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

Great job in designing the Mergers and Acquisition strategy session for our global leadership team. The session was excellent.

I gained additional insight on the importance of the role of HR regarding strategy, culture, and people in Mergers and Acquisitions and would recommend LSA to anyone looking to align strategies and cultures.

Gloria Veon
Senior Vice President, Human Resources

LSA Global has been a great partner in helping us move toward being “the leading developer of talent in the service performance management industry.”

I have engaged LSA to help develop best-in-class programs in the areas of: Executive On-boarding, Manager Training, Sales Training and Coaching, Employee Engagement, and Instructional Design.

They have consistently met or exceeded my (very) high expectations and are always responsive to my needs to increase performance, engagement, customer satisfaction, and sales growth.

Mike Normant
Senior Director, Training & Development

We greatly value our relationship with LSA Global.

They focused on understanding our unique culture and helping us to move our strategic priorities forward.

LSA continues to deliver top quality executive coaching, consulting, and leadership development solutions that are highly customized for our unique situation.

I highly recommend LSA Global to anyone looking to greatly improve their leadership, management, and project capabilities.

Bonnie S. Olson
Vice President of Human Resources

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’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

LSA’s executive coach based his approach on understanding our business circumstances and strategy, as well as our leadership aspirations. The customized coaching covered all aspects of leadership; it was not simply a touchy-feely endeavor.

In fact, the focus on clear business outcomes and real life circumstances challenged me as a senior leader to develop my thinking and actions related to leading the business.”

Janet Pagano
Managing Director

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

LSA has a tremendous ability to distil complex, multilayered challenges into meaningful, impactful, and clear strategies and action plans.

The time we invested as a leadership team to get aligned was well spent in gaining laser focus and identifying ways to prioritize what was meaningful individually and as a team. The facilitation and leadership style was direct, firm, and compassionate.

LSA provided the high level thinking and support for our team to co-create in a rapidly scaling business.

Bindu Garapaty, PsyD
VP, Talent and Inclusion, Diversity, & Equity

The customized leadership styles and coaching program was the best training that I have ever attended. The facilitators were phenomenal. They have a wealth of experience and knowledge coupled with compassionate and caring styles. I’d highly recommend this leadership training program to any manager, director, or executive looking for a life changing leadership program.

Shoaleh Ghaffari
Director, HR

The strategy and alignment work with our leadership team was absolutely transformational. The decisions we made combined with the transparency, communication, and accountability were exactly what we needed. Thank you!

Dr. Raphael B. Merriman M.D
Medical Director, Liver Transplantation

LSA consistently delivers for me and my team. Recently they demonstrated the criticality for executives to look beyond current ethics topics and focus on applying fundamental values in everything they do to demonstrate true leadership. They successfully delivered in two hours what most leadership development facilitators would spend an entire day trying to communicate.

Nick Voyvodich, SPHR
HR Manager

What a refreshing change from the half-baked psycho-babble you normally get from training and consulting organizations. LSA gives you the practical and results-oriented assistance you need to define and reach your goals.

Their leadership, management, and sales expertise has been invaluable. They think strategically and provide a results driven plan – not just a temporary fix.

They are great to work with, and even more importantly, they “get it!”

David Fiano
Director of Merchandising

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

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

I’ve been associated with LSA for the last 8 years and have found them to be extremely professional and client-focused.

I’ve participated in a number of solutions ranging from Performance Management to Leadership Training. I’ve found the quality to be superior.

They are always well prepared and have definitely done a considerable amount of pre-work in order to customize to our unique culture and goals.

Duane Schroeder
Human Resource Manager