Succession Plan for 2025: It's Not Just for Emergencies - It's a Leadership

Fortune 500 companies and small family businesses alike share a business need - ensuring that they have the talent necessary to effectively lead their organizations in the future. One of the most significant contributions a leader can make is ensuring his/her business’ continuity and sustainability - by having employees who are willing and capable of filling each key position with a plan for doing so when the need arises.

Succession Planning is a:

• the deliberate, systematic process of anticipating the need for talent and ensuring that the necessary employee competencies and experience are available when needed in the future
• a strategic approach for avoiding an undersupply of talent, enhancing the organization’s current talent pool, and meeting its future needs

Not having a Succession Plan can be costly and sometimes disastrous; it’s expensive to recruit, interview, select, onboard, and train a new leader and significant opportunity costs are incurred when a key job is not being performed.

The primary objectives for and deliverables of a Succession Planning program are to:

• Sustain the business through a deliberate and systematic effort to anticipate and ensure leadership continuity in key positions

• Retain and develop the organization's high potential [HiPos]

• Encourage individual development by:

• Identifying career paths• Conducting formal performance appraisals• Providing daily coaching• Creating Individualized Development Plans [IDPs]During Succession Planning Programs:At the macro level, the organization is proactively determining:

• the talent needed in the future
• the talent it has now
• where there are talent gaps
• the initiatives necessary to close those gaps

At the micro level, the organization is addressing - for each of its key positions - questions such as:

• what the organization would do if it had to fill the position tomorrow
• whether there is, at least, one successor who could immediately perform the duties of the position
• if there is no successor ready now, what will need to be done to enable the best internal candidate to be ready, and when can he/she be ready
• can the organization afford to wait or would it be better to recruit a successor, etc

Experience has found the following two processes to be very effective in enabling organizations to have the talent they need when it’s needed:#1 Performance Management and/or 360 Feedback Processes - through which the organization is able to:

• evaluate its employees’ current performance - based on documented, objective
• performance and achievements
• assess its employees’ advancement potential
• determine its employees’ current readiness for advancement
• obtain from its employees self-appraisals identifying their developmental needs and
• preferred career plans
• meet its bench strength needs by initiating Individual Development Plans and
• experiences - at least, for its A Players and/or High Potentials - such as:

• special or stretch projects• assignments in other depts./job rotations• 'try-out/popcorn stand' slots• mentors• formal training and development initiatives• fast track programs with exposure to other functions• intense coaching, etc.

• track their A Players’ and High Potentials’ performance and advancement potential against a Performance-Potential Grid

#2 Talent Review Meetings - during which the executive team in a disciplined fashion:

• asks each leader to report on the status of the Individual Development Plans for each of their A Players and High Potentials
• ensure that each A Player and High Potential is receiving regular coaching and is actively involved in opportunities that will help retain them while accelerating their development
• drives the organization past 'business as usual' by ensuring that its future needs for human capital are identified and will be satisfied when the time arrives - as it will

Succession Planning initiatives also increase the levels of engagement and performance of your A Players and High Potentials - the talent your organization will most need in the future.

Succession Plan Defined

• A deliberate, systematic process of anticipating the need for talent and ensuring that the necessary employee competencies and experience are available when needed
• A strategic approach for avoiding an undersupply of talent, enhancing the organization’s current talent pool, and meeting the organization’s future needs

Objectives and Benefits of Succession Planning

• Sustain the business through a systematic effort to ensure leadership continuity in key positions
• Attract, retain & develop high potentials [HiPos]
• Encourage HiPos development by:
  • Identifying career paths
  • Conducting performance appraisals
  • Providing daily coaching
  • Creating Individualized Development Plans [IDPs]
  • Holding Talent Review meetings

Tools and Processes Commonly Utilized for Developing and Implementing

• Self-appraisals and career goals
• Performance appraisals, 360 feedback, and ratings
• Assessment instruments
• GE grid
• Individual development plans [IDPs]
• HiPo talent development interventions
• Talent review meetings

What an Organization, its Leaders, and the Program Participants Need to Do To Achieve an Effective PlanWhat an organization needs to do:

• Supply funding/budget
• Establish a clear vision and guidance for the program
• Develop a formal, written program
• Announce the objectives of the program to all employees
• Ensure that all leaders and managers support the program

What the leaders need to do:

• Have job descriptions developed for their teams
• Conduct effective, formal performance appraisals
• Identify employee developmental areas
• share their knowledge and experience
• Involve employees in more of the leader's responsibilities
• Facilitate the completion of IDPs for all Hi Pos

What the program participants need to do:

• Conduct self-appraisals
• Identify their desired career paths
• Learn as much as they can about potential future assignments
• Perform to their capabilities
• Complete their IDPs
• Develop the employees reporting to them - so they have successors

Potential Measures of the Program’s Success

• Whether there is, at least, one successor for each key position
• Having developmental goals and IDPs established for each successor
• Determining how much of their manager’s job the successors can perform
• Determining whether successors can perform their manager’s jobs when they are unavailable and evaluating their performance during those times

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