Er. Ajay Sudan
Succession planning is a specific strategy, which spells out the particular steps to be followed to achieve the mission, goals, and initiatives identified in workforce planning. It is a plan that managers can follow, implement, and customize to meet the needs of their organisation, division, and/or department. Succession planning establishes a process to recruit employees, develop their skills, and prepare them for advancement, all while retaining them to ensure a return on the organization’s training investment. Succession planning involves understanding the organization’s long-term goals and objectives, identifying employee development needs, and determining trends.
Try to start early. One of the most common problems is people not giving succession planning the time it deserves early enough. Be honest. Sometimes the hardest thing is starting the conversation about what people really want to do.
Change the name of the process from Succession Planning to Succession Development. Plans do not develop anyone – only development experiences develop people. We see many companies put more effort and attention into the planning process than they do into the development process. Succession planning processes have lots of to-do’s – forms, charts, meetings, due dates and checklists. They sometimes create a false sense that the planning process is an end in itself rather than a precursor to real development.
Many humans fall into the same trap regarding physical fitness. We have may have fantastic plans in place to lose weight. We may be very proud of our plans, which include detailed daily goals for diet, alcohol consumption, and exercise. And if our execution were half as impressive as our planning, we would be very svelte. Our focus should be on weight loss, not planning for weight loss.
Measure outcomes, not process: this change of emphasis is important for several reasons. First, executives pay attention to what gets measured and what gets rewarded. If leadership development is not enough of a priority for the company to establish goals and track progress against those goals, it will be difficult to make any succession planning process work. Second, the act of engaging with senior executives to establish these goals will build support for succession planning and ownership for leadership development. Third, these results will help guide future efforts and mid-course corrections.
We sometimes find companies adding excessively complex assessment criteria to the succession planning process in an effort to improve the quality of the assessment. Since the planning process is only a precursor to focus the development, it doesn’t need to be perfect. More sophisticated assessments can be built into the development process and administered by a competent coach.
Stay realistic, while development plans and succession charts aren’t promises, they are often communicated as such and can lead to frustration if they aren’t realistic. Bottom line; don’t jerk around high performing leaders with unrealistic development expectations. Only give the promise of succession if there is a realistic chance of its happening!
A succession plan will only be effective if it’s ongoing. Once it’s been put in place, make sure it’s always up-to-date; revaluate talent pools, taking into account the shifting requirements of key roles. You may find that as your organisation expands, or as the market changes, your management requirements will change.
Keep track of the results of the succession plan; you should know how effective your development systems are. Succession planning can also aid employee retention, particularly at senior level. When an organisation puts the time, effort and money into training and developing its staff, they feel valued and are less likely to be tempted to resign when one of their key figures leaves. With this in mind, ensure you don’t concentrate all your efforts on just one person, who could leave the business; you need to develop a group of talent.
Whatever you do, don’t make assumptions. The lack of a clear plan can lead to unease on both sides, with senior workers feeling a sense that there’s no future for them, or younger workers waiting for them to move on so they can get stuck in. Those in more physical roles may be looking forward to retiring at 65 – but equally, if they’ve worked somewhere for a long time, it can feel like a family they don’t want to be cut off from, so keeping a limited involvement might be more attractive. It’s not about bullying people to stay on if they don’t want to – but neither is it about kicking them out before they’re ready. Sensible, open conversations are key.
Harness your senior workers’ expertise. Think about how senior workers can pass on their skills and expertise, so it doesn’t leave your organisation when they do. If you’re considering a business leader or senior manager’s succession, could they work alongside their successor for 6-12 months, then continue part-time in a mentor-style capacity to support key decisions as and when required? Be sure to allow enough time for them to pass on their contacts, business and client insight, processes, tips and to help smooth over any issues while they’re still around. Could older workers at any level of the business help with inducting and training new staff? Whether the focus is on using equipment or customer service, their experience and insight can be invaluable – so don’t waste it.
Don’t assume succession is a simple matter of a deputy stepping up to a leadership position when a leader retires. Deputies can sometimes be more used to working in the wake of their leader, and haven’t had enough opportunity to be challenged in the leadership role before actually stepping up to the position permanently. So invest in their learning, development and leadership training before that leader retires, and give them the opportunity to make key decisions, coached by their leader if necessary.
Explore all options. Keep an open mind about how succession could work; it’s not always a case of appointing an individual successor and planning a smooth transition. One Investors in People accredited business I work with (with around 50 employees) is tackling the issue of its managing director retiring by divisionalising. It’s setting up three divisions, each led by an experienced senior manager from within the business, while the current managing director becomes group chief executive and chairman, working part-time.
Give the time your goal deserves. Planning an effective succession strategy can be difficult to balance with more immediate business needs. But that’s no reason to put it off. Little and often is the key – allow time for regular conversations (followed up with simple actions), sharing contacts, techniques for winning new business and so on. This will be much easier to manage than doing nothing and consequently getting to a point where it’s urgent and takes over everything.
Be flexible. Your succession plan doesn’t have to be carved in stone; it’s an evolving conversation, not a binding contract. Update it regularly as circumstances change. Both the business and the individual will need the flex to adapt to the unexpected – but doing this within a clear strategy is always more effective.
“There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.”
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