IBM's Asean human resources director Angeline Oh and Procter and Gamble (P&G) Thailand's customer business development director Mohammed Faheem discuss the factors in their firms' being ranked as "The Best Companies for Leaders 2009" by human-resources consultancy Hewitt Associates. The Nation's Pichaya Changsorn reports.
Addressing a conference held late last month by Hewitt Associates in which a panel of judges selected by the consultancy chose "The Best Companies for Leaders 2009", Faheem said Procter and gamble staff were driven by P&G's "Purpose Statement", which aims to achieve growth through "touching lives and improving lives" of more and more consumers. The consumer-goods giant has also thrived, Faheem said, thanks to its "promote from within" human-resources policy: at least 95 per cent of "P&Gers" are recruited internally.
Hence, P&G has a policy to hire the best people at entry level globally, and has invested a huge amount in developing its employees. Joining P&G, he said, was like "getting married": it's a long-term commitment.
However, while there are many advantages to be derived from the "promote from within policy" - particularly in the areas of staff capabilities, continuity, corporate culture, careers, community involvement and commitment - on the negative side, Faheem said, staff can potentially become internally focused, arrogant and prone to making "soft calls".
P&G chief executives past and present have clearly stated that they valued staff as the most important asset of the company. P&Gers' "success drivers", Faheem said, include possessing a strong mind - or what it is known in the firm as "power minds"; "power agility", defined as the ability to embrace change; and being "power people", or those who have a set of competencies such as the abilities to collaborate and lead.
Regarding talent management, P&G has opted to fill strategic positions with high-potential and high-performing staff. The company grooms future leaders for destination jobs by taking advantage of its global structure to provide them with specific experiences, Faheem said. For example, an employee who has been identified as having the potential to become a company president in the future will have to pass through a position with profit-and-loss responsibility; take on a role with "country management" duties; and will be assigned to work outside his or her home country or region.
Faheem said the general concept of leadership was the same everywhere, though it might require different approaches in different locations, because people were motivated differently in different cultures.
"In Thailand, I have learnt it the hard way: Thais don't like to be pressured. You need to give people options, for them to choose and be inspired," said the P&G director.
Besides operational excellence, Faheem said he valued execution as the most important leadership competency because "it's the only strategy that consumers see".
IBM's Oh said her company had also used the "promote from within" policy in the past, but due to a shift in business strategy to growing more through mergers and acquisitions (during the last five years alone, IBM has acquired over 60 companies), it could no longer resort to the HR practice. Meanwhile, a shift from hardware to focus on service businesses has prompted Big Blue to recognise even more the important role of leadership development to its businesses.
At IBM, Oh said, "Leadership [development] has become more important. Because you can [no longer] depend on hardware, which if it's good, it sells [by itself]. You have to depend on leadership to build [service] businesses."
As at P&G, an IBM employee is rated, among other factors, on how successfully he or she can assist other staff in their development. "At IBM, if you can't [groom] your successors, you can't move [up]", she said. The company conducts an annual manager survey enabling staff to rate their bosses in term of leadership competencies, such as if they have helped develop staff, or if they are a good listener.
"Although managers don't like it [the survey], it's an effective tool because you [as a manger] share a commitment to improve," said the IBM director.
To develop its future leaders, IBM has embarked on a programme called "Corporate Service Corps", which brings together leadership training and volunteer work. The scheme takes requests from non-governmental organisations and matches them against a list of IBM volunteers, who are sent around the world to solve real-world problems. Through getting the chance to make a real-world impact and "save lives", the "IBMers" can realise the uses of their talents, Oh said. This year's CSC programme will see IBM dispatch selected staff to Vietnam and Poland to help develop road maps for building "smart cities".
Asked to share some of her personal leadership experiences, Oh talked frankly about a difficult decision she had made six years ago when she encountered a potential career competitor.
"He's really my competitor, because we both competed for a job," she recalled.
[But] I made him my buddy. I decided it made more sense [over the] long term to help him, [rather] than to 'kill' him. Because in the future, he could be my boss."
The decision proved to be a wise one, because the person was later promoted to an executive post and is tipped to become her boss, she said.
