Aubyn Hill
JUST AS I do not believe in a job description (remember it's a limiting, not an empowering, document), I find that the concept of a career path tends to act as an initiative blocker. Rather than encouraging initiative and innovation on the part of the employee who is suited out with his or her career path plan, it almost invariably encourages a noticeable measure of lethargy and even false superiority. I share the Jack Welch belief that in a dynamic company dealing with a fast moving marketplace and operating in a globalised world, the concept of a career path being prepared by the company for any group of employees is, at best, a very hollow promise.
The best employees in a company are usually carving out their own career path by their excellent performance on the job, by working to create opportunities for their company and themselves. It is wrong to promise any single employee a job in the future. The future is too unpredictable and the opportunities for the company to find a better person than the one we now know for that job in the future are too great for any such promise to be made. Maybe the best approach is to ensure that three or four candidates are vying for the same position when a senior executive moves on. The company will then have the chance of picking the best candidate of that group for moving up to the higher position. While they are jockeying for the promotion, their performance has to be good, especially if they are monitored and measured by a well thought-out system and by a fair and balanced senior executive, or better yet, a group of executives or the board.
PATERNALISM DOES NOT WORK
The idea of the company preparing a career path for a group of its employees, or even a single employee, smacks of paternalism. Quite possibly, the moment the company puts the final touches on the career path, circumstances will have changed making the plan obsolete. It is far better for the company to ensure that there are sufficient opportunities and substantial content in each job function to ensure that its employees are stretched. The career path approach puts the company in a position of picking winners from its employees.
A more effective approach is to give all the firm's staff an open chance to excel at their pace and their capacity. The person to be promoted can then be chosen based on his or her performance and promise. In an era when employees, the best ones, are always seeking to educate themselves from a plethora of sources - both inside and outside the organisation - to give themselves the best chances of success, they hardly need a school-teacher approach to planning their careers. Paternalism simply won't work in this day and age.
The dynamism and the momentum of activities in any company these days invariably require senior executives or supervisors, who are the supposed mentors and marshals of the employees on corporate paths, to move about within the company - and sometimes across geographic locations - with fair regularity. The constant movement of these executives will disturb the career path plans and breed discord and disharmony among the people who are on these career paths. Furthermore, the career path approach will tend to lull the employees on these plans into a false sense of certainty that doesn't really exist in companies or in the marketplace anymore.
DEPENDENCE ON PATERNALISM
The career path, instead of fostering managerial strength and the ability to handle risks, encourages a dependence on a paternalistic hand to help carve out success. Employees often face discontent and disappointment when circumstances in the company force the firm to change the plans for those who are on set career paths. Companies are better off when they allow the competitive forces and a clash of employees' skills and experience to forge career paths of these individuals. The paternalistic career path approach is a source of false hope - at best.
Aubyn Hill is managing partner of Corporate Strategies Limited, a restructuring and financial advisory firm. Respond to: writerhill@gmail.com
