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Benefits:
- Improve the value of the enterprise.
- Develop more leaders.
- Feel more confident and secure about the future.
- Build a foundation of solid leadership and organizational development.
- Build a stronger organization.
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Situations/Presenting Problems:
- Client wants to sell the business.
- Client wants to hand the business off.
- Client wants to develop a pipeline of leaders and strengthen the organization.
- Clients wants a succession plan but doesn't know where to start.
- Client knows that various members of the executive team will be leaving or retiring, and wants a plan to prepare.
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Framework & Rationale
- Behavioral coaching A single behavioral change might improve one's ability to manage, motivate, and develop leaders.
- Perceptual coaching Leaders might need to look at perceptions keeping them from giving up control and developing future leaders.
- Create a high-performance culture A high-performance culture sets high expectations and challenges leaders throughout to develop and constantly improve results. This builds a pipeline of leaders.
- Communicate simply and powerfully Communication is key to implementing a succession plan.
- Build high-performing teams High-performance teams are more likely to challenge, stretch, and develop future leaders.
- The attitudes of the leader Certain specific attitudes naturally lead to the leadership required to develop an effective succession plan.
- Engage and mobilize employees An engaged and mobilized workforce is part of the foundation of a succession plan. In fact, clients should almost always go through this process as part of the succession planning process.
- Strategic planning Succession planning starts with strategy, because the organization has to understand strategic drivers and their implications for future talents needs.
- TOC
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General Inquiry
- What does succession planning mean to you?
- What would be a great outcome of a succession plan?
- What is the timing to create the plan?
- What is the timing for execution of the plan?
- What is driving the need for a succession plan?
- Who else besides yourself should be involved in this process?
- What is your own exit strategy from the organization? For instance, when do you plan to exit? (As appropriate:) Do you intend to retire, hand off the organization to an internal team, hand it off to family, or sell?
- Which are the key roles that need a succession plan?
- What is the timing for succession for each role?
- Who are key people who might be retiring, leaving, or moving up and that need a succession plan?
- What are your thoughts about succession planning as an ongoing process vs. a one-time event?
- What else about succession planning is important to you?
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Define Future Performance
- What are strategic drivers creating new needs on our organization?
- Which talents and roles will continue to be important?
- Which new talents will be critical as the organization evolves?
- Which new roles do we anticipate needing?
- Which key people do we anticipate retiring or leaving?
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In
- One Year
- Three Years
- Five Years
- Ten Years
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Clear Organization Chart
- Today
- Three Years
- Five Years
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Roles and Responsibilities
- Role
- Responsibilities
- Authority (and where they don't have authority)
- Talents/Skills
- Metrics for a "Great" Job
- Metrics for a "Good" Job
- Metrics for an "Unacceptable" Job
- To Whom the Role Reports
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Clear Career Path
- Role
- Potential Progression from Current Role
- Time Frame When This Can Happen
- Performance Required to Get Into the Role
- How We Will Help Develop them to Be Ready/Progress
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Processes
- The Process
- Process Owner
- Authority (and where they don't have authority)
- How Success of the Process is Defined, Overall
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Considerations
- Making a product
- Generating leads
- Closing leads
- Processing orders
- Billing
- Maintenance
- Recruiting
- Benefits administration
- Talent development
- Generating financial statements
- Procurement of supplies
- Customer relationship management
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Process Map
- Process Name
- Process Step
- Metrics of Success for the Process
- What Can Go Wrong in this Step
- How We Monitor and Measure
- Ideas to Improve this Step
- Person Responsible
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Strong Development Planning
- Describe your development planning process and how you make sure that it has "teeth."
- What are ways you can improve it?
- How do you make sure employees get the experiences they need to learn and progress into the next role?
- How do you give your employees access to build relationships with more senior leaders and be mentored by them?
- Describe your training curriculum for employees at various levels? How can you more directly tie training to specific strategic leadership needs in the organization?
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Recruitment
- How we find great people
- Our recruiting process to screen for the best people
- Sample ad for a role that sets our recruiting apart
- How we can become a magnet for the best talent by being a top place to work
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Strong Performance Management
- Name
- Aspirations with the Company
- Performance (1 to 10)
- Potential for Growth (1 to 10)
- Overall Percentile vs. Peers
- Plan to Best Manage/Lead Them
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Idea Joggers:
- Remove
- Redeploy
- Direct and inspect
- Manage their expectations/provide training
- Re-engage
- Mentor/advise
- Monitor results and ask if they need help/keep engaged
- Reward Systems
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Capture Key Knowledge
- Role
- How to Transfer Key Skills
- How to Transfer Process Knowledge
- How to Transfer the Informal "How Things Get Done Around Here"
- How to Transfer Key Contacts
- Other
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Address Flight Risks
- Flight Risk Name
- Why They Might Be Leaving?
- What Motivates Them?
- How We Can Keep Them Motivated and Engaged?
- Next Steps
- By Who
- By When
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Identify Roles for Succession
- Role
- Talents Needed Now
- New Talents Needed Going Forward
- Possible Internal Candidates
- Pros of Hiring from Outside
- Next Steps
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Choose Internal High-Potentials
- Name
- Current Role
- Roles He or She Could Fill
- Top Development Needs
- Possible Mentors
- Assignments to Challenge Him or Her
- Trainings/ Education
- Other Ways to Develop Him/Her
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Roles to Fill From Outside
- Role
- Why We Can't Fill Internally
- Recruiting Tactics
- Who Recruits
- By When
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Develop and Test Candidates
- Role
- How We Will Develop and Test Candidates for that Role
- Who is Responsible
- Next Steps
- By When
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Action Plan
- Put everything together into a comprehensive action plan for succession planning….
- Task
- Who
- By When
- Measure of Success
- Phase 1
- Phase 2
- Phase 3
- Phase 4