Managing high potentials in Europe: Some cross-cultural findings

How do European firms define high-potential employees, how do they identify and select them, how do they develop them, what problems arise in managing them, and are there differences in different European countries? In 1985, the author put these five questions to 60 companies in France, Germany, Britain, Sweden and Switzerland, and in this article he reports on the methods of assessment and evaluation, training and development practices on and off the job, and offers some insights into the corporate skulduggery employed by supervisors trying to retain high performing subordinates, or create the impression that non-high performers should be promoted as if they were high performers'. If managing high performers is not without problems, these do vary from one country to another in relation to cultural factors. These aspects are analysed in detail, with the conclusion that they are the dominant influence on differences in practice in managing high performance.