Ready for growth, but short of talent?

• Author: Reese, Charles D., Jr.
• Position: Corporate governance

If your company is in a growth mode again, here are some hiring, development, and succession guidelines for rebuilding your 'bench strength.'

We notice a few companies in certain industries continuing to scale down their work forces, but it otherwise seems clear that the relentless purging of middle management in manufacturing industries over the past 15 years has about run its course.

Most of us would also have to agree that the financial results of this approach have been very positive. The visible harvest of these aggressive reductions (aided, to be sure, by diminished union activity, vastly improved systems, real emphasis on global strategy, and other management practice improvements) has been the dramatic gains in profitability we see reported almost every day.

However, the astute manager should consider a few longer-term, contrarian patterns beginning to emerge: notably, that as American manufacturing industries become leaner, meaner and more competitive on world markets, the business environment surrounding those industries changes as a direct consequence. For example, more demands are placed on business resources, particularly human ones, than those resources can comfortably support. On the plus side, alternative markets, previously out of reach, become logical targets of opportunity. In short, "downsizing" brought about its own demise by reviving the opportunity and, in many instances, the need for growth and growth planning - concepts these industries haven't heard much about in recent years.

While there will always be some indications of economic flat spots ahead, I think most business people would agree that, overall, the "worm" has turned once again. After what has been a long dry spell, corporate emphasis is getting back to growth planning. Even now, a growth-oriented atmosphere seems to be overtaking the "survival" mentality of the recent past, and quite a few industrial manufacturers can realistically plan for expansion to meet longer-term profit opportunities.

Questionable Assumptions

If that kind of "sea change" has really arrived, and we think it has, the following assumptions that have become holy writ over the past dozen years must also change:

* "Manpower planning means staying as close to the bone as possible." Let us all keep in mind that the survival organization everyone has worked so hard to achieve is just that - an inherently temporary group designed to get you through the next year or so. There is precious little flexibility in such organizations and typically one finds large age-bracket and skill-level gaps.

* "We'll cross the management succession bridge when we get there. We're in no position to do anything else...