Juan (story by José Bancaleiro)

Finally, he did it! Thought Samuel, when he heard about Juan's return to Madrid - It's a pity it was this way.

Samuel, HR Director at SpencerBell (SB) Pharmaceutical Portugal, met Juan on one of his trips to Madrid and liked him immediately. Young, sympathetic, extroverted, Juan was an Andalusian established in Madrid long time ago that dealt with Management Control of SB Spain. He realized that everyone respected him professionally and recognized he had a huge growth potential.

SpencerBell was a global "top class" company and so began in the mid the 1990s a structured program of identification, development and internationalization of their talents. Samuel, member of the international HR team, participated actively and enthusiastically in the construction of this project. In each "market" and in accordance with its size, the Executive Committee selected their high flyers and proposed them to the international program of "Talent Management".

For this group of "talents", it was planned an intensive training plan in some of the best schools in the world, as well as "international assignments" in positions that would give them diverse business experience, visibility and also will prepare them for higher responsibilities in the company. Coaching and Mentoring would also be used.

The financial cost of this program was enormous and there were many doubts about its payback. However, it was considered that if SB wanted to be a really global company, it must have a global vision and managers with a truly global "mindset".

But, as we all know, it is much easier to draw plans than to execute them. The problems start with the selection process. Some of the best talents had ambition to evolve, but had no interest or willingness to participate in "assignments" of indefinite duration. Others were dedicated to products with decisive importance for the respective market, so that the General Managers tended not to indicate them to the program. Finally, since there is no objective system of selection, the "talents" were chosen more through a subjective view of their future potential, than on the basis of a consistent analysis of its past "track record”.

The problems continued with the high visibility that was given to the participants in the program. The “talents” were positioned in a kind of “glass vial” and was created the idea they were the main responsible for company past successes and the sole guarantor of future results. This high visibility, complemented by the "luxury treatment" and combined with fragility of the selection process, originated the suspicion by the people that was “doing” the business in the various markets. Finally, the ambitions of these talents were (sometimes without real basis) inflated and after a short time they started asking regularly to SB Management to move them to new and higher positions, arguing with their "high potential" and the with the “return of the investment done on them”. And the truth was that, despite the effort done by the managers of the program, the materialization of this type of positions was much lower than the expectations that had been created to them, what generated some frustration.

Back to Juan. He was included in the international talent program, moved to the headquarters and in Department of Marketing & Sales Europe. With solid financial bases and excellent analytical capacity, Juan was integrated in the team that accompanied his VP on the discussion of the budgets of all European countries, being decisive in the detection of weaknesses and in the construction of alternatives. After two years of intense analysis and debate with each market, Juan consolidated a comprehension of the business and a span of thought that transformed him in one of the pillars of the team and gave him an excellent preparation for new challenges.

At that time, Juan spoke with his boss and the HR VP and expressed his desire of return to Madrid, where, by the way, a second daughter had been born. He added that he had the expectation the company would assign him a job at a level appropriate to the effort he did and the experience he gained in those almost 30 months of international work.

From the side of the company, it was answered they recognized his excellent contribution and that they had great expectations about his evolution in the company. They asked for some time to find the best solution. But this solution did not seem easy. The General Manager of Spain, relatively young and doing an excellent job, defended his team, saying that he was very fond of Juan, but he didn’t feel it was fair to have to harm people who had worked hard to give him a top position.

Juan continued his work at European level and every six months he returned to HR VP and reinforced his desire to return to Madrid, obtaining the same sympathetic response about his value to SB and the request to wait some more time.

After 4 years of international experience, Juan finally returned to Madrid! But it was not to SB office. A "head hunter" understood his enormous value and his high level of dissatisfaction and placed him as CFO of the largest pharmaceutical company in the Spanish market.

S. Petersburg, June, 23, 2017

José Bancaleiro

Managing Partner

Stanton Chase International – Your Leadership Partner