Career Management Capability
WORKFORCE TRANSITION
& OUTPLACEMENT
Outplacement
Redeployment
Career Decision
Career Development
LEADER
DEVELOPMENT
TALENT
ASSESSMENT
EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT
Strategic Communications
Planning
Workforce Engagement
and Retention Strategies
Wellness and Productivity
Management
TALENT
ASSESSMENT
Competency Modeling
Organizational Assessment
Team Assessment
Individual Assessment
TALENT AND CAREER
MANAGEMENT
ORGANIZATIONAL
EFFECTIVENESS
EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT
WORKFORCE

Right Quarterly 2nd edition 2014: Succession Planning

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Tendances

Tendances (20)

Similaire à Right Quarterly 2nd edition 2014: Succession Planning

Similaire à Right Quarterly 2nd edition 2014: Succession Planning (20)

Dernier

Dernier (20)

Right Quarterly 2nd edition 2014: Succession Planning