Wednesday, November 28, 2012

LEADERSHIP SPECIAL...Coca Cola Shakes up Its Leadership Attributes


Coca Cola Shakes up Its Leadership Attributes 

The company is evolving its competencies in keeping with the change in ecosystem

Beverage-maker Coca Cola is turning over a new leaf in leadership and talent development. After a reshuffle of its operations that takes effect from January 2013, the soft drinks company is shaking up its leadership behaviours and attributes. “We are revisiting our competencies, which have been in place for five years. We have identified the leadership attributes for the future and are now in the process of reconfirming them with the organisation,” Stevens J Sainte-Rose, group director, human resources for Coca Cola Eurasia and Africa Group, who was in India early this month, tells Saumya Bhattacharya. Excerpts from an interview:
What prompted the change in leadership traits?
Revising leadership competencies is a normal way of doing business. Consumers are always changing, as is your environment. What you required for success five years ago may not be what you need to be successful in the future. So, over three to five years, you need to make sure the things you are driving into your leaders are relevant to the environment and the future. For instance, five years ago, the operations leader needed to make sure he was aligned with his bottler, was commercially oriented and understood how to grow his revenue. This is still very important. But as we reassess or evolve the competencies, we are learning that the ecosystem where our general manager operates, has a lot more stakeholders to support and partner. You have to inspire not-for-profit organisations and public-private partnerships; work with the government and social organisations. The whole area of sustainability — how do you make sure you are growing your market in a sustainable way and within that, grow your business – was not there, or as relevant five to six years ago. Now that is the standard way of doing business. So that has to be built into the leadership behaviours.
What stage is change in leadership process at?
We are currently in the process of confirming it with our chairman and his leadership team. The great news is that it is coming at a time when we have effected the organisational change.
A change in leadership traits will also mean changes in the way the company develops and attracts talent…
The reality is, we are not just the concentrate business anymore. We are more holistic than ever before. And now as we have organised ourselves, we are looking at how to develop our talent across the enterprise. This will help us not just create end-to-end value chain talent, but also share talent globally. Globally, our talent attrition is 10%-15% and some years, we get down to a 5% turnover, which we don’t think is too healthy because we want to bring in fresh perspective. It’s not about attrition. It is about development and attracting talent.
How do you plan to attract talent?
What we have learned is that the brand is attractive. What we are also learning is, in the past, we used to put up the Coca Cola sign and every body would flock to the table. To a certain degree they still do, but that’s not enough. We have to provide more tangible ways for people to develop their careers and themselves. How can they leverage the company to give back to the community? There is a four-part strategy to attract talent: compensation; benefits that are customised; training and development – how do we develop people to advance their careers, with or without us. We would rather they stay with us. The last piece is around culture: how do we create an environment where people can have fun and work, learn and contribute.
How do you get the diversity piece right? What are the catalysts?
Our goal is to have 50% women at the leadership level by 2020. Right now, we are at 25% . But it is not about the numbers, it is about creating conditions and an environment that allows everybody to compete fairly. Our major focus is around the conditions that create balance and a fair environment for women. It’s not about putting a woman in a role for the sake of putting her there, but it is about creating an environment that allows a woman to compete fairly for a role.
saumya.bhattacharyaET121123



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