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SHIFT OR DRIFT?
"Helping Leaders Transition into the Future" 
Every organization today is facing an impending challenge far more serious than any natural disaster or the past threat of Y2K. This challenge cannot be avoided, and it is far more subtle in its onset than any natural disaster. What is this organizational challenge?
It is the groundswell of baby boomer retirements about to begin, and extending over several years. This wave of retirements can deliver a body blow to the leadership structure of your organization. Its effects will reverberate throughout the organization for years if the transition is not managed well. This impending phenomenon demands every organization's attention to the challenge of succession planning. If your organization does not have an existing and implemented plan, now is the time to begin. "Bernie" Young & Associates, Inc. offers an efficient and effective approach to getting a leadership and managerial succession plan underway. This process allows you to:
Every management and supervisory position contains a cluster of three general skill sets: Functional, Adaptive, and Technical. Functional refers to the areas of finance, marketing, production, etc. Adaptive relates to "people skills" - interpersonal,  influencing, negotiating, communications & conflict resolution. Technical skills are those needed for the "nuts and bolts" aspects of daily enterprise operations.
The importance of these skills sets changes from one level of management to another. In moving to higher management and leadership levels, Functional skills increase in importance while Technical skills decrease. Adaptive skills are the exception. Over 85% of an individual's managerial and leadership effectiveness is attributable to Adaptive skills, regardless of position in the organization. The ability to assess these skill sets varies for several reasons. Both Functional and Technical skills are more readily observable. In addition, effectiveness in these areas is usually defined in organization-specific terms. While Adaptive skills may be more familiar to comprehend, they are much more elusive to assess. 
"Bernie" Young & Associates, Inc. can provide an objective and structured approach to the assessment of adaptive skills within your managerial and leadership ranks.
Through the use of a series of behavior assessments and processes, "Bernie" Young & Associates, Inc. can effectively help identify individuals currently within the organization who are capable of being developed to progress into key management and leadership roles. These behavioral assessment tools and processes will add value in identifying "fit" with a view to reducing the risk of promoting an individual who is unsuited to the role. Let "Bernie" Young & Associates, Inc. help your organization transition successfully into your future leadership. Call them at 727/864-4711 or Toll free at 888/876-9824. Or email "Bernie" Young, president of "Bernie" Young & Associates, Inc. at bernieyoung@bernieyoung.com. Don't face your organization's future challenge alone! 
Shift or Drift: Are You Ready to Transition Your Company’s Leadership? by "Bernie" Young The next several years will bring an unprecedented challenge to every organization. But unlike the muchheralded threat of “Y2K”, this event is not so specific. There is no “deadline” to motivate personnel and marshal resources. Its onset will go unnoticed, and may have begun already. This future unknown organizational crisis waiting in the wings began in 1946. Some 78 million babies were born in the United States between 1946 and 1964. While experts of the day were predicting continuing declines in the trend of national birthrates, just the opposite occurred. Fast forward half a century. The first of the boomers turned 50 on January 1, 1996. Since then about 11,500 people turn 50 every day. This translates to more than 4 million annually for the next several years. Moving further along the age scale reveals that nearly 6,000 Americans turn 65 every day. Six years from now, in 2012, the oldest boomers will turn 65. In less than 10 years nearly 10,000 boomers a day will be turning 65. According to the Government Accounting Office, some 76 million baby boomers will retire between 2008 and 2030. On the replacement side, only 48 million new workers will be available. This represents a replacement rate of only 63 percent. (For every 100 job openings, there will only be 63 people to fill these jobs.) To add further urgency, this lower replacement rate does not guarantee the same distribution of skills, abilities and knowledge being lost through retirements. A shortage of skilled labor will begin hitting many industries by 2008–2010. By 2010 The Bureau of Labor Statistics is forecasting an overall worker deficit of 10,033,000 in the US. Tampa Bay’s share will be 89,000. One tactic in dealing with this worker deficit is to “recycle” retirees. A Towers Perrin survey of 2,000 workers found that 78 percent want to continue working in some form beyond retirement. This recycling will present challenges and changes to an organization’s policies and procedures. In contrast to keeping staff through recycling is the attempt to “re-invent” the organization by achieving similar results with fewer workers. Another strategic challenge looms. A significant loss of organizational experience and knowledge will go out the door with the retiring boomers. Not all organizations knowledge resides in electronic databases. A frightening majority resides only in the minds of its people. The future thinking organization must “externalize” individuals’ experiences into coherent, usable forms for their successors. If this “knowledge capture” is not done as retirements mount, the organization will literally “lose its mind”. David DeLong in his book, Lost Knowledge, describes the situation at NASA: “In an era of cost-cutting and downsizing, the engineers who designed the huge Saturn 5 rocket… were encouraged to take early retirement… One NASA manager confessed, ‘If we want to go to the moon again, we’ll be starting from scratch because all of that knowledge has disappeared…’” Many articles are appearing in the media about these issues, but little is said about solutions. How is an organization supposed to “get off the dime and get on with its future”? The strategic factor is managerial leadership. (But this is a challenge to itself. It is good bet that many in managerial leadership roles are boomers themselves. So two issues emerge! Management must renew itself, and be the architects of the future organization. Managerial Leadership succession planning and selection is the key. How? 1) by Identifying potential talent, and 2) Developing that talent for advancement. Once identified, it will be imperative to engage the individual to the organization’s future direction and growth by engaging them through project assignments. Success at a relevant task is the fastest way to validate the existence of talent that will create the synergy needed to “Keep Good Talent”. Leadership succession planning and selection allows tomorrow’s leaders to deal “here and now” with these unprecedented challenges so that the organization can face the future from a position of strength. What you do now will determine whether your organization will… Shift or Drift? |
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