separates the best companies, the best leaders, and the best programs
from the rest are often subtle nuances. It is the combination of little
things that amount to a very bigdifference in organizational life.
Over the past several years, we’ve embarked on a number of
studies to help us understand “best companies” around the world.
What makes them “best”? What do they do that distinguishes them
from the rest? As one piece of this larger body of work, we’ve
focused on understanding the best companies for leaders and what
they do that makes them so good. We surveyed hundreds of com-
panies and interviewed well over a hundred senior executives,
human resource leaders, and high potentials in some of the world’s
greatest companies, including IBM, Federal Express, Colgate-
Palmolive, Home Depot, Dell Computer, UPS, Southwest Air-
lines, and Honeywell International.
We learned a ton. What separates these great companies from
others in terms of developing leaders is clear and compelling.
Those results have been reported elsewhere.^2 We also uncovered
the “little” differences that somehow get lost in the tabulations
of practices and programs. Some of this nuance and subtlety is hard
to capture in words. The intensity, the feeling, or the collective
sixth sense that some leaders or cultures seem to have about what
matters when cannot be easily conveyed or depicted through
words.
This chapter is an attempt at capturing some of that subtlety.
With great humility after reading and editing this chapter several
times, we acknowledge that we still have not fully portrayed on
these pages what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard from some of
the best. Most of what great companies have is clear and effortlessly
described, but much is elusive. It is not something we can draw, nor
is it easily articulated. Like beauty, it’s something that is difficult to
explain but is easily recognized. We hope that we’ve captured
enough here so that it resonates with your experiences and provides
you with a glimpse of what we’ve seen.
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