Is your organisation ready for the future?

In nature, those species that are best prepared for change tend to survive and the same is true in the world of business; over the last twenty years seemingly unassailable organisations have become shadows of their former selves because they were unready or unable to adapt.

One way in which organisations can prepare for change is by increasing the strength of their future leadership team, but in Hong Kong and China only 15% of organisations report that they have an ample leadership pipeline.

Most research indicates that individuals promoted from within the organisation tend to do better than talent drafted in from outside but leadership development takes time. Many organisations are paying the price of having neglected development in the past by finding they have a lack of "ready now" leaders prepared for the future.

If you're worried about how ready your organisation is, there are three questions you should ask yourself – or your HR team – to make sure you are on the right track.

Are we developing the right people?
How do you identify the future leaders in your organisation? Too often, potential is confused with performance. It's an easy mistake to make – after all, all high potential individuals are also high performers.

However, the opposite is not the case: in fact, only about 20% of high performers can be considered as high potential. To identify future leadership potential, you need to have a clear understanding of what to measure – the skills, experience, knowledge, and personal attributes your future leaders need – and an objective way of measuring these things.

Past or current performance is only one of a number of potential measures and relying purely on the perspective of existing leaders can produce an unreliable picture.

You also have to consider the availability of your development initiatives. In Hong Kong/China less than one-third of surveyed employers actively target their development opportunities. While making development open to all may seem like a positive, egalitarian approach to take, it can often undermine the value of development initiatives, especially to high potentials.

Once you've identified the right people, a degree of exclusivity in their development can be a valuable asset.

Are we developing the right competencies?
Choosing the right people means understanding what it takes to lead in your organisation – what capabilities, knowledge, personal attributes, and experience do your leaders need? But an often overlooked question is, how current is our understanding of these things?

Many organisations use competency frameworks and it's certainly a beneficial approach – we recommend it. But having a competency framework isn't a benefit if that framework is out of date. The competencies that were required to lead in your organisation five years ago probably will not be the same competencies needed five years from now.

Assess and develop the capabilities you believe you'll need in the future, not the ones you needed in the past or that you need now.

Are we developing the right way?
Too often, organisations don't look beyond training as a way of developing future leaders. There's much value that can be gained from sending people on the right workshop but developing high potentials doesn't end there. Workshop-based learning is only one of a number of different ways in which your future leaders can learn.

Here in Hong Kong, we're better at this than other places in the world – 59% of employers surveyed in Hong Kong/China named executive coaching as their top development initiative but consider also other more practically-oriented approaches such as Action Learning, on-the-job assignments, and mentoring as additions to your development program.

Research indicates that these approaches will provide much more tailored and beneficial development than a one-size-fits-all workshop, meaning your future leaders get a much richer education and you get a greater return on your development investment.

When it comes to maintaining a leadership pipeline, one of the biggest challenges organisations find is that of retaining their talent, particularly in a job market as fluid as Hong Kong’s.

Making sure that you're developing the right people, in the right capabilities, in the right way will go a long way towards ensuring they stay with you – and lead your organisation into the future, rather than leaving it in their past.