9

Implementing Your Succession Plan

Introduction

The existence of a succession plan doesn’t ensure success. There are still potential challenges to be addressed. For example, if not communicated and maintained correctly, a succession plan can become just another layer of bureaucracy that separates current leadership from potential leaders. This chapter highlights steps for putting the plan into action, as well as the challenges that may pop up and ways to avoid them.

Maintaining Your Succession Plan

Now that you’ve created the plan, keeping it going involves six main activities:

Communicate opportunities:

• Inform employees of upcoming opportunities and new key areas of focus for the organization.

• Communicate what competencies are needed for those positions.

• Keep the organization updated on the succession planning process.

Identify candidates:

• Encourage employees to express their interest in openings and to participate in succession planning activities.

• Maintain systems for submitting potential leadership candidates.

• Explain the process so employees know their participation in this process does not guarantee advancement.

Assess candidate readiness:

• Compare the candidate’s competency level with the level required for the position.

• Use assessment tools that engage candidate, supervisor, and any direct reports.

• Gauge candidate readiness by testing, reviewing development, studying resumes and cover letters, and conducting interviews.

Prepare individual development plans:

• Prepare IDPs with employees to develop needed competencies.

• Maintain and update lists of competencies needed for key positions.

• Determine appropriate training approaches for candidates.

Provide development opportunities:

• Review the candidate’s competency lists regularly and determine methods for developing their skills.

• Maintain a variety of knowledge transfer methods to address diverse needs in your organization.

• Monitor candidate’s development regularly to determine progress.

Evaluate, review, and revise:

• Review the succession plan at least once a year.

• Make revisions and updates as needed.

• Communicate any changes to the organization so that managers and employees can revise IDPs accordingly.

Avoiding the Pitfalls

To avoid potential problems, it’s a good idea to review some of the most common missteps in succession planning. These are the 10 pitfalls that could derail your succession planning efforts.

Pitfall #1: Lack of Management Support

If top management doesn’t support the program, it will most probably fail, no matter how well thought out. And if it falls prey to delays or political dynamics in the organization, there is a possibility your program may stall even before it has a chance to roll out.

To avoid this possibility, enlist management from the beginning of this process by not only having their representatives on the team but also including them in communications. This communication can be as simple as a regular email or report outlining progress. This will help managers relay this information to their direct reports in a positive manner and will keep them engaged in the process.

As we’ve seen in numerous surveys, one of the most important motivators in the workplace is feeling like you’re part of the team or being in-the-know. By promoting this feeling, you’re creating a positive atmosphere for succession planning.

Pitfall #2: Lack of Effective and Open Communications to the Entire Organization

If your succession planning effort is not communicated positively, it will be subject to negativity, fear, and possible sabotage.

Communications such as regularly scheduled email, promotional flyers, written and oral reports, or even updates given at department meetings will help with the anxiety that can accompany succession planning efforts. Keeping open communication lines and soliciting input from employees at all levels of the company can range from a suggestion box or emails to a series of town hall meetings where employees get to express ideas and concerns.

This plan is being developed for the entire organization, even those at entry level, because it is a plan for the future; those new employees are the future of your company. If you represent it positively, the plan will work to increase retention in entry-level employees because they will be able to grow in the organization. Those opportunities represent another major motivator in the workplace, according to employee satisfaction surveys. And this motivator becomes even more important as organizations look to recruit and retain high potentials from next generations.

Pitfall #3: Lack of Communication With Individual Leadership Candidates

Organizations have been surprised to find themselves starting all over again when a top candidate has left the organization for another opportunity because the candidate didn’t know they were in line for leadership positions.

It’s also important to talk to leadership candidates to verify that they’re interested in leadership roles. We can’t assume that everyone in the organization wants to move up. Some employees have seen the heavy responsibilities their managers have to deal with and are content to stay at their current level in the organization. Communication with potential leaders should include regular reviews to ensure they are still interested in moving to the next level and to monitor their developmental activities.

Pitfall #4: Lack of Understanding

Many times, the members of an organization perceive succession planning as creating a ceiling over them, not allowing them to move upward unless they are one of the chosen few.

A focus on the plan at the individual level can help dispel any misunderstanding. Add a segment to performance appraisals where managers discuss career paths in the organization and discuss employee interests and strengths in relationship to the career maps of the organization. This reinforces succession planning as a development opportunity for the individual instead of a ceiling.

Pitfall #5: Inadequate Documentation

A formal written plan for the position or the person is essential to this process. Consistency and thoroughness of documentation are necessary to ensure that the result of assessments and development efforts are considered in all decisions.

Online resources with updates, statistics, and victories help maintain momentum for the program. Using the recommended communications vehicles to continually reinforce the positive message and results to date help maintain the program’s sense of urgency. Even something as simple as prominently displaying visuals with the assessment figures and discoveries during project meetings is a way for visually oriented team members to keep this information in mind during decision-making periods.

Brief summaries at the beginning of meetings that recap the results of assessments also help keep the focus for the group.

Pitfall #6: Inadequate Participation

Succession planning is not just a job for the human resources department. Involvement from all levels of the organization helps ensure buy-in and reduce the possibility of negativity.

Although maintaining succession planning usually falls on the HR specialists, it must include a diverse segment of the organization for buy-in to occur. If membership is restricted to the current management or any one segment of the organization, it will turn into an “us-versus-them” situation that is dangerous to the success of any new effort.

Additionally, using only the incumbent’s perception to create a position description limits the role to what has existed in the past. The list of competencies needed for that position can be updated by using input from levels who interact with that position as well as those who understand the new strategic directions of the organization.

Pitfall #7: Lack of Accountability and Follow Through

Project-planning methods with follow-up meetings, action items, assignments, deadlines, and accountability are necessary to ensure the success of the program.

It can be helpful to take a complete project management approach with this program. That could include project management software or simply charting key action items, tasks, and deadlines. You might also find it useful to bring in an external facilitator or consultant to ensure that deadlines are met and politics or other initiatives of the organization do not interfere with the progress of the team.

Often, long-range thinking and strategic planning are pushed to the back burner in consideration of more urgent needs. This leads to reactive management and draws the attention away from strategic planning.

Occasional case studies of organizations that have failed because of a lack of long-range planning might serve as motivators to your group. Even case studies from within the organization itself can remind you why you have dedicated this extra time and effort.

Pitfall #8: Lack of Reviews and Revisions

If you treat a succession plan as though it were written in stone, it will become more of a hindrance to your organization than a tool. Be willing to make adjustments as situations change. Leadership should regularly review business dynamics and employee developments to determine if modifications are needed.

During the course of succession planning, there will probably be positions that come open and may need to be addressed by replacement hiring. Take the time to point out the cost of that hiring process as opposed to the investment that is being put into your succession plan. The cost of employee hiring today includes everything from HR overhead, advertising, personality testing, background checks, interview time, reference checks, travel expenses, and more. If the process can be handled more effectively with a little advance planning, the return on investment is going to be considerable.

Pitfall #9: Focusing on Only the Top Level of Leadership

Although the CEO and senior leaders in the organization should always be considered in a succession plan, there are other critical positions to address. Key positions include those with specific knowledge and capabilities that are vital to your organization’s success and are not easily replaced.

Pitfall #10: Assuming That Success in One’s Position Will Guarantee Success in a Higher Position

The competencies required for success at each level are different. A person who is an excellent accountant may not have the competencies or people skills needed to be a supervisor of other accountants. Each position must be considered separately by its own criteria to determine whether the job is a match for that person’s abilities.

Also, the fact that someone has been at a company for a long time should never overshadow the competencies needed in the position. Using promotion as a reward instead of following the succession plan undermines the system.

Follow-Up Checklist

A checklist can be a simple way to determine how the rollout of your new program is going. In the first six months following the rollout, meet with your succession planning team and consider the following questions:

• How many nominations do we have for key positions?

• How many managers have completed IDP discussions with their direct reports?

• How many employees have signed up for developmental opportunities, including classes, experiential training opportunities, and other competency- building offerings?

Summary

This chapter looked at the ongoing steps of succession planning. This will be your outline of activities for the continuation of this program. The cycle begins with communicating to employees, then identifying and assessing candidates, developing those candidates, and selecting from talent pools as positions become available.

We’ve also looked at some of the pitfalls that can occur during succession planning, and we’ve recognized that this is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Your organization is unique. It has its own culture. It even has its own language, as can be attested to by anyone who has ever walked into a staff meeting and heard acronyms flying around that make no sense to them. Therefore, it stands to reason that you’ll find different methods, steps, and even an order of activities that may work better for you.

Make the plan your own to ensure it works for your organization. But one area that you should always include in your plan is ongoing evaluation. That’s what we’ll look at in the next chapter.

Getting It Done

To sustain a succession plan, it must be regularly monitored and maintained.

Use the steps in this chapter to ensure the continuation of succession planning efforts. The checklist in Table 9-1 can assist. These steps include appointing a team member to take ownership of the communication systems. You’ll also want to hold regular meetings to review lists of candidates, to keep building on the developmental opportunities available, and to promote those training events to employees. And, of course, you’ll want to review and revise the plan as needed. You’ll get a list of methods to evaluate the plan in the next chapter.

Table 9-1. Succession Plan Maintenance Checklist