Haig R. Nalbantian

Richard A. Guzzo

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">The Idea in Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
 Rotating up-and-coming leaders through functions and units can sharpen their general management skills. Mobility can also spawn unexpected problems.
 For example, if managers change assignments too quickly, they don’t learn from decisions they made in previous roles. Core operations suffer. Frequent relocations can also be expensive.
 To get the most from managerial mobility, ensure it supports your company’s priorities.
 Ask:
 <ul>
 <li>What kind? Different types of moves suit different developmental needs. For instance, switching business units develops managers’ corporate-level leadership skills.</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>For whom? Will you support mobility only for select high-potentials? Or for anyone interested?</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>How much? How long should managers stay in each position? What percentage of talent should move in a given year? How many moves will give managers the desired knowledge?</li>
 </ul>
 The Idea in Practice
 <h2>Crafting a Mobility Strategy</h2>
 To extract maximum value from mobility, ask:
 What kind of mobility? Match moves to your company’s developmental needs. For example:
 <ul>
 <li>To broaden managers’ global business knowledge, have them move internationally without changing position or business group.</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>To build managers’ ability to lead a particular business unit, have them change functions within that unit.</li>
 </ul>
 Mobility for whom? Consider two types of mobility:
 <ul>
 <li>Sponsored mobility: Design mobile assignments only for high-potentials. This works best if you can identify and retain managers once they’ve experienced several rotations.</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>Contest mobility: Open internal transfers to all managers competing for promotion. Consider this approach if you’re confident its competitive nature won’t undercut cooperation among candidates.</li>
 </ul>
 In large companies, a formal sponsored-mobility approach can coexist with a less-formal contest-mobility program.
 How much mobility? Ask:
 <ul>
 <li>How much time in each position is needed to gain the benefits? (Your answer suggests how many moves a managers should make during any career interval.)</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>How many international moves will impart the cultural wisdom a manager needs to lead a global firm?</li>
 </ul>
 <ul>
 <li>How many business units does a candidate for corporate leadership require exposure to?</li>
 </ul>
 <h2>Gathering Data for Mobility Decisions</h2>
 Once you’ve answered these questions, determine what (if any) changes would improve your current mobility approach. Use this process:
 1. Describe your current state. What role does mobility now play in your enterprise? Find out how many moves of each type managers are making, how long people have stayed in each position, and what these rotations cost. Break out the facts by business line, geography, and workforce segment. Example:&nbsp; 
 When Corning performed this analysis, it realized it had less mobility than it thought. It increased mobility rates between divisions while preserving high rates within divisions, to develop more leaders with broad experience. 
 2. Assess the impact. Gauge the positive and negative consequences of your current mobility approach—for individual managers and your company. Example:&nbsp; 
 A media company paid high salaries and offered high mobility to graduates of elite business schools. Then it discovered they didn’t perform any better than other employees. And they were 25% more likely to leave. 
 3. Model future states. Play out scenarios that might result from specific changes to your mobility approach. For instance, use simulations to gauge possible outcomes if you increased lateral mobility among your middle managers or restricted mobility to reduce costs.
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief>Best-practice thinking in leadership development embraces mobility for managers: Rotate your up-and-comers through various functions and units and you’ll give them a chance to round out their skills and prepare for general management.

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Reprint: R0903F
Rotate up-and-comers through various functions, business units, and locations, conventional wisdom suggests, and you&#8217;ll give them a chance to round out their skills and prepare for general management. However, mobility as a leadership development strategy can go wrong in many ways. It can disrupt operations and undermine accountability, demoralize managers who don&#8217;t get to change roles, and cost a lot to implement. Perhaps worst of all, it can become an end in itself, causing other strategic and operational aims to get lost in the shuffle.
Mobility can be an excellent development tool when companies use it wisely&#8212;as Marriott International, Corning, and UnitedHealth Group have done. The authors cite these successes and several failures, and offer a framework for solving the mobility equation in a way that&#8217;s right for your organization.
Developing an appropriate mobility strategy entails answering three questions: What kind of mobility? Mobility for whom? And how much mobility? Your answers will depend on your company&#8217;s circumstances and overarching objectives. For instance, to figure out what kind, you&#8217;ll need to consider that changing a manager&#8217;s function within a unit may help that person acquire the knowledge and skills to run that unit one day, whereas switching someone to a different unit may help develop broader leadership capabilities. To decide for whom, you can try &#8220;sponsored mobility,&#8221; which means directing investments toward a chosen few individuals; &#8220;contest mobility,&#8221; which means opening up opportunities to many; or a combination of the two. The approach you choose will depend partly on how robust a system you already have for identifying and retaining high potentials. Finally, to determine how much, you&#8217;ll need a solid fix on which areas of the enterprise require the developmental benefits of mobility. Targeted analysis will show the likely impact on retention, promotions over time, and operational efficiency.

Making Mobility Matter

Reprint: R0903F Rotate up-and-comers through various functions, business units, and locations, conventional wisdom suggests, and you’ll give them a chance to round out their skills and prepare for general management. However, mobility as a leadership development strategy can go wrong in many ways. It can disrupt operations and undermine accountability, demoralize managers who don’t get to change roles, and cost a lot to implement. Perhaps worst of all, it can become an end in itself, causing other strategic and operational aims to get lost in the shuffle. Mobility can be an excellent development tool when companies use it wisely—as Marriott International, Corning, and UnitedHealth Group have done. The authors cite these successes and several failures, and offer a framework for solving the mobility equation in a way that’s right for your organization. Developing an appropriate mobility strategy entails answering three questions: What kind of mobility? Mobility for whom? And how much mobility? Your answers will depend on your company’s circumstances and overarching objectives. For instance, to figure out what kind, you’ll need to consider that changing a manager’s function within a unit may help that person acquire the knowledge and skills to run that unit one day, whereas switching someone to a different unit may help develop broader leadership capabilities. To decide for whom, you can try “sponsored mobility,” which means directing investments toward a chosen few individuals; “contest mobility,” which means opening up opportunities to many; or a combination of the two. The approach you choose will depend partly on how robust a system you already have for identifying and retaining high potentials. Finally, to determine how much, you’ll need a solid fix on which areas of the enterprise require the developmental benefits of mobility. Targeted analysis will show the likely impact on retention, promotions over time, and operational efficiency.

Making Mobility Matter

Summary.

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