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— -- Investing in our future leaders
Money for investment isn't the scarce resource in business anymore; human ability is, writes Fortune's Geoff Colvin in the October issue.
That's why many companies are devoting increasing attention and investment in leadership development, Colvin reports in "Leader Machines," the kickoff article in a package on corporate leadership.
Fortune teamed with Hewitt and RBL Group to study how companies around the world are developing leaders and which are doing it best.
From that research, Colvin writes, nine practices emerged that combine to create world-class leadership development.
One of the most important: a serious investment of time by the CEO and other executives. General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt personally reviews the development of GE's top 600 executives.
Giving up-and-comers broad experience builds better leaders, too, but corporate divisions may suffer when strong managers move to other assignments after 18 to 24 months. Eli Lilly is one of many companies that's trying to get the benefits of job rotation while leaving leaders in place. How? Through short-term work assignments. Managers stay on their jobs but take on an additional assignment outside their field of expertise or interest.
Creating a culture where frankness is expected also is necessary, American Express CEO Ken Chenault says in an interview.
"What's increasingly clear is that when you are open to a discussion of leadership, and you're relating it to your company, it is much easier to get people to become open."
Giving designers their due
Find out why design remains a hot business topic in the October issue of Fast Company, with its fourth-annual Masters of Design feature. Yves Béhar, the Swiss-born designer whose picture is on the cover, is one of the state-of-the-art designers profiled. He's been hired by, among others, Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson to shake up their current design work.
Béhar and another profilee, Philippe Starck, design beautiful and useful products, while challenging the corporate orthodoxy of the companies they work with. (Starck also designs hotels and restaurants.) Bob Greenberg of R/GA makes groundbreaking interactive advertising for Nike and others.
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