Communicating the Vision

Gary Burnison, CEO at Korn/Ferry International, shares his thoughts on the current climate as well as some of the leadership skills needed to succeed in today’s corporate environment.

“There's no doubt that the stakes have been raised for today's leaders and laser focus has become critical for effective leadership”
-Gary Burnison, CEO, Korn/Ferry International

Many firms are faced with the need to sustain a comprehensive talent management and succession planning system even as economic conditions globally become more difficult. Even when economic conditions are bad, organizations face continuing needs to compete for talent – and especially top talent. So how do you balance your staffing development needs with basic business survival? Korn/Ferry CEO Gary Burnison believes the two are inseparable. “Leadership is about making the organization more productive by impelling others to act,” he explains in this exclusive interview.

How are the needs of your clients changing?
Gary Burnison. Over the last several months, many executives have been in survival mode dealing with this recession. In this environment, cash is not king, but God. However, the best companies often make their boldest moves during turbulent times and we have seen a number of great leaders enquire about how they can keep their people motivated during these times, or how they can creatively compensate their talent now that cash isn’t as readily available. Others have come to us looking to use the recession as a time to upgrade talent or to implement talent-related programs to drive cultural change.

What steps should organizations take to cultivate, grow and keep the best talent?
GB. Irrespective of the current recession, our research indicates that the drivers of retention remain fairly consistent through economic cycles. Ultimately, people want to be part of something – a common purpose, a journey. Today’s professionals are concerned with individual and organizational growth. They want to be treated equitably and will seek out and stay with organizations that provide them with ongoing development, career opportunities and professional challenges.

Employers need to have a continuous focus on developing and engaging their talent. Think about it as an ‘annual contract’; over time, this focus turns into loyalty and long-term commitment. While monetary incentives must reach a reasonable threshold and competitive levels, they are secondary drivers of retention for most people.

Korn/Ferry seems to be in the midst of great transformation. Can you share the strategy with us?
GB. As Korn/Ferry completes its fourth decade in business this year, our offerings have evolved over the past several years as talent management has grown increasingly complex. Today, we are doing a great deal more than just helping our clients attract great leaders. Our flagship service remains executive recruitment, in which we are ranked number one in the world, placing more than 10,000 professionals a year across all industries. But we have expanded to a broader business model and today, our non-search offerings – Futurestep and Leadership and Talent Consulting – comprise more than a quarter of our overall revenues.

Our strategy with our clients concentrates on four key areas: attracting, developing, retaining and sustaining key talent. By attracting, we emphasize the importance of offering a premier career destination for executives and employ the latest science and technology to ensure the best fit between candidate and the organization; developing focuses on creating a lifetime of personal career learning, coaching and advancement; retaining looks at maximizing employee engagement, satisfaction and creating a competitive and rewarding compensation structure; and sustaining pulls all of these elements together to create a long-term platform and culture within our clients’ organizations that is centered around talent development, advancement and positive morale. These are exciting times for Korn/Ferry.
 
How has leadership evolved over time?
GB. There’s no doubt that the stakes have been raised for today’s leaders and laser focus has become critical for effective leadership; with so many options and directions, prioritizing can be extremely difficult. Small changes can have big results if you identify key issues on which to focus and execute relentlessly against them. To do this means you have to say no to a whole range of alternative opportunities. It has also become clear that a crucial component of leadership is energizing the employee base – unquestionably the most important natural resource an organization has. Leadership is about making the organization more productive by impelling others to act.

On that note, what is the role of the leader today?
GB. As much as things change, the more they also stay the same. Whether the pilot is flying a Boeing 777 or the Wright Brothers’ Flyer, it is the person rather than the aircraft that makes the flight successful. Despite all of the technological advances of the past 100 years, people make businesses successful.

Today’s leaders must do many things. They need to set and communicate the vision and strategy for their organization; they need to anticipate and navigate the turns in the road and they need to celebrate the organization’s successes. More importantly, they need to inspire others based on their actions, not their words. They need to listen, learn then lead, not the other way around. Leaders need to engage their teams and provide others with a sense of purpose. Leadership is not easy, but for the companies that have devoted the time to attract, develop and prepare their leaders, they will be poised to power through the curve and take their companies to new heights in the years ahead.