Stanching the Boomer Bleed
October 07, 2008
By Sarah Boehle
With a Boomer exodus on the horizon, most companies are concerned with grooming talent to ascend to the highest echelons of their executive ranks before the first retirement wave hits. Two years ago, Microchip Technology Inc. took its preparations for the looming talent crunch a step further, when it launched the Strategic Management Development Program (SMDP).
Designed from the ground up by Microchip directors and VPs, the SMDP was created to ensure that candidates will be at the ready to backfill VP-level roles when the company's current crop of VPs begin ascending up the ranks.
Training recently spoke with Microchip Senior Manager of Organizational Development Suzanne Harbster about the program, its impact, and her tips for success.
Training: What, specifically, does the SMDP entail?
Harbster: The program focuses on real-time Microchip-specific cases that are handpicked based on their value to the company and its customers. These cases provide SMDP participants with the cross-functional and global teamwork experience they need to develop into executive-level strategic thinkers. They also provide Microchip’s top management team with recommendations to consider for action.
During the yearlong program, participants from around the world meet once every two weeks via conference call to work on the cases and develop recommendations. At the end of each quarter, they take the research and data they’ve gathered and put everything together to craft a proposal that they present to our executive team.
Throughout the entire process, our executive team works closely with SMDP participants to guide them through their case work. For example, our execs attend meetings to answer questions, provide input, and to explain "big picture" trends and issues regarding finance, marketing, sales, engineering, manufacturing, and global dynamics. Frequent presentations from diverse managers within the company also allow team members to study each case from a "systems" perspective.
Training: What tips can you share with others who are interested in implementing something similar?
Harbster:
• Manage expectations. In the beginning, we were somewhat concerned about creating the expectation among participants that program admittance automatically translated into a promotion. So prior to launch, we provided the managers of those chosen to participate with a talking points document that they used to introduce the program and manage expectations.
• Close the feedback loop. When participants invest a lot of time and energy into working on business issues and coming up with potential solutions, they have a strong desire to know which of their ideas are being acted upon. After the first round of SMDP case presentations, I don't think we did as good of a job as we could have in communicating those outcomes to participants. After the second case presentation, however, we put a lot of effort into closing the feedback loop and keeping participants informed.
• Broaden your search. To pinpoint potential candidates, we asked each of our senior leaders to nominate candidates who worked both inside and outside of the senior leader's own functional silo. Doing so helped us to pinpoint candidates with a proven ability to work cross-functionally. We also didn't allow anyone to be admitted to the program unless he or she was nominated by at least two members of our senior leadership team. This helped to ensure that some level of consensus existed regarding who our strongest candidates were.
• Don't expect them to do it all. Our SMDP participants have a lot going on with their regular jobs, so we couldn't expect them to handle program logistics on top of everything else. To make things easier for them, we established a set day and time to meet every two weeks and we appointed a facilitator from the training department to document meeting minutes and create a list of action items after each call. That sense of structure was crucial to keeping everyone on track.
Microchip Technology Inc. is a microcontroller and analog semiconductor manufacturer with headquarters in Chandler, Ariz. In 2008, it placed 93rd on Training magazine’s Top 125 list, an annual ranking of organizations that excel at human capital development.
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