How a Strong Bench Can Help You Avoid a Crisis

In sports, having a strong bench loaded with talented players ready to take the field or the court at a minute's notice is often the difference between winning and losing. One has only to look at the success of the Boston Celtics teams in the 1960's, when future hall-of-fame player John Havlicek was the first one off the bench, to see the truth of this. The same is true for business. If you do not have a strong bench of employees who are prepared to take on additional responsibilities when needed, your business could be in serious jeopardy.

So here is the crucial question: How strong is your bench?

Do you have employees who are ready to move up, ready to take on more responsibility if the call came tomorrow? Or is your business in the same position as so many others: overly dependent on the loyalty and longevity of its current managers with no one ready to take over when a management slot opens.

If you do not pay attention to your bench strength now you are endangering the future of your company. A weak bench can be a problem at any time, putting a business in serious jeopardy when a manager leaves the business. The lost opportunities and added work and expense of training a new manager on the fly put a significant strain on the business.

Right now we are entering a period where a weak bench may be the factor that keeps some businesses from realizing their potential. Three trends are coming together now to make bench strength a vital concern to the future of a business.

The Weak Economy Reduced Investments in Training and Development

It may not be the smartest strategy, but saving money on training and development during a down economy is certainly common. Many managers believe that training is an expense and a business has to cut expenses in order to stay afloat in rough seas. I happen to believe that slow periods are the best times to increase professional training efforts but I know mine is a voice in the wilderness on this issue. Those who fail to prepare for the future when they have the time to do so often find they lack the time to keep up when the future arrives.

The problem is that any business that has reduced its investment in training probably has a weak bench. Employees who have the native potential to move into management soon need the chance to develop good problem-solving skills and to improve on their communication or interpersonal skills. Most importantly, these promising employees need to be given the chance to broaden their understanding of how the business works through cross-training activities.

An Improving Economy Will Encourage Costly Turnover

It appears that we are entering an upward trend in the business cycle. This will give many businesses great opportunities for growth in sales, expansion of facilities, and the introduction of new products and services. These businesses will be prepared to take advantage of all opportunities.

If your bench strength is weak, the coming upswing in business will make you vulnerable to turnover as ambitious employees look around for the best opportunities. This will be the case especially for young and upwardly-mobile employees in the lower ranges of your management team. As this turnover occurs, any business that is prepared with well-trained replacements will be able to maintain its forward momentum. The rest will fail to keep up with the surging pack among their competition.

Aging Employee Population Will Lead to More Management Turnover

Baby-boom era employees who are starting to think more seriously about setting themselves up for retirement will also be prime candidates for turnover. With the popularity of portable 401-K plans and other employee-managed retirement funds, job-hopping to improve one's retirement portfolio will soon become a huge issue.

Any business that is managed primarily by baby-boomers is going to be highly vulnerable to this pressure. Think about it: managers with ten or twenty years of experience hold an extraordinary amount of knowledge about how a business works and about the industry within which it operates. Can any business afford to lose this expertise? A certain amount of turnover in this age group is inevitable. The pivotal factor will be the capability of a business to bring a smart and energetic younger person into each management slot that opens up due to turnover.

Here is a powerful and simple exercise to bring the potential impact of this situation into perspective. Take a few minutes to think about your management team, from bottom to top. Now list the top-performing quarter of the management team. Try to estimate how much profit you stand to lose if half of these managers were to leave the company this year. What will be the costs in lost opportunities, reduced employee productivity, reduced sales, weakened cost controls, or added customer dissatisfaction? That estimate gives you an idea of the value of your bench. A strong bench would keep these costs to a minimum.

The question bears repeating: how good is your bench strength? If you suspect that your bench is weak, it's not too late to do something about it. But what can you do?

The recipe for improving bench strength is simple:

• Identify potential leaders
• Cross train these promising employees so they know all aspects of the business.
• Provide frequent opportunities for leadership development on the job.

Your best potential leaders are those who fit best within your business culture. As you look for people to consider for management positions or for increased management responsibility, look first at their cultural fit and then at such traits as intelligence, experience, judgment, and talent.

A strong business leader knows the whole business. It's unfortunate but fairly common to see a talented marketing leader or brilliant financial manager being moved into a CEO position. Only rarely do these stars turn out to be effective CEOs because they lack broad experience within the business. The more effective approach is to make sure that all promising employees get broad experience so that they are fully ready when the call comes to move up in the ranks.

Formal leadership development programs that take place off-site almost never have lasting effect. Instead, what makes a good business leader is getting practical experience in making decisions, learning from mistakes, and learning how to work with others to meet a common goal.

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