Saw this one in CIO magazine (no, not my usual read but I like this)

Former Sun Microsystems CFO Michael Lehman’s philosophy on employee development  as helped land at least eight of his former employees in major-company CFO positions, and numerous others into corporate controller roles at such high-profile companies as Apple and Coca-Cola. Lehman, currently the CFO at venture-backed Palo Alto Networks, is currently testing how to maintain the focus on building employees’ skills with a leaner staff, fewer resources, and a much smaller budget for such endeavors. The cost to implement these seven tips, according to Lehman, is largely the time it takes out of a worker’s schedule.
Step one is to set up a feedback system, which can begin as small as a one-page employee self-evaluation followed by conversations to discern where employees want to go in their career and how they can get there. Second, if the company is
planning to hire, share with the search team how the organization will likely change over the next year and give them an idea of what opportunities might be in the pipeline. Third, build communication skills by regularly asking people in the group to stand up at staff meetings and deliver a brief overview of what they are currently working on. Fourth, help staffers craft a two-minute “elevator pitch” on the company, and have them present it to the finance team for practice. Fifth, have a finance staffer tag along when the CFO makes customer visits. Sixth, have all finance personnel regularly help with certain tasks that might otherwise go undone. And finally, encourage workers to ask their managers, “What’s on your plate that you don’t want to do?” and then find a way to get it done. asfdasfda

You may not like all of those but you cannot dispute the ease with which some of these can be done. The key is to expose people to new situations and help them increase their capacity for new positions.

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