More often than not, new blood brings with it a fresh ap-
proach and new ideas, and so fix-its, slack areas, resistant per-
sonnel, may all be galvanized by the deployment of a young
executive with the authority to lead, not merely manage.
In the same way, if there’s a new venture in the works—
whether it’s an entire new division, a new product, a new ser-
vice, or a new marketing campaign—aspiring leaders should at
the very least be included on the team, and at best put in
charge. The venture will benefit from their fresh perspective
and they will learn from the experience of creating something
from the ground up.
Robert Townsend, the iconoclastic leader who turned Avis
around in the 1960s, was a great believer in executives knowing
the business from the ground up, and from the customers’
point of view. Every Avis executive was required to don the Avis
red jacket and work at the company checkout stations regularly.
Similarly, the great German composer-conductor Gustav
Mahler required every member of his symphony orchestra to
sit out in the audience at regular intervals to see how it sounded
and looked from the audience’s point of view. Clifton Wharton,
former Chairman and CEO of TIAA-CREF, the world’s largest
pension plan, said, “You can spot people with potential as
they’re coming up the ranks. It’s important to nurture that po-
tential and help bring it along. There’s no obvious consistency
in personality types or models. But there are underlying simi-
larities, one of which is having almost a sixth sense about how
to make things work. Some people just seem to know, to have a
grasp, and the ability to provide vision. They have the commit-
ment and enthusiasm necessary to bring things about.”
Job rotation is another means of affording would-be leaders
an opportunity to learn more about the organization as well as
Organizations Can Help—or Hinder