Succession Planning – no, it’s not the sequel to the original “Succession” television series.
The HBO series Succession was not for everyone. My family recommended I watch it, so I binged it myself. It wasn’t my favorite, so I won’t put it on a “required” watchlist for executives who are needing to focus on succession planning for their organization (sorry HBO).
However, as an executive leadership coach, I did align with the most obvious theme of the show, its title, Succession. You don’t have to be in business with family members to understand that legacy, continuity, and your organization’s reputation and success is staked on people who will become the next leaders of the organization. One way to not leave that to chance is to develop great staff into future leaders via succession planning. In this 2 post series, I will introduce an initial framework for you to use as a starting place on how to start succession planning and then in the 2nd post in a few weeks, I will give you some concrete steps you can start taking to put your succession plan into action.
What is succession planning? I define succession planning as first, identifying future leaders in your organization and second, investing and developing them so that they are positioned to planfully move into leadership positions that will be vacated in the foreseeable future. Here is a framework to help you plan and discuss with your leadership team, board of directors and other key leaders in your organization what you need to start doing in terms of a succession plan.
First, identify top talent in your organization. Some experts in the area of succession planning call this “identifying potential.” One caution to be aware of, “identifying potential” can be extremely subjective and open to bias if you don’t have a plan on how to identify these potential future leaders. The question for you and your team to address is what criteria will you use to identify “top talent”? Do you just go with “your gut” or do you take the time to develop criteria and identify traits that you would like to see in future leaders of your business or organization.
As a former Director of Human Resources, my recommendation is to create criteria and develop a list of traits of future leaders. That is best practice for organizations before putting out a job description and a hiring announcement, so why wouldn’t you do the same for future leaders.
Are you looking for a “growth mindset,” where the person believes that everyone can be successful in their positions? Does the person have a track record for building strong relationships with staff, direct reports and supervisors? Take the time to brainstorm and look at current, successful executives and leaders in your organization, and identify the traits, skills and characteristics that make them great leaders. Then, take that list and start looking around your organization for people who match that list either in part or in total. Remember, not everyone will meet all of the essential characteristics of a future leader, just like you didn’t master all of your responsibilities in your current role on day one.
Gallup found that organizations with poor succession planning fail to choose the candidate with the best talent fit for the job 82% of the time. The negative impact of not placing the right person in a leadership role is costly to an organization. So, don’t fall into that 82% group and put together a well-thought out, strategic succession plan, by identifying the skills, strengths and characteristics you need in your future leaders.
Once you have your list of future leader criteria, start identifying who those future leaders are in your organization. Think strategically about how you can create or identify opportunities for these future leaders to learn more about becoming a leader. Be planful on how to develop their strengths, skills and experience that will help prepare them for future leadership positions. Are there roles, responsibilities and programs you can put these future leaders in now to start developing those skills?
The first place to start is with your own position. Take some time to make a list of people you think have the potential to step into your role once you decide to leave your position. If there is no one on that list, get to work! The next positions to focus on are your leadership team and direct reports.
Once you have a list or one or more people for all of these critical leadership positions, join me next month where you and I will explore specific steps we will take to start putting your succession plan into action.