Sunday, March 18, 2007

Judging a Manager By His Subordinates' Success

Ron Turcotte aboard Secretariat

By their fruits ye shall know them


Breeders judge a horse by the races, particularly the stakes, won by the stud's or mare's offspring. Secretariat was the greatest horse that ever circled the oval, but his offspring have had nothing like their father's success.

Darren Everson in this weekend's Wall Street Journal looks at the big name college basketball coaches and asks whose assistants became successful head coaches. He develops a scorecard similar to that kept by horse breeders. He looks at the suces rates of assistants of big name coaches. Why do some coaches like Rick Pitino produce subordinates who go on to be great head coachs, while others do not? This is an issue not only for baketball fans, but for students of management everywhere.

Whom do companies reward?

Corporations invest heavily in training and succession planning. How often do they identify, encourage, and reward managers who are successful mentors? The managers who produce great managers are a powerful and underappreciated asset.


One last note in Secretariat's defense: he may not have been horse racing's greatest sire, but he is arguably the greatest broodmare sire God ever created!

1 comment:

TaDonne' said...

It is true that the manager subordinate relationship must be lead by business principles that create a solid business structure of integrity and morality that eventually lead to business success. When business values and skills are taught diligently the student will find as much success as the teacher.