structure the project to achieve the program’s dual goals.
A London managing director originally from the country being considered quickly takes us through the business case for pushing into the market:
the regulatory situation, the economic
growth picture, the possible first-mover
advantages. During his pitch, my mind
is already on which people I could assign to the project: a brilliant trader
who needs international experience, a
technology whiz who could assess the
country’s infrastructure. I’ll continue
mulling over the possibilities for the
next few days, weighing both macro issues (what’s right for Goldman Sachs?)
and individuals’ development needs
(what’s the right way to give that young
private equity expert needed experience
in the financing business?).
Action-learning projects like this one
are among the numerous leadership-enhancement programs for senior ex-
sive response to the firm’s overall human capital needs?
I do, though, get the chance to interact face-to-face with the talent that is
the focus of our strategic work. For example, we have a program, called Encore,
that targets Wall Street professionals
who’ve taken time off from their careers
for personal reasons, such as the birth of
a baby or an illness in the family. One
afternoon I find myself in our executive dining room playing a Wall Street
power version of speed dating, moving
from table to table around the room trying to match the talents and interests
of dozens of accomplished professionals,
such as derivatives experts and pharmaceutical industry equity analysts, with
Lehman Brothers’ needs. (It’s like being
back on the trading floor, but matching
“bids” and “asks” for people rather than
securities.) The program, launched in
2005 and now widely copied by other
firms, offers a previously overlooked
My job is very cool. It mashes
together psychology, organizational
behavior, and hard-core finance.
ecutives that we use to simultaneously
meet individual development and overall business goals. Not all the initiatives
achieve this perfect blend, of course, but
several have yielded new lines of business and notable cost savings.
A year later, I have moved to Lehman
Brothers, where I’m one of two VPs in
the firm’s brand-new Human Capital
Management Strategy group. I spend
much of my time on analytic work in
front of a computer, evaluating where
the firm is in its deployment of talent
and designing new programs to get
us where we need to be. Is our pipeline of seasoned managers sufficient
in a particular function? Could a non-compensation-based reward system improve performance in another? Do our
individual programs constitute a cohe-
pool of talent – people with nonlinear
career paths – an effective on-ramp back
into the financial services field while significantly reducing our recruiting costs
and enhancing our “employer brand.”
Encore has been rolled out globally,
and it is just one of a whole tapestry of
programs – related to recruiting, mobility, wellness, work-life balance, and other
issues – designed to get the right people
in the right seats and to help them be as
productive as possible.
My job is one of the coolest I can
imagine. It mashes together three things
I find endlessly interesting – psychology,
organizational behavior, and hard-core
finance. What’s more, only a few years
out of business school, I have seen decision making at the very highest levels at
two major firms.
Matthew’s Story
Months of hard work are on the line
at Genesis Park, the global leadership-development program at Pricewater-houseCoopers. The full-time, five-month
program demands that participants immediately apply newly acquired leadership and strategy skills to high-priority
projects – in this case, analyzing whether
the firm should enter a potentially high-growth new business. And this action-learning team of seven – representing
six countries and PwC’s three main businesses – is deadlocked over what plan
of action to recommend. A former consultant, I am tempted to vault over the
table and get the job done myself. But as
a senior manager at Genesis Park, that
isn’t my role. I’m supposed to equip others to make things happen – to facilitate
innovation, not dictate my point of view.
Once I resist the urge to take over, I’m
able to help the team members step back
a bit. They’ve spent months assessing every angle of this opportunity, meeting
with top people at the firm and external experts. They’ve worked to adopt an
enterprisewide perspective that trumps
the interests of their individual groups.
Now comes what’s supposed to be the
fun part: delivering a creative solution,
not just talking about it. Refocused on
what originally energized them, they
come up with compelling recommendations that are received favorably at the
highest levels of PwC and that help challenge conventional wisdom and drive innovation at the firm.
No less important an outcome is that
these seven individuals should be able
to replicate their success and act as catalysts for change as they assume leadership roles at PwC and for years thereafter– which highlights yet another
benefit. Because Genesis Park alumni
bring back to their day jobs influential
global networks of peers and top executives that would be hard to replicate at
other firms, the program serves not only
as a leadership-development engine and
an incubator of new ideas but also as a
powerful means of retaining the firm’s
most prized talent.
