Leadership Training

Ian V. Ziskin is Corporate Vice President and Chief Human Resources and Administrative Officer for Northrop Grumman Corporation, a global defense and technology company with $30 billion in revenues and 122,000 employees. He has 25 years of global leadership experience in human resources, executive selection and development, organization change and effectiveness, and people-related cost management.

Mr. Ziskin has been a speaker and author in areas including acquisition integration, globalization, HR strategies and competencies and leadership/talent development. Last month, he was a participant in a panel discussion at the Milken Institute for the California State Forum “The War For Talent”.

- What has been your greatest challenge in your current role as Head of Human Resources with Northrop Grumman? How have you approached and/or conquered that challenge?

I’d say it’s been the daily challenge to strike the right balance between the decentralization that each of the eight major sectors within Northrop Grumman require in order to run effectively at the local level, versus the ‘one Northrop Grumman’ commonized approach we are striving to create. This approach includes a shared mindset and common culture, the sharing of resources and services to minimize overlaps and redundancies, and being able to present one face to our customers. Striking that balance culturally and operationally is an everyday occurrence.

The way we are approaching this challenge is through a series of organizational change and transformation initiatives that involve cross-organizational teams who are helping to plan and implement those changes. By no means have we completely conquered this challenge, but we are on the right path.

- What has been your greatest reward with your current role?

I probably get the greatest charge out of being able to help other people achieve success with their careers. I’m fortunate that I work in a job where much of the work I do involves making investments in the development and growth of people at all levels of the company. I’m able to watch them learn from experience, get the benefit from investments we make in them in the form of development programs, and witness those individuals take on more responsibility and get promoted. That really is a thrill for me. In order to be effective and enjoy working in the HR profession, you have to be the type of person who gets his or her own satisfaction from helping other people be more effective, and for me that really is the greatest reward to my job.

- What traits do you look for when you are hiring new employees at Northrop Grumman?

I’d like to expand on this question by not only including new hires, but also people that are already here. The expectations are the same, so when we look to bring new people into our organization, we’re looking for a high a degree of compatibility between themselves and our employees. Perhaps the simplest way to describe it is to share with you a little bit about our leadership competency model that we use here at Northrop Grumman, which helps us assess both potential and existing employees.

There are four elements, or buckets, to this competency model. They are as follows:

Build Credibility – We’re looking for people who do what they say they’re going to do, and have a track record of accomplishing that.

Lead People – Have the capability to lead people, both in terms of creating a work environment that’s exciting and challenging, but also have the technical credentials to be an effective leader of others with those same skills and interests.

Drive Process Improvement – The ability to make the processes and systems we currently use to get work done as efficient as possible, and having the leadership guts to drive change and improvement to further streamline those processes.

Execute Strategy & Get Results – People who have the unique ability to not only see around corners in terms of strategic priorities, but also have the operational savvy and day-to-day skills that it takes to deliver on results, (either company or individual goals).

We utilize these four elements as the foundation and framework for our leadership development efforts, and when we assess our leaders during the performance review process, a large portion of what they’re being assessed against are these competencies.

- What philosophy or mission statement does Northrop Grumman
employ when it comes to the ongoing training and development of its employees?

Our philosophy is fairly simple; we believe it’s our job as a company to provide the tools and the willingness to invest in the ongoing development of our people at every level. In some cases, that involves traditional training programs, but more often this development includes different job responsibilities, challenging assignments, and placement on cross-organizational teams to help solve large complex problems. We also offer mentoring and coaching to our employees on a regular basis.

Having said that, we also feel that the largest portion of responsibility for an individual’s own development rests with the individual. He or she should feel empowered to take the initiative to seek out opportunities for development and take part in these activities as they become available. We see it as an ongoing partnership in learning between the company and our employees.

- Can you expand on how important it is for Northrop Grumman to provide a challenging work environment?

We know increasingly that the most important element to the engagement of our employees is challenging work. There really is no substitute for that. It’s also central to the development of our people because we’ve found that the single largest factor in people’s ongoing development has to do with being placed in challenging assignments.

- How important is presentation-and-communication-skills training for your employees?

We certainly offer this type of training in a variety of different forms throughout the company. It’s very important for a number of reasons: first, most of what we do for a living involves selling ideas, and the ability to stand in front of a room of people and persuade them to your way of thinking is extraordinarily important. This ties back in a very strong way to the ability to present and communicate.

We are also finding that with the virtual way that work is being done (i.e. people working together, but not being physically located in the same place), the notion of a presentation and the definition of communication has changed a great deal. Increasingly we’re finding ourselves dealing with virtual meetings, whether by teleconferencing, net meetings or video conferencing. This places an even higher premium on people that have crisp, clear communication skills to be able to sell their ideas to people who may not be in the same room.

- What are the most important factors you take into account when
it comes to selecting quality training programs and vendors for your employees?

It’s a combination of things; a reputation for working in partnership with a client, meaning the flexibility to modify and adapt their existing materials to meet our specific needs. Also, the demonstrated ability to deliver on-time and at a highly competitive cost (not necessarily the cheapest). Lastly, the willingness the work in a highly collaborative way with a common approach across Northrop Grumman. Not every supplier is interested in that approach, and some of the smaller boutique-style firms don’t necessarily have the size and scope to work with us on a company-wide basis.

- Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?

One of the areas that we’ve been spending a great of time on is the implementation of a company-wide human capital strategy. For the first time, this is enabling us to take a number of important HR-related initiatives and put them together in an integrated package that makes it easier to see how they tie together and how they better support the strategic business priorities that the company is pursuing. There’s quite a bit of enthusiasm being generated with individuals both in the HR community and the Northrop Grumman community in general. They are finding support and help from us on core priorities that they ought to be focusing on in order to make Northrop Grumman the best work place it can be, as well as to help attract and retain the best work force possible.

I’m very fortunate to work in a place where I’m surrounded by peers who understand the value of people in the equation of getting complex, technical work done on behalf of our customers. So I don’t have to spend a great deal of time on selling the importance of the investment and development of our people. It’s really a natural part of the DNA of our company.

For additional information about Northrop Grumman, please visit their website at www.northropgrumman.com.

Northrop Grumman, Ian Ziskin, Vice President, Human Resources