Kate Mulqueen, Ph.D.      
Consulting For Human Resources       
Organizational Development & Training

Kate researches and writes about many topics. Take a look at the excerpts from her work. If you have more questions or would like the full article sent to you, please do not hesitate to call Kate or e-mail her.

1. On Strategic Planning
2. On Leadership
3. On Succession Planning

On Strategic Planning

Issue
The strategic problem facing Amazon.com centers on how the company can continue to attract new customers, utilize its extensive customer data base in ways that are innovative, profitable and protective of the customer's privacy while warding off copycat competitors selling books on the Internet.

Analysis
Using Hamel and Prahalad's Five Core Competency Management tasks of: Identifying core competencies, establishing a core competency agenda, building, deploying and protecting the core competencies, Amazon has taken several bold steps towards securing its future place in the world of e-commerce. (See pg. 2, figure 1.)

Amazon has identified it's core competencies as: customer convenience and accessibility, massive selection, personalized service, quality of the site content, quality of its search tools and price.

Using the Core Competency Agenda (see pg. 2, figure 2,) Amazon is using its competencies in every portion of the matrix, except one. They are building competencies in the new markets of on-line auctions, electronics, greeting cards and customization of customer needs; They are developing new core competencies in the new markets of e-commerce by financially allying themselves with internet technology companies such as Exchange.com, Accept.com and Alexa.com, which are developing tools for the Internet marketplace. They are continuing to leverage and grow their existing core competencies by expanding the services and selections they offer readers, music listeners and game players. The company is not currently shedding any obsolete competencies and may not be at the place in their growth cycle to have any currently obsolete competencies.

Building Core Competencies continues to be a tactic for Amazon. Although Jeff Bezos is not involved in the day to day operations of the company since he has turned the operations over to Joseph Galli, he continues to be a stable part of Amazon's management team in looking for new opportunities and technologies to invest in.

Deploying Competencies is currently being done through overseas expansion efforts of distribution centers in Kansas, Germany, Kentucky and the United Kingdom. Amazon continues to customize services for its shoppers through it's Eyes Only feature that suggests titles and availability

"Robert Abboud was once fired from the top slot in a Chicago bank. He went to work for Armand Hammer and was fired again. Then he moved to Texas and became CEO of the First National Bankcorp. When asked how he could account for his success, after all that failure, he cited an exchange on the 'The Andy Griffith Show' that summed it up: Barney, Andy's deputy, asked Andy how one acquired good judgment. Andy said he guessed it came from experience. Barney asked how you got experience. Andy said, "You get kicked around a little bit." Abboud shrugged and said, "I got kicked around a little bit." (Bennis, l994).

Says Barbara Corday, television producer: "When Tri-Star and Columbia merged, they woke up the next day with two presidents of their two television divisions, and so one of us had to go. It turned out to be me. It's been three months-the longest period of time I've gone without working in twenty-five years. It's been a real learning experience, a real time of change and reflection, and I think I'm really getting ready to plunge back in again." (Bennis, 1994).

Everyone who leads others will face failure in their lifetime. It could be the failure in losing the lives of others, in being asked to leave a position of high power or in making a poor decision that costs billions of dollars. It could be the failure of parenthood, marriage, friendships or that nagging feeling that we didn't live up to our own expectations. Mistakes are both inevitable and eventual. What separates everyday leaders from truly great leaders is the capacity to learn through failure and thereby produce opportunity and success from it.

On Succession Planning

The purpose of this paper is to define the term, succession planning; explain the process; enumerate the benefits an organization derives; examine lessons learned in implementation and provide forms and models in appendices and a literature search.

Succession Planning is defined as an organization's systematic process of identifying, managing, developing and retaining talented individuals in order to fill key leadership positions and to meet key strategic business objectives. The process of SP varies by organization and business initiatives, but all processes have a guiding corporate philosophy, a high-level officer to champion SP, a direct link to the business plan, a list of criteria or competencies for candidate selection, a tie in with training, some way to evaluate individuals and developmental plans to build skills, knowledge and experience.

SP benefits include leadership continuity; enhanced employee retention skills; morale and commitment; improved strategic HR planning; and increased opportunities for both the organization and the high potential employee.

In implementing SP, organizations have learned important lessons that we can learn from: staffing, training and compensation are all linked to the SP process, use an advisory group of line managers who design and administer the process, keep it simple and paper-free, implementing SP is a culture change and takes time and organizational energy, clearly define what the process will be prior to roll-out, hold someone directly accountable for the process and its implementation.

In summary, just as electric lines, generation plants, repair trucks and buildings are corporate resources, so are a company's people. That asset can be utilized with planning, foresight and follow-through-or underutilized and wasted. SP is just one strategic tool for use with the human resource.