As summer continues, many sports fans turn their attention to Major League Baseball. Professional baseball features highly trained, uniquely talented and richly compensated athletes performing under powerful pressure and scrutiny. In this intensely competitive environment, teams must constantly select and develop the best players or they risk being left behind. In order to maintain a deep bench of talent, major league teams use a system of minor league baseball. Minor leagues are known as the "farm system" because of a joke passed around by major league players in the 1930s, when the system was formalized, and teams in small towns began "growing players down on the farm like corn." Many years later, the minor league system still follows its original charter of developing players ready to play in the majors on demand.
While the construction industry is similarly dependent on great talent, very few companies have a "farm system" in place to supply future leaders. One of the keys to building a great organization is putting systems in place that develop, retain and motivate the next generation of leadership. Clear career paths, coaching and mentoring, high-potential development programs and structured succession plans are just some of the approaches to building a deep talent pipeline. While these systems ensure consistency and rigor, there is no substitute for deep and genuine commitment of current leaders who recognize that developing their successors is critical to the future of the business. This issue of the Leadership e-News examines the leadership competency of developing talent.
Ron Magnus
Delegation: A Win-Win Strategy
Tim Tokarczyk
Leaders today face the challenge of having to do more and more with less and less time: achieve better results, take on additional responsibility, develop people and stay on top of the constantly changing environment. Leaders are asked to do all this and more while remaining upbeat and positive.
It comes as no surprise, then, that many leaders, on occasion, feel a bit overworked or overwhelmed. In fact, the sheer volume of their daily tasks can be enough to frustrate some leaders into not knowing where to begin. Leaders in the construction industry have many tools at their disposal to aid them with even the most-challenging circumstances. One of the most useful, but underutilized, tools is delegation.
Delegation is a valuable, yet often underused, leadership tool. It reduces the leader’s workload
while also empowering others to take on a greater leadership role.
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Developing Leaders: Interstates Companies
Tom Alafat
FMI’s Tom Alafat interviews Erik Hoekstra and Scott Peterson from Interstates Companies to glean how they develop leaders within their companies. Their story includes overcoming the challenge of suddenly losing their CEO to unforeseen medical issues. Fortunately, they began the process of leader development several years prior to their tragic loss, and they were able to fill the vacuum created by the loss of their leader. Since that time, Scott and Erik have emerged as leaders in their companies as well as become faculty members at FMI’s Leadership Institute.
*Please note, this interview was conducted in 2005 and information for interview participants may have changed. For current contact information for interview participants, please contact Tom Alafat.
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