Ask the Expert: Succession Planning 
By Bob Edwards

Question:
My company has been fortunate in that we’ve had very little unexpected turn over the past few years.   However, as our workforce matures and I realize that some key positions are held by some people who I expect may be looking to retire in a 3-5 year timeframe, I realize we need to seriously think about succession planning.   I must admit, it is slightly overwhelming to me to think of what I need to be thinking of, I’m not even sure what the starting point should be.   Should I be looking to groom internal resources, how do I know if I have the right skill-set within the company today, should I be looking to bring on people externally and I don’t want to make the people whose positions I’m concerned about feel as though I am replacing them or trying to get them to leave early.   As you can tell, I have a lot of questions!  Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Answer:
First of all, congratulations on your companies ability to retain your talent!  Secondly, thanks for asking this terrific question which is on the lips of many of our colleagues in human resources.   We recently attended the SHRM conference and this is one of the hottest topics we heard about in addition to most organizations need for a systematic approach to talent management.

Let’s get started with some fundamentals:

What is it?  Succession management is a systematic approach to ensuring that an organization has a steady, reliable pipeline of talent that will meet its future needs in leadership and other linchpin roles.  It involves both identifying and accelerating the growth of key talent in line with the capabilities needed to execute long-term business strategy.

• Why invest the time and effort?  According to the Corporate Leadership Council, no other resource constraint (lack of executive talent) has as much potential to negatively impact a company’s long-term health.  Without the early and accurate identification of high-potential employees, companies can not effectively deploy their resources to support the development of their future leaders

• Thinking of succession management as an HR program rather than a senior management program
• Having too broad a scope starting out and trying to do too much too fast
• Waiting to long to get started (i.e., not allowing enough time for development of internal replacements forcing external hiring)
• Inconsistent assessment of potential and poor follow-up on development plans

What are the critical success factors?
Of paramount importance is management commitment, and most importantly, commitment at the top.  Succession should be linked to your business strategy and operating needs and integrated with other human resource strategies and systems (i.e. staffing, assessment, performance management and development)  It requires a strong focus on your future leadership requirements and will require active work closing your top talent’s development needs and finely, it must be sustainable over time.

You can get started by developing a plan for the key steps & activities in succession planning as follows:

• Develop your business case - identify relevant context, parameters, and needs for succession
• Create the architecture/design your system - create a systematic approach to addressing succession needs and identify processes, tools, and capabilities needed to achieve your succession objectives
• Plan Implementation - develop plans and schedules to support the succession management system and to prepare for your senior management succession review meeting
• Analyze/assess internal bench strength - assess the breadth and depth of leadership talent
• Identify successors for senior management and other key lynchpin roles - establish your succession plans based on availability and readiness of internal and in some cases, external talent
• Conduct your senior management succession review meeting – have a rich discussion about replacements, top talent and development in your organization
• Develop your top talent – develop and retain the talent needed for the future
• Acquire the talent you need from the outside to fill gaps in your internal talent pool
• Measure your process and actions taken  - to assess and support the effectiveness of succession system
• Integrate succession with your HR and business processes

In response to your question about grooming internal resources the answer is a resounding yes!  As I am sure you know, job/career development is one of the key reasons people stay with a quality organization.  Grooming your top talent for key leadership roles sends the right message about organization commitment and leadership priorities.

In terms of determining if you have the correct skills within the company today, you will learn where your skill strengths and gaps are as you complete the successor identification and replacement planning work.  Few organizations have all of the talent they need inside the organization so a strategic staffing plan will require some external replacements.

To help you get going I recommend the Linkage “Designing and Implementing Succession Management Systems” workshop.  It is practical, loaded with tools and techniques and based on best practice research and client work.

I hope I have answered your questions around this extremely hot topic!

Bob Edwards, Principal Consultant
Western Region  



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This issue of Link&Learn was published in July 2007, by Linkage, Inc. (http://www.linkageinc.com). Please direct copyright and additional questions and comments to editor@linkageinc.com