Both mainstream and technology media often portray CEOs as glorified heroes. But as far as I’m concerned, the real heroes are the managers who discovered and nurtured these people so that they had the chance to become the leaders we know and (at least in this case) respect. Here are some names you will no doubt recognize, but perhaps there’s something about them that you didn’t know:
Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as the first business manager hired by Bill Gates, and he is now CEO of Microsoft.
Charlie Denson started out as an assistant manager at Nike’s first retail store in Portland, Oregon in 1979, and rose to the level of President, Nike Brand.
Howard Schultz began as a marketing manager at Starbucks and is now Chairman, President, and CEO of Starbucks.
Ursula M. Burns joined Xerox in 1980 as a mechanical engineering summer intern and is now Chairman and CEO of Xerox.
George Bodenheimer began his ESPN career as a driver in the mailroom just 16 months after the launch of the network and is now the Executive Chairman of ESPN.
Ellen Kullman joined DuPont in 1988 as a marketing manager and is now Chair of the Board and CEO of DuPont.
Gracia C. Martore joined Gannett in 1985 as an assistant treasurer and is now the current CEO of Gannett.
What do these seven people have in common? Aside from the fact that they are all tremendous success stories, if you look closely you’ll notice something else they share. Didn’t spot it? Okay, here it is.
These executives all spent 20+ years working their way up to executive positions in their current companies. Put another way, and equally impressive, these seven companies all identified, developed, promoted, and retained key talent over a 20- to 30-year period, and in the process created leaders who each learned the business from the ground up.
It’s hard to imagine working that many years at a single organization, particularly these days, and in fact job-hopping is happening all too frequently. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, people born towards the end of the baby boom will have held at least 11 jobs between the ages of 18-44. There are valid reasons to leave an employer, of course, especially if the employer in question isn’t going out of its way to value its employees.
Check out this employee turnover calculator. Churn is quite an expensive problem for organizations when you factor in the costs of rehiring, training, and waiting for new employees to ramp up and start being fully productive. Employees also face similar costs by job-hopping. In most cases, they have to manage the financial and often psychological costs of conducting a job search, and then they need to rebuild their networks and learn the ropes at their next company.
Retention seems to be the magic elixir that could remedy the problem on both sides. Employees will be more likely to stick around if they’re valued, and employers surely want talented employees to remain. So why, then, are companies failing at the one thing that could ensure their success? One reason could be they’re not focusing enough on their employees’ career paths. Or it could be that employers don’t take the time to find out if employees are passionate about the projects they’re working on.
What I often refer to as the “care and feeding” aspects of managing people are sometimes viewed as “soft skills” instead of being treated as vital, strategic functions of management. It’s no surprise, therefore, that so many employees are feeling disengaged—and it makes the above seven success stories all the more impressive and rare.
Somehow, these seven companies found a way to identify and keep their top performers. And remarkably, these seven executives chose to remain at their companies for decades. In fact, according to Booz & Company’s 12th Annual Global Study of worldwide CEO succession patterns, about 80% of new CEOs came from within their own companies in 2011. The study contains some other interesting findings worth noting here:
- Insider CEOs have consistently had a longer tenure than outsiders
- CEOs from outside the company were twice as likely to be forced out as insider CEOs between 2009-2011
- Insider CEOs perform better than outsiders, in part due to their “tribal knowledge” of their company and culture, as well as the strength of the internal relationships they’ve developed throughout their years in the company
Even if we’re not all headed to the executive penthouse, there are a couple of takeaways we can all relate to. First, be nice to everyone on your way up, as the old saying goes. Second, recycle—20 years amounts to an awful lot of paperclips. Just saying.
Image credit: PublicDomainPictures
A version of my post was originally published on the UpMo blog.
