Building Future Leaders

How can you develop the next generation of leaders in your company?

Maybe you should emulate George Pattee, CEO of The Parksite Group, a 100 percent employee-owned distributor based in Illinois.

George has been a fan of the Facing the Forces of Change® series for many years, but was frustrated that the information never made it out of the executive suite. So, taking a page from Oprah, he set up a virtual book club for more than 30 executives and managers at Parksite's many locations around the country. (I found out about George's book club on Monday when he called to ask me a question from the last group discussion.)

As George described it to me, he wants to create a broader dialogue within his company using the industry-specific educational content in the book. His goal is straightforward: Develop future leaders for Parksite.

In the introductory email to his team, George wrote: “Facing the Forces of Change can provide strategic value to The Parksite Group as a starting point for substantive management discussion and leadership development and training. As such, to enable you to gain the most from this report, we are scheduling conference calls to review each chapter in the next few months.”

Think about it -- all of these executives and managers now get to engage directly with the CEO as well as hear the CEO's unfiltered ideas, thoughts and vision. The calls also create a new level of interaction between the managers across Parksite’s three business units and multiple locations at limited cost.

And the best news? George told me that the first two conference calls have already spun off some new initiatives.

What a cool idea! I wrote Facing the Forces of Change®: Lead the Way in the Supply Chain to help executives make better decisions and grow their businesses. George’s call is one of the reasons that I like doing my job. I hope his example inspires you to use the report as a tool for building the next set of leaders in your own business.