For years some of us warned against the perils of an economy driven exclusively by self-interest (made evident by the financial disaster of 2008) and vigorously argued for management, like other professional disciplines, to require its members to accept a code of conduct and make a public commitment to do no harm. We even went as far as to propose various versions of such a code of conduct, and now some of these codes have actually been adopted by MBA students (e.g. the MBA Oath started at Harvard), business schools (e.g. Thunderbird), and international associations (e.g. the Forum of Young Global Leaders). The Oath Project was established last year, as well, to propose a universal professional code of conduct for managers, the current draft of which has been endorsed by organizations such as the United Nations Global Compact, the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders, Net Impact, and the Aspen Institute.

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Evaluate Staff Professionals for Management Potential and Intent Early Although many staff professionals prefer to remain individual contributors, it's not true that most don't want to be managers or couldn't make better managers if given proper preparation and opportunity. Roughly 40% of Fortune 500 CEOs had their primary background in finance and law, so success is not so much based on where or how one started as it is based on one's later experiences. The AT&T studies (Bray, Campbell, & Grant, 1974) found that 29% more of low-assessed managers were promoted than the high-assessed if the former had more challenging jobs. Many staff managers don't get these early opportunities. The CCL studies found staff executives whose first real supervisory experience took place around age 40; for line executives the experience occurred on average at age 23. Moreover, managers (line or staff) that encountered their first leadership challenge at mid-career tended to fail. By then the stakes were too high and the tolerance for mistakes was lower, and people whose background included many technical projects with similar groups of people were less prepared than those who had encountered start-ups and fix-its and had managed varied groups of people previously.

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Did Charlie Darwin have insights that actually pre-figure a solution for the so-called "war for talent," and did the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" suggest a framework for understanding how to better identify and prepare your Hi-Pos for succession? It may be so ... For many astute business leaders, the "war for talent" has already become a platitude. This doesn't mean that cultivating high-potential future leaders isn't a vital challenge. But the identification and development of Hi-Pos can seem pretty mysterious and a bit thin on "how-to" specifics. Only a few organizations ever figure out who they need to "put on the bus" and send on the "Magical Mystery Hi-Po Development Tour" to ensure they have a group of really ready successors.

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