Using Experience to Develop Leadership Talent

How Organizations Leverage On-the-Job Development

Cynthia D. McCauley, Morgan W. McCall, Jr.

• Publisher: Pfeiffer
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781118767832
• eBook ISBN: 9781118767870
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

How organizations can effectively put experience at the center of the development process

Research increasingly and conclusively shows that effective leaders continue to learn, grow, and change throughout their careers and that a significant part of this development occurs through on-the-job experiences. Co-Published by the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology and sponsored by the Center for Creative Leadership, Using Experience to Develop Leadership Talent provides real-world strategies, best practices, lessons learned, and global perspectives on how organizations effectively use experience to develop talent.

• Provides an in-depth look at a variety of leader development initiatives that have taken up the challenge of putting experience at the center of the development process
• Written by senior practitioners who have implemented initiatives they write about
• Shares new development planning tools, systematic approaches to managing the assignments of high potentials, tools to educate managers on how to find assignments that meet their employee's development needs
• Includes online resources that allow employees to search for development opportunities

Describing challenges and practices in multinational companies around the world, Using Experience to Develop Leadership Talent will serve as a focused guide to how organizations can use on-the-job development to reshape leader development practices that better integrate work and learning.

Section Three

Designing Job Experiences for Leader Development

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Project-Based Approach to Developing High-Potential Talent in the Tata Group

Aditya Ahuja, Radhakrishnan Nair, and Asma Bagash

TAS (formerly known as Tata Administrative Service) is the flagship leadership program for entry-level talent for the Tata Group, which includes more than one hundred operating companies. TAS is a unique group-level talent identification and development program that develops a cohort through project-based exposure, experiences, and learning. The TAS recruits are considered a group resource, and for the first five years of their careers with the group they are under the aegis of the group office. The first five years are segmented into three parts: one year of induction and projects followed by up to two two-year job assignments.

To understand the TAS program, it is necessary to understand the ethos and expanse of the Tata Group, the genesis and ethos of TAS, and the process of recruiting young talent into TAS. The partnership with group companies is essential to making the program a success and to continually improving the program to match current and future requirements of leadership.

Tata Group Ethos and Expanse

Humata, Hukhta, Hvarshta (Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds), the basic tenets of faith, are the seeds on which the Tata ethos was grown. These words not only grace the emblem of the Tata Group but have been imbibed into its values, culture, and work methodology. From this core philosophy springs the uniqueness of the group, where faith, goodness in business dealings, and social responsibility are equally as important as profitability and the growth of business.

The Tata Group, India's leading industrial house, was founded by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata in 1868. Tata's early years were inspired by the spirit of nationalism, industrial growth, and economic self-sufficiency. The Tata name has been respected in India for 140 years for its adherence to strong values and business ethics. “Trust” is attached to the name of Tata and evoked in the minds of Indians whenever the name is mentioned. This reputation, with which the group is honored in India, is now being recognized globally.

The more than one hundred Tata Group companies operate in seven business sectors: communications and information technology, engineering, materials, services, energy, consumer products, and chemicals. The group runs operations in more than eighty countries across six continents, and its companies export products and services to eighty-five countries.

The total revenue of Tata companies, taken together, was $100.09 billion in 2011–2012, with 58 percent of this coming from business outside India. Tata companies employ more than 456,000 people worldwide. Every Tata company or enterprise operates independently. Each of these companies has its own board of directors and shareholders to whom it is answerable. There are thirty-one publicly listed Tata enterprises, and they had a combined market capitalization of about $88.02 billion (as of August 2013), and a shareholder base of 3.9 million. The major Tata companies are Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Teleservices, Titan, Tata Communications, and Indian Hotels.

The group has pioneered several industries of national importance in India, including steel, power, hospitality, and airlines. In more recent times, its pioneering spirit has been showcased by companies such as TCS, founded in 1968, which pioneered the IT services industry in India, and Tata Motors, which made India's first indigenously developed car, the Indica, in 1998 and recently unveiled the world's lowest-cost car, the Tata Nano.

In tandem with the increasing international footprint of Tata companies, the Tata brand is also gaining international recognition. Brand Finance, a UK-based consultancy firm, valued the Tata brand at $15.75 billion in 2011 and ranked it forty-first among the world's one hundred most valuable brands (Haigh, McDonald, & Yoxon (2012). Business Week magazine ranked Tata seventeenth on its “50 Most Innovative Companies” list (Arndt & Einhorn, 2010).

A healthy pipeline of leaders is essential for running such a large and highly diversified conglomerate. The principle of “Unity in Diversity and Diversity in Unity” is a fundamental tenet when developing leaders for the group. While there is unity in the cultural values and beliefs and convergent behavior among Tata leaders, the needs of each business across the conglomerate vary greatly. Tata leaders, however, must be capable of running any of the businesses. Hence, it is imperative that leaders grow from within the group. TAS becomes the primary vehicle for this endeavor.

TAS: A Vehicle for Leadership Development

TAS was conceived by JRD Tata, the late chairman of the Tata Group. He realized the importance of creating leaders by recruiting young talent and then developing them for leadership roles. He aimed to create a talent pipeline of leaders who would steer the group companies and make them stronger—fortifying the Tata Group as well as contributing to nation building. JRD Tata foresaw that this pool of talent would become a group resource—one that could be tapped by companies across the Tata organization.

With these intentions, the first cohort was recruited in 1956. Entry-level and junior-level managers, depending on their performance and capability, are generally on a fast track of career growth and leadership development. TAS provides them with career experiences across functions, industries, and geographies. The program enables managers by giving them the right exposure, in terms of quality of tenure within various Tata companies, opportunities for professional growth, and lifelong career mobility. Their perspectives and prospects are broadened by interacting with top leadership, and this second kind of exposure molds their minds toward the distinctive Tata approach to leadership and fosters loyalty to the Tata values and culture.

The first year of the TAS program is comprised of a comprehensive induction to the group, followed by several short-term project assignments in different group companies. This is followed by a full-time assignment in a carefully chosen role at the start of the second year. TAS managers are expected to stay in this role for two or three years, following which moving to alternate roles is examined, keeping in mind the career plan and organizational requirements.

In the initial years, the career development of this cohort aims to sharpen their ability to lead, through special assignments and interventions. The entire process is co-owned by the Tata companies, ensuring that selection and development activities are carefully implemented.

TAS creates perhaps the only cadre of its sort in Indian business. The TAS manager has, as his or her career canvas, India's largest business house. The program consciously imparts that macro view of business critical in preparing young professionals for general management. Over the years, the TAS program has morphed to suit the business environment. However, the essence has remained the same—to identify and hone talent for leadership roles in the group by providing varied exposure and experiences.

Recruitment and Selection: In Search of Top Talent

In its many years of existence, the TAS program has recruited from diverse candidate pools across different disciplines. In recent years, recruitment has been focused more from within the Tata group, where young and talented employees of group companies are carefully selected, as well as through a campus recruitment program at premier business schools in India.

Overview of Recruitment and Selection

The recruitment and selection process is extremely competitive and rigorous with the three major aspects of the process being: selection criteria; selection panel; and stage-gated selection. The thoroughness of all three aspects ensures that the various facets of the applicant's personality and potential are assessed comprehensively before candidates are finally selected to join the TAS program.

The Selection Criteria. A set of competencies, based on Tata's leadership practices, are uniformly used to observe the behaviors of all applicants. Individuals who show a bright spark and are seen as able to make a maximum difference are carefully identified in the selection pool.

The Selection Panel. Business leaders and senior executives from across the group are panelists in the selection process. Panelists are identified with the help of human resources (HR) heads of the Tata Group companies based on their track record in selecting and developing people. Their participation in selection underscores the importance of senior leaders identifying future leaders.

Stage-Gated Selection. Even though the program has been running for six decades, the number of graduates of TAS is small, as the combination of potential with capability and alignment to the Tata values and ethos is rare. The multi-stage recruitment and selection process as it happens on campuses is described below.

Successful recruitment is grounded in vigilant brand building and constant focus on connections and relationships. The effort to promote awareness of the program is continual and includes regular road shows and presentations with the candidate pools during the year. This outreach highlights importance and the career options available to TAS managers. The objective of these efforts is to position the program appropriately and secure the best quality of applicants.

Once the recruitment process is set into motion, applicants are short listed for the selection process based on their academic and extracurricular achievements. These candidates are then subjected to various assessment tools, such as scenario-based group discussions, case studies, personal interviews, and psychometrics, before the final selection decision is made.

The overall success of the recruitment and selection drive depends on several factors: Tata's brand as a preferred employer; the involvement of the Tata Group's top leaders as interviewers and panelists; and most of all, the partnership with group companies, which are completely involved with branding activities and the selection process.

TAS Leadership Program

From its inception, exposure and experience have been the mainstays of TAS leadership development. The exposure is to the various facets of the group's businesses and to its senior leaders in order that probationers learn about the breadth of the Tata enterprise and company culture and values. The experience is of different challenges and roles, which is considered the core of development.

The top-most leaders of the Tata Group are often closely involved through this first year, during the induction and the projects. This is now an institutionalized practice. The quality of talent the cohorts bring, and the importance of retaining and developing this talent, make their involvement imperative. Furthermore, this is an opportunity for the leaders to gauge the talent and showcase their commitment to the development of the group's leadership pipeline. The exposure through induction and projects presents an opportunity to the probationers to interact with group chairmen and business leaders. They learn the science and art of business organizations—both business strategies and business behaviors. Through its history, the Tata Group top leaders have exemplified professional and ethical business behavior, and this is what the young professionals are able to observe, learn, and imbibe.

Induction

The induction program includes a mix of classroom sessions and site visits to various group companies. During the company interactions, managing directors and top-level executives introduce inductees to businesses, financials, and business development strategies in various industry sectors. Sensitization to the Tata work culture and workforce is an important aspect. Since this is a first job for a majority of the probationers, sessions on work ethics in an organization and on how work life is different from educational life are also provided.

Probationers travel to the factories and plants of various companies and meet with executives and operations teams. They directly see and understand the workings of a plant and how products are manufactured. The probationers are shown not only the large companies but also the medium-size companies of the group. These extensive visits enable the probationers to gain a first-hand experience of the size and scale of the Tata Group operations.

Probationers also visit corporate office facilities, where senior executives present overviews of the business, strategies, future plans, and challenges. Their questions are answered to enable a better understanding of the company.

The induction program is entirely designed and implemented by the TAS office. Well in advance, the TAS office liaisons with company HR and business heads for the planning and rollout.

These classroom and on-site visits have the complete involvement of the group companies, since it gives them the opportunity to showcase themselves to the TAS probationers. To attract talent, all the companies involved in the induction program put their best foot forward.

For the probationers, the exposure to the reality of the group's expanse, capability, and potential for growth impacts their thinking, making them proud to be associated with this prestigious business house. They begin to realize that all the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Professional Practice Series
• Series page
• The Professional Practice Series
• Title page
• Copyright page
• List of Figures, Tables, and Exhibits
• Foreword: Series Editor
• Foreword: A Senior HR Executive Perspective
• Foreword: A Senior Line Executive Perspective
• Acknowledgments
• The Editors
• The Contributors
• Section One: Introduction
• Section Two: Putting Experience at the Center of Talent Development Systems
• Section Three: Designing Job Experiences for Leader Development
• Section Four: Maximizing Learning from Experience
• Section Five: Conclusion
• Name Index
• Subject Index