Rapid Organizational Change

CHAPTER 9Perpetual Leadership Bench

Many CEOs in Japan, of both Japanese and non‐Japanese companies, complain about a dearth of leadership bench in their organization, despite a plethora of managers with the right titles. However, most often the objection to internal candidates for leadership is a lack of confidence in a candidate's willingness or ability to help in the execution of a significant organizational change that the CEO is leading. If this assessment is accurate, then promoting a manager into such a position only creates or enlarges refraction in the organization.

For example, the CEO of one company once told me, “The problem is I don't think any of my senior executives are ready for a COO position. Each of them is wedded to an old way of doing things, and has resisted change up to now. In the case of my sales director, he feels committed to our traditional customers and views selling into new markets with new business models as a betrayal. I cannot have such thinking among the senior leadership if we are to succeed with our new strategy.”

In previous chapters, I have discussed how refraction layers and the associated dearth of leadership bench is often a result of years of seniority‐based promotion and lifetime employment practices. Removing these practices helps improve organizational capabilities in general, including leadership capability. Yet it is also possible to accelerate cultivation of leadership bench through other practices. An ample pool of leadership ...