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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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