Succession Planning that Gets Results

Succession Planning that Works

“We hired LSA Global to help our long-term client identify root causes and develop an action plan for improving their leadership bench strength in face of high attrition and a changing marketplace. LSA’s succession planning expertise was a 10-out-of-10.

Their recommendations in the areas of attracting and recruiting the right talent, hiring and promoting the best talent, employee development, performance management, knowledge management, and succession planning were right on target.

I would recommend LSA to anyone looking to take their talent management practices to the next level.”
Director | Risk Advisory Services | Global Audit, Tax and Consulting Firm

A recent study by LinkedIn found that 80% of CEOs are worried about the availability of key skills required to execute their strategies. Successful organizations make sure that they have the right people in the right positions to propel the business forward. That includes building internal bench strength, filling the talent pipeline, and being prepared for planned and unplanned personnel changes.

Done right, succession planning should be the fastest, cheapest, and most reliable way to get well-qualified talent into open positions.

Unfortunately, very few companies have an effective or strategic succession planning process. According to research by SHL, only 15% of companies believe they have enough qualified successors for critical positions. McKinsey research found that 27-46% of executive transitions are viewed as failures or disappointments after two years. Companies report feeling forced to go outside for key talent more often than they would like because they do not have sustainable leadership pipeline.

Succession planning is a critical component of an overall talent management strategy which aims to attract, develop, engage, and retain top talent to execute the business strategy in a way that aligns with the organizational culture.

Succession planning focuses on identifying and developing internal talent with the potential to fill key business leadership positions in the organization. Succession planning increases the availability of experienced and capable employees through effective development of the high-potential employees, so that they are prepared to assume leadership roles as they become available.

Done right, succession planning helps build the bench strength to ensure the long-term health, growth, and stability of an organization.

Effective succession planning typically includes five major steps that are highly customized for each unique situation:

Identify Key Metrics to Move
Succession planning projects should start with clearly defined, relevant, meaningful, and agreed-to success metrics that align with the overall business and talent strategies. That means fully engaging your stakeholders to get the proper level of buy-in and alignment compared to other business priorities.

Typical stakeholders include the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer, Chief People Officer, Head of Talent, Senior Executives, front-line managers, and employees.
Define Critical and Strategic Jobs — Now and in the Future
Once success metrics have been defined, it is time to identify your most critical and strategic roles to ensure success today and in the future based upon your strategic business plan and key assumptions about the future.

The goal is to get clear agreement and alignment about the critical few difference-making roles.

Define Core Capabilities — Now and in the Future
Once you have agreement on your most critical and strategic jobs, the next step is to clearly define the most important current and future competencies, skills, knowledge, behaviors, attitudes, and experiences necessary to succeed in those roles.

Once again, less is more in this stage. Look for the critical few that matter most for your unique situation, not an exhaustive list.
Conduct a Talent Review
Based upon the metrics to move and the desired current and future competencies, the next step is to review your current talent and jobs using proven tools like leadership simulation assessments to understand the personality, cognitive, learning, motivation, leadership, functional, and technical performance and potential aspirations and issues with your current workforce and organizational structure.

The objective of an org. talent review is to identify talent and structure strengths and weaknesses, spot and groom high potentials early, mitigate retention risks, and establish talent pools by levels based on the strategic strengths of the organization.
Create a Succession Plan
After you have mapped your current and future talent gaps, it is time to create and execute a succession plan for consistently identifying and developing targeted internal talent with the potential to fill key business leadership positions in the organization. This includes ensuring that you create structured development plans and curated development experiences to truly prepare your talent for the future.

Targeted development plays a critical role in succession planning and often gets overlooked or is not fully implemented.

The entire succession planning program should be reviewed and adjusted (typically annually) in concert with the overall business and talent strategic planning processes. You will know you are headed in the right direction when you have the right talent in place for now (“ready now candidates”) and in the future (“talent pipeline”) to execute your strategy in a way that makes sense

Ask us about Pay-for-Performance options and how to move the leadership metrics that you care most about. Typical metrics that we move include:

Sales revenue, margin, win rate, portfolio mix, deal size, and cycle time.
Customer acquisition, loyalty, growth, and satisfaction.
Leadership execution effectiveness of key corporate strategies.
Employee attraction, development, performance, engagement and retention.
Project cost, quality, and time.

Related Information

I continue to be impressed by the depth and breadth of LSA’s expertise in leadership development, and management development.

What a smart and client-centric group of great people who really know how to help leaders attract, engage, develop and retain top talent in a practical and results-driven manner.

Thank you LSA!

Tracy Esposito
Director, HR Business Partner

Thank you to LSA Global for their partnership and support in helping us to design and roll-out highly needed and valuable leadership and management development programs that fit our unique situation.

I personally have partnered with LSA Global at four of my previous companies. It continues to be a delight.

We look forward to partnering with them for a long time to develop our managers and leaders.

Suzanne Kinner
VP Human Resources

LSA worked with our Executive Leadership Team to help create strategic clarity and alignment as we look to increase our growth rate and unlock innovation. They masterfully handled very complex, challenging, and high stakes leaders, decisions, and cultural nuances to help us identify what matters most and move toward one unified direction.

Their practical, straightforward, and client-centric approach to strategy was refreshing. I highly recommend them to any executive team looking to get aligned to create even higher performance. They are lights out awesome!

Patrick Resk
Chief Financial Officer, Partner

Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team to increase our level of strategic alignment, to solidify our new direction, and to push our agency forward.

As we look to rapidly scale, the clear, actionable, and critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves to our top accounts and target clients has really set us on a great path to success.

This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level. Thank you LSA!

Matt Britton
CEO

LSA has been a tremendous asset at my current company and my past company.

As an HR leader, I am always looking for ways to find external resources that can provide impactful leadership and management development expertise. LSA consistently does that for me.

The tools and practices are crisp, business relevant, and easy to apply on the job.

Ken Boehm
VP of Human Resources

We turned to LSA to help us custom design and deliver a action leadership and management development curriculum to help drive performance across the company.

They have done an excellent job diagnosing the business situation, designing an approach that fits our unique culture, and delivering first class solutions. Thank you!

Sally Buchannan
VP Human Resources

We have had a very beneficial partnership with LSA. Their recent Leadership Development Program helped us to identify, develop, and retain top leaders. It was instrumental in helping take our company and our key people to the next level. I would recommend them to anyone looking to truly develop and retain top talent.

Steve Janowsky
Vice President of Operations

After a difficult search to find a partner that could address a very specific leadership development need, we chose LSA Global. They were responsive to our needs and created a highly customized solution that we continue to see results from. It is nice to know we have access to their expertise with a simple phone call.

Valerie Blackburn
Director of Business Operations

We partnered with LSA Global to help us invest in our people. LSA custom designed an impactful management curriculum to help upskill our key managers and leaders.

We consider LSA to be our trusted learning and development partner and a valued extension of our team as we rapidly scale. Thank you LSA!

Lisa Bruun
SVP Human Resources

LSA’s action-learning leadership approach has been very beneficial to me, our leadership team, and the entire organization.

The balance of development and results has been excellent.

We have made huge progress, and I was also able to identify 2-3 high potentials while having the extra benefit of people stepping up to carry key strategic projects forward.

The experience was better than anticipated. I could not be more pleased.

Heather Feltman
President & CEO

LSA’s approach and ability to bring the right leadership and management expertise and approach to eBay has been a great asset.

They really focus on helping us succeed in any way they can and definitely lifted up our leadership and management development capabilities.

Mike Normant
Learning & Development

The customized leadership program was very practical and achieved our goals. LSA adapted very well to our group and the situation and helped us build trust and awareness of successful leadership styles. We look forward to the next steps.

Erik Okholm
Director of Software Development

LSA’s approach has certainly brought value to Knight Ridder Digital. They were laser focused on our goal and determined to meet all of our Leadership development program needs. Their flexibility and commitment were keys in making our program successful.

Dipik Rai
Director of Marketing

Working on our HR Strategy was so eye opening. I feel so much better prepared to be successful as a leader individually and collectively.

Now the entire HR leadership team can drive our growth strategy forward in a way that makes sense.

Kristin Talastas
Director, HR Shared Services

Thank you for a great leadership development session today. The facilitator was brilliant. The team got a lot out of it (as did I).

I believe it will help us create an even higher performance culture by ensuring we have a common understanding of how to create higher performance and work toward clear and common strategic goals.

Simon Jefferson
Managing Director