Promote From Within and Fuel Organizational Growth

To both grow in the near-term and thrive in the long-term, organizations must effectively promote from within.

Cornerstone partnered with a well-known pharmaceutical company to create a system to advance their high-potential individual contributors into frontline sales leadership roles. This situation was unique in that the client organization was experiencing a period of rapid growth due to the launch of several key products. 

The leadership development program Cornerstone partnered with the organization to create and implement consisted of the following components:

• A series of initial assessments to identify the best candidates for the process
• The intraspec® realistic job preview to confirm candidate interest in the role and identify individual developmental needs leadership ASCENTials®, a series of self-study modules designed by Cornerstone to help candidates meet their individual developmental goals
• A readiness assessment to test each candidate’s ability to perform in key functions of the frontline sales leader role (business analysis and planning, coaching, counseling, group facilitation)

The rapid growth scenario allowed for an interesting quasi-experiment. The demand for immediate frontline leaders was so dramatic that the company was required to achieve their goals by a combination of promoting internal candidates and hiring experienced and seasoned industry frontline leaders. This allowed us to compare outcomes for these two groups.

Results

The results were truly remarkable – most notably in terms of frontline sales leader retention. Nearly a quarter (23/100; 23%) of the experienced external hires had voluntarily left their jobs or had been terminated within 18 months post-hire. In contrast, 110 of the 111 internally promoted frontline leaders (better than 99%!) remained in their roles after the same 18-month period.

Given the high recruitment costs for attracting experienced leaders – many of whom would not be successful – the return on investment for the internal leadership development program that Cornerstone partnered with the client to create was substantial!