Succession Planning

The key to a good succession planning process is simplicity, practicality, and clarity. Here is how we do it:

• Create a strong succession narrative. Companies need to identify how succession planning will help to achieve their strategic objectives, and what kind of leaders they’ll need in the future given where they’re headed. Also, clear messaging is hugely important for all stakeholders involved.
• Define the succession planning scope. It’s important to set parameters for which levels or roles or business units succession planning will cover. In other words, for which leadership roles are we looking to create a robust succession pipeline?
• Identify successor pools and candidates. Once step 2 is completed, a company needs to create a strong and diverse pool of potential successors and identify where they’re coming from (internal or external).
• Gauge successor fit, readiness, and development needs. This is where doing effective talent reviews comes in. Creating objective ways to assess leaders will be important to both gauge fit and determine the best development activities for them.
• Develop internal successors and research external targets. Companies need to actively “source” leaders by either developing their own or understanding where they’d look to hire from the outside. 
• Measure effectiveness and upgrade where needed. After evaluating succession planning efforts, make any adjustments to improve the process for next time, and then start again.