Grow Your Own Leaders: How to Identify, Develop, and Retain Leadership Talent »

WILLIAM C. BYHAM, Ph.D. is Chairman and CEO of Development Dimensions International (DDI), a leading-edge Human Resources consultancy that specializes in the identification and development of leadership talent. He co-founded DDI in 1970, and has worked with hundreds of the world's largest organizations relative to executive assessment, executive development, and succession management. His work on executive succession has been featured in Fortune, the Los Angeles Times, and many other leading publications.

Byham is co-author of Zapp! The Lightning of Empowerment, a groundbreaking book on empowerment that has sold more than 4.5 million copies since its 1988 publication. He has co-authored 18 other books, including seminal books on the assessment center method, which established the effectiveness of assessment centers as a method of executive selection and development-needs diagnosis. His best-selling business book HeroZ—Empower Yourself, Your Co-Workers, and Your Company offers step-by-step techniques for making meaningful decisions, measuring progress, and working effectively in teams.

AUDREY B. SMITH, Ph.D. is consulting vice president of the Staffing and Assessment Consulting group and Executive Succession Management group at DDI. In this role, she directs the activities of consulting teams that deliver executive development and succession management consulting services and leadership assessment center technology. Her work has focused on the design, implementation, and validation of Acceleration Pool systems; selection systems, including executive team reengineering applications; development assessment; and executive coaching. She has workedwith many clients throughout the world, including General Motors, Northern Telecom, BMW, PPG Industries, the U.S. Postal Service, Steelcase, Whirlpool, the United Nations, United Airlines, Toyota, and Unisys Corporation. Before joining DDI, Dr. Smith worked for Rockwell International as a training and management development specialist.

MATTHEW J. PAESE, Ph.D. is manager and practice leader of DDI's Executive Development practice and is responsible for designing executive coaching, selection, development, and succession management systems that align with clients' strategic objectives. He has designed executive selection and development systems for General Motors, Steelcase, and Cisco Systems; and has consulted on executive succession throughout the pharmaceutical, health care, manufacturing, financial, and service industries. He formerly served as an internal HR consultant for the Anheuser-Busch Companies.

Acceleration pools: a new method of succession management.

Your organization's success is defined by one factor: the quality of your leaders. But developing great leaders has never been tougher. Now, drawing on experience with over 1,600 organizations, three renowned leadership consultants show exactly how to identify tomorrow's best leaders within your organization, accelerate their development and deployment, and maximize their value to your organization.

Comprehensive and practical, Grow Your Own Leaders covers every phase of executive development and succession, introducing high-impact, no-bureaucracy techniques that work. You'll discover how to align executive development with corporate strategy; how to take full advantage of short-term assignments, professional coaching, and other new approaches; and how to ensure accountability and measure results.

Yesterday's rigid, static executive succession programs have become a key obstacle to success. Grow Your Own Leaders introduces a flexible, high-speed approach designed for tomorrow's companies in tomorrow's marketplace-and shows you exactly how to implement it, from start to finish.

* The crisis of executive leadership—and why conventional solutions don't work

Effective leadership has never been more crucial-or in shorter supply

* Best practices for identifying "high potentials" in your own organization

Why you should focus internally—and how to identify outstanding leaders who aren't "bubbling to the top"

* "Acceleration Pools": bringing new flexibility to executive succession

Breakthrough executive development techniques that reflect therealities of today's organizations

* Delivering leaders fast, to meet tomorrow's challenges—whatever they are

When opportunity knocks, will you have leaders ready to take advantage of it?

* From assessment to results: translating diagnosis into action

Individualized executive development that delivers on the promise you've identified

* 4 ways to turbocharge executive growth—and minimize HR bureaucracy

High-impact solutions that require fewer forms, and fewer meetings!

Turbocharge executive development in your organization!

• Identify tomorrow's best leaders—within your own organization
• Develop potential leaders more quickly and effectively than ever before
• Gain leadership flexibility for addressing any new business challenge—immediately
• Align your executive development programs to support your strategic objectives
• Transform yesterday's executive succession systems to support today's flat, fast-changing organizations

Today, virtually every enterprise faces a profound leadership crisis-and the speed of business has far outstripped yesterday's succession planning systems. In Grow Your Own Leaders, three world-renowned experts introduce an entirely new approach for identifying tomorrow's leaders within your own organization. Using DDI's breakthrough Acceleration Pool techniques, you'll groom new leaders faster than ever—and discover how to deploy them immediately, to address new challenges wherever they emerge.

Drawing on their experience developing executive succession programs for companies ranging from GM to Steelcase, the authors cover every aspect of leadership development and succession planning. You'll learn how to identify what kind of executives your organization will need, then diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of your "high potential" candidates, and master four powerful strategies for accelerating executive development.

From roles and processes to metrics and accountability, Grow Your Own Leaders is the only guide to enterprise leadership that reflects today's business realities. No matter how fast your organization or marketplace evolves, this book will help you identify, develop, and retain the executive talent you need to win.

"Grow Your Own Leaders is the greatest book on the subject of development of current and future leaders that I have ever read."

John Lankford
Senior Director of Learning and Development
Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.

"Grow Your Own Leaders should become a required reading for all Human Resource professionals."

Bob Parks
Director of Recruiting
Eli Lilly and Company

"Grow Your Own Leaders provides a timely and much needed new approach to succession management that resolves the issues with traditional succession management methods. Acceleration Pools provides the flexibility to identify our leadership talent, development and retain that talent, and create much needed leadership bench strength imperative for our future success."

Sam Heltman
Senior Vice President
Administration
Toyota Manufacturing North America, Inc.

"The timeliness and appeal of Grow Your Own Leaders resonates well. It addresses a critical aspect of organization process essential to meet challenges companies continue to face in dealing with the War for Talent."

Tim Walker (& Danielle Walker)
Director of The Center for Leadership Development
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

"This book is a useful, easy-to-use, practical book that does NOT dwell on academic theory. I love your book because it is IMMEDIATELY USEFUL and will help me to influence leaders in my company in a concise and what's-in-it-for-them fashion."

Antigoni Mallen
Succession Planning and Executive Development
AT&T Wireless Services

"I believe Grow Your Own Leaders represents the 'best in class' on the topic of succession management, and will no doubt become a new management classic. Bravo!"

Stephen R. Miller
Corporate Training Manager
The Sherwin-Williams Company

"Grow Your Own Leaders is a delightful gem! In an hour, I had read enough to know that this is the most practical and comprehensive approach to leadership development out there. It incorporates what I already know to be best practices, but now they're connected into a whole picture I can explain and use."

Deborah M. Morris
Business Performance Consultant
Nortel Networks

"Many books have been written on great leaders and leadership qualities, but Grow Your Own Leaders offers actionable advice on identifying and developing leaders within your organization. At Vanguard, we employ the practices and programs detailed in this book to cultivate high potential talent for the good of our company and clients."

Stephen J. Marshall
Principal
Corporate Division
The Vanguard Group

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

An organization's success is often defined by the quality of its leaders, so learning how to identify, develop and retain leadership talent is extremely important. Grow Your Own Leaders delivers a practical plan to help companies align executive development with corporate strategy, ensure accountability and measure results. The authors also explain how companies can identify outstanding leaders who are not working at their greatest potential. Copyright (c) 2002 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

I. LEADERSHIP TALENT: CRISIS AND PROPOSED SOLUTION

1. The Growing Leadership Shortage: Building the Case for Acceleration Pools
2. Acceleration Pools: The Basics
3. Seventeen Reasons Acceleration Pools Work
4. Acceleration Pools: Fundamental Questions and Rationale

II. IDENTIFYING HIGH POTENTIALS

5. Identifying High Potentials

III. UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL TALENT

6. Defining the Executive of the Future
7. Diagnosing Strengths and Development Needs
8. Understanding and Prioritizing Development Needs

IV. STRATEGIES FOR ACCELERATING DEVELOPMENT

9. Development Options
10. Growth through Assignments
11. Growth through Short-Term Experiences
12. Growth through Training/Executive Education
13. Growth through Professional Coaching

V. ENSURING ACCELERATION POOL SUCCESS: KEY PROCESSES, ROLES/ACCOUNTABILITIES, MEETINGS, AND OTHER MECHANICS

14. Key Partners: Supporting Growth
15. Optimizing Your Talent Review Discussion
16. The Role of the CEO and Measures of Acceleration Pool Success
17. Getting Started
References
Glossary
Acknowledgements
About Development Dimensions International
About the Authors
Other Books from DDI
Index