"How do you hold onto your best change leaders? Promote them," says Robert W. Gunn at the Harvard Business Review. "That’s a key finding of my consultancy’s study of 84 major, multiyear change initiatives completed between 1995 and 2005 at 36 Fortune 500 companies. The programs—such as restructuring, reducing costs, globalizing supply chains, creating shared services, and implementing Six Sigma—where among those that figure prominently in companies’ annual reports."
Gunn awarded high scores to those organizations that embraced change and consciously developed change leaders. About one-third of the companies studied received the high marks. "Perhaps not surprisingly," writes Gunn, "all of the change events at these high-scoring companies met or exceeded leadership’s expectations, and 62% of the executives who led these initiatives were promoted." According to Gunn, about 11% of the change leaders left these companies once the projects ended.
This was not the case with the remaining two-thirds. Although these organizations experienced a 74% project success rate, only 12% of the change leaders were promoted and 25% of them left. "Thus," argues Gunn, "CEOs of poorly rated firms lost proven change leaders—the executives most comfortable with taking risks, going after big goals, and leading in the face of uncertainty—at about twice the rate as CDOs of the high-scoring firms."
Gunn suggests that organizations that use change initiatives to promote leadership development create what he calls a "virtuous circle." Change initiatives thrive, and the development of skilled executives provides leaders who are able to drive the next wave of reform. Gunn also says that, "Valuations suggest that investors notice companies that are adept at managing change and supporting change leadership."
Managing change is a big part of successful work management. Nurturing managers who are skilled at dealing with the challenges of project based work is important—particularly if you want to keep your best project management leaders.
Promote them? Gunn has uncovered one of the quirks of project management—and that is in most companies the successful senior PMs never get promoted as there is no career ladder. Smart companies (the top 1/3rd) look for these folks and hire them. We live in the age of bifurcation, where the good get better and the rest—in a flat world—eventually get outsourced, permanently.