Twelve City candidates are potentials, yet even these are guess work and not confirmed by Barclays.
The most fascinating thing about Diamond leaving is not that he left, not that he has been pilloried by the press (both inevitable) but that Barclays, even though it has some of the most commercial HR people I have met, has not been able to quickly announce his successor.
The situation the organisation finds itself in - being rudderless at a time of crisis - is down to the fact that at Barclays and in many other large organisations, people is a business lever that is not managed, nor understood. IT assets or the property portfolio or even the executive dining rooms (Barclays has lovely ones) get better management. Why is this?
Let's face it, people are the only thing an organisation starts with and it's been this way, well, forever.
The truth is, people are too hard to understand. Why? Because you have to think about it, I mean it. You have to spend time thinking about it and there is no quick fix…you can't do "people", it must be a continuous focus.
It should be the conversation the executive team starts and finishes with. Farm out things like IT and property management to senior management, but keep hold of your people conversations. As I said, some of the best and most commercial HR people I have met work or used to work at Barclays, if only the executive teams cared as much.
I assume Barclays' valuation was discounted on the basis that they clearly did not have actionable succession plans. And that's not HR's fault. I am pretty sure the process is there, I am pretty sure it benchmarks well and I am also pretty sure HR drag the executive team through the calibration process.
People are not HR's responsibility.
Let's be clear, the people are the CEO's and his/her team's responsibility. The reason the CEO should care is that how people behave is the result of the cultural tone their leadership sets. That is why Bob Diamond is now not at Barclays and cannot ever be lauded as a great leader.
He may have been a great investment banker, but a great leader of people? I think not.
High performing organisations do not have their executives managing the P&L or even the company's share price. They have their executives developing, nurturing, leading and inspiring others, not through showmanship, but integrity, so to can be better today than they were yesterday.
So if you are a CEO and reading this, look at your diary last week, how much time did you really spend making your people, and therefore your organisation, better today than it was yesterday?
Roger Philby is CEO and founder of The Chemistry Group
