5 Succession Planning Best Practices that Work

What Succession Planing Best Practices Make Sense for Your Unique Situation?
Succession planning best practices help talent leaders know where high potential talent resides in the organization and how to best engage and retain them for when it matters most.

Hope is Not a Talent Management Strategy
When it comes to succession planning, “hope” is not a talent management strategy.  The right talent to move a strategy forward rarely just appears when needed.  Succession planning best practices help to develop practical and forward thinking processes to identify, attract, develop, engage, and retain top talent within the organization.

Leaders Tell Us They Do Not Have the Talent They Need
While most companies have already taken steps to begin a succession planning process for senior management positions, most agree that they do not have the “right talent ready at the right time” and enter “crisis mode” when an important leadership gap occurs.  One of the key goals of any succession planning effort should be that there is no “hiccup” in seamlessly executing the business plan, at least from a talent and employee retention perspective.

Five Succession Planning Best Practices Guidelines to Raise Your Game
Here are five guidelines for putting a new succession planning program in place or for breathing life into your existing system.

1. Start with the Business
   While it seems obvious that a talent strategy should follow and align with the business strategy, many succession planning processes do not start here. Instead many organizations shortsightedly look at existing leadership roles and focus only on the potential retirement of leaders in key functions.

   This approach does not adequately take into account all of the key talent required to drive future business plans.

2. Think Talent Pools, Not Individuals
   Current trends in succession planning show that organizations are creating large talent pools rather than developing only key targeted leadership replacements. For example, a company that anticipates focusing more on green energy products is creating talent pipelines two to three years in advance of the desired business results.

   The talent pipelines bring new perspectives and skills into the organization and allow for action learning leadership development experiences before results are needed.

3. Think Critical Roles
   Once you have a solid understanding of the business strategy and plan, identify all of the critical roles required to execute the strategy over the next three to five years.

   This includes key individual contributors, such as salespeople with in-depth contacts in important markets, international talent, and technical professionals who have IT or R&D skills critical to product development.

   These high stakes roles often require Leadership Simulation Assessments to best identify high-potentials and accurately measure successor readiness.

The Bottom Line
Do you have a coherent plan to identify, curate, and retain the high performing and high potential talent in your  organization?  If not, you may need to update your talent management strategy.

To read the last two succession planning best practices, download 5 Must-know Succession Planning Trends and Lessons from the Field