When Tacy M. Byham was 6 years old and spending a Saturday at her dad’s office, she would go from desk to desk in the small consulting firm, sharpening everyone’s pencils in the electric pencil sharpener, then placing them right back where they had been.
Forty-one years later, Ms. Byham will be taking over her dad’s office altogether as CEO of Development Dimensions International in Scott.
If she wants to sharpen everyone’s pencils now, she would have to travel to 42 offices in 26 different countries to hit all 1,100 professionals who will be working for her.
Bill Byham, 77, who started the company in his Mt. Lebanon basement in 1970, will be moving to another corner of the building (and a larger office than the one he is turning over to his daughter) to work on product development.
The succession plan, which has been in place for some time, has Ms. Byham currently in two jobs: her own as the head of the leadership development, and as CEO-in-training, a sort of ride-along job where she is watching her father run the company for six months until she takes over in September.
The same thing is happening in the office next door as Robert Rogers, the current president of the company, is being replaced by Ronald Dalesio, who will come out of the sales division to become the company president.
DDI is a global talent management consulting company, and after years of working on succession planning for other companies, Mr. Byham said it was important to get his own right.
“Most companies, they don’t do any planning for this,” he said.
He said there are two problems with most leadership transitions, as he sees it: “One is they don’t do good planning, and even if they do good planning, the incumbents don’t want it to be announced until one month in advance.”
Ms. Byham has been spending the last couple of months doing her job, but also attending operational meetings about the workings of the company. And because all of the jobs being filled down the line are promotions from within, those replacements are also being trained before they move into their new roles.
Mr. Byham founded DDI with the late Douglas W. Bray. Both men were organizational psychologists interested in whether assessments could predict the success of people moving into management.
Over the years, he has written 23 books, including being a co-author of “Zapp! The Lightning of Empowerment: How to improve quality, productivity and employee satisfaction” in 1997, which sold 3.5 million copies.
Ms. Byham already has taken her first shot at matching her father’s legacy by co-authoring a new business book: “Your First Leadership Job: How catalyst leaders bring out the best in others.”
The book, written with Richard S. Wellins, came out last month, but her author description already says she is CEO of Development Dimensions International. She explained it was easier to jump the gun on her new title than it would be to change the book jacket.
Both Mr. Byham and his daughter said they know they will be charting some tricky waters as she takes over the company even as he remains involved.
Luckily, as organizational psychologists, they are both well aware of the chaos that can ensue from too many bosses ordering employees around.
Ann Belser: abelser@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699.
First Published: May 12, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
