A few interesting points can be noted from the very interesting post by Dom Moorhouse: ‘Identifying and developing your senior leadership team | Five buckets‘. In this post, we will develop his thoughts about the senior management team. The post is specifically applicable to service companies such as consulting companies, but the concept can probably be applied to a wider range of businesses.
Dom Moorhouse states: “As a general rule-of-thumb – backed up by some tough lessons learned personally – I would strongly encourage you to develop your seniors, as feasible, from within your company as opposed to hiring from outside. The risk of external hiring grows the more senior the position.” The rational is that this practice is much less risky specifically on the critical issue of values alignment.
I would personally temper a bit this affirmation. It depends on the life phase of the business. If a transformation is required with an influx of new ideas from outside, hiring a senior executive from outside might be the right course. However it general it is quite right that it is preferable to hire from inside. Therefore, an active development and promotion scheme needs to be implemented to achieve this objective.
Have you thought in your business – if you are beyond the start-up phase, how you will identify and develop the future senior managers?
