The Essential Elements of Succession Planning

Levi Kraft

Gallup Consulting

twincities@gallup.com

www.gallup.com

Topic: Leadership

Does your organization's succession plan anticipate and quickly fill succession gaps? Does it identify employees with high management potential and intentionally develop them for those roles? Does it align your organization's people strategy with its business strategy? Since many succession plans aren't arranged in an intentional manner, most organizations will answer "no" to these questions. 

Having three successors in line to assume the CEO position is not a scientific succession plan; that is crisis management. Organizations need to make a concerted effort to ensure the leaders they are developing have the talent and experience to be successful in their current and future roles. 

Here is how an organization can change their current approach to succession planning.

Talent

You may recognize the following situation all too well: John's performance as an individual contributor is superior to his peers. His performance metrics outshine his colleagues and he has been labeled as a high-potential leader, or a "hi-po". John moves from being an individual contributor to a high-level manager. His performance suffers and everyone -- including John -- is left wondering what went wrong. John is still a great worker; it's just that his current role is not aligned with what he does best. We all have talents -- naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied -- and skills we do inherently well. Problems with performance and job expectations surface when our talents are not aligned with our roles. 

Organizations must assess their employees' talents and help position workers into roles that allow them to do what they do best. John should be moved back into his individual contributor role and have an incentive system that will allow him to meet his personal and professional goals. The talents required to be an executive, a people manager, or an individual contributor are very different. An organization's skills assessment needs to accurately measure who has the innate abilities to take on these positions. 

Experiences

Once you have assessed and determined hi-po individuals, you must invest in them by giving them intended experiences. What experiences are necessary to be a leader in your company? For some organizations, this might mean international business experience, an MBA, or giving them experience in managing a P&L function. It is important that you focus on developing your hi-po individuals and give them intended experiences to set them up for future success. 

• Create progressive assignments. These assignments should move people at a quick, yet intentional, pace. Work with your employees to craft specific developmental plans that challenge them to master a job. Then move them to the next opportunity.
• Design assignments carefully. Make sure these assignments have quantifiable goals and expectations. Allow your employees flexibility in how they operate.
• Help create relationships. Too often, executives fail because they lack a network of people they can leverage for success. Help others establish relationships they can access now and in the future. 
• Individualize development. Understand that everyone has a unique set of strengths they leverage to perform a role. Create an individualized developmental plan for each employee that leverages their strengths. 

End Result

Bringing all of these pieces together requires a lot of dedication and hard work. The payoff exists in growing your pipeline of talented leaders who can be promoted from within. When attrition occurs, you will have a scientific, systematic process that produces candidates who have the talent to succeed and the experiences necessary to fill that opening.

For more information on succession planning, contact twincities@gallup.com.

2010-05-19 00:00:00 -0500