How to triumph at succession planning

• The optimistic assumption behind succession planning is that viable candidates exist within an organisation to fill its higher positions. What’s needed is a process for making it happen. It’s easy to lay out the steps involved.
• First one must identify the emerging leadership needs, given the environment in which the organisation will be operating in the coming years and the opportunities and challenges it will be facing — very different, perhaps, from past and present ones. Then comes the identification of those with the potential to assume greater responsibility in such a setting.
• Succession planning is intrinsic to talent management… which in turn must be aligned to overall organisational strategy. It’s obvious to state, but rarely do we find it to be so.
• The benefits of succession planning are equally obvious, and not just in smoothly filling the highest positions. The very mind set required to work on succession planning launches initiatives that will increase the availability of experienced and capable employees prepared to assume the higher roles as these become available.
• Succession comes round at a predetermined time and can be planned well in advance. No wonder that talent management, and within it succession management, is a prominent item on the agenda of any serious board.

Succession planning is one of those ‘‘good things to do’’ that no one in their right minds would argue with. Yet very few organisations actually do it.

When times are good people say they are too busy, and when they are not no one is in the mood and it would be too costly to organise anyway.

Little wonder that, with some notable exceptions, preparing for smooth handovers is largely restricted to the GEs and the Coca Colas and the Unilevers of this world.

As it is with quite a few other widely accepted tools of good management such as delegation and execution, performance appraisals and mentoring, all of which I have anguished about in this column.

And why wouldn’t people feel anxious about any of these? They’re all very delicate, and fraught with serious downside risks.

The optimistic assumption behind succession planning is that viable candidates exist within an organisation to fill its higher positions. What’s needed is a process for making it happen. It’s easy to lay out the steps involved.

Leadership needs

First one must identify the emerging leadership needs, given the environment in which the organisation will be operating in the coming years and the opportunities and challenges it will be facing — very different, perhaps, from past and present ones.

Then comes the identification of those with the potential to assume greater responsibility in such a setting.

If the organisation is entering a phase of growth or diversification, of restructuring or consolidation, are they suited for what is to come?

And either way, do they show signs of the motivation, the toughness and the ambition to take on the greater challenge? While each candidate will have their strengths, they will also most likely be lacking in certain areas.

So high fliers must be provided with enough tests, enough experience and exposure, that will develop them adequately by the time they are needed to take over.

It is the current top leadership — both board and management — that must drive the process, including through directly coaching their possible replacements.

Succession planning is intrinsic to talent management… which in turn must be aligned to overall organisational strategy. It’s obvious to state, but rarely do we find it to be so.

In larger organisations the HR function, the one that has day-to-day responsibility for talent management, must keep its caring eye on all concerned – those phasing out as much as those taking over, dispensing tough love as needed. In smaller ones the directors and line managers are as good as it gets.