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Build your bench to ensure smooth transitions
By Barbara Poole
Contributing Writer
If you’re a key leader in your organization, one of the most important jobs you have is figuring out who your replacement is.
Think about that for a minute.
Most busy leaders have spent their careers climbing the ladder and have been primarily focused on their own next steps.
Yet the key to ensuring consistent organizational success is making sure that a well-earned promotion doesn’t create a gap in the structure that would leave an important management position vacant.
Most big organizations have been forced to deal with the importance of succession planning. Large, complex businesses know that they need to have a solid bench of future leaders, and they typically have the budget and the expertise in house to make sure this important piece of strategic planning is handled.
But small and mid-size organizations have a larger challenge in securing the future leadership of their businesses. When I ask the executives in small and mid-size businesses if they have a succession plan in place, they typically say they do, referring to a list of names on a sheet of paper.
How those names make it onto the list is usually pretty obvious: They’re the next in line in whatever department we’re talking about, they’ve been around for a while and everyone expects they will be the heirs apparent.
Does that make them the best candidates for the job? Perhaps, but not necessarily.
And even if they are the most logical choices, there is frequently no plan in place to have them ready to move up by the time the incumbent leader moves on or retires.
It is as if the current leaders assume that these managers will be ready by osmosis, by having been around long enough to have somehow absorbed whatever they need to know.
An effective succession plan doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to be systematic. And if you really want to make sure it will do the job, it shouldn’t hinge on any assumptions about the aptitude, skill levels and career interests of the people on the list.
If you are in charge of your organization’s succession planning process, or if you’re a key leader wanting to make sure that your bench is solid and will be ready to go when you are, make sure you have the following elements in place.
• Create a template for the requirements of the job as it will exist in the future.
The key phrase here is “in the future.” Many leaders make the mistake of assuming that the qualifications that got them to their positions are the same qualifications that will be necessary for the next generation of leaders.
Technology and the business environment are changing too rapidly for that to be true.
How many seasoned call center executives do you suppose knew that they would need to understand how to manage a workforce in India 15 years ago?
Inventory the knowledge, skills, abilities, values and personal traits that will be essential to performing the job in the future, not those that qualified you for the position 10 years ago.
• Take time to assess the aptitude of your potential successors.
Don’t assume that just because your potential successors are good in the jobs they now do and have been around for a while that they necessarily have the potential to move up into key leadership roles.
Remember that the job of a senior leader is substantively different than that of a line manager. Not everyone has what it takes to make that leap, and you owe it to them and to the organization to evaluate their aptitude first.
• Make sure they’re interested in the job.
I have worked with many good managers who love their jobs, value the balance they have between their work and family lives and who, despite their abilities, are simply not interested in moving up the ladder into roles that will require more personal sacrifice and commitment on their part.
This doesn’t make them slackers. It simply means that they know themselves well enough to know what matters to them.
Make it your business to understand what is important to them, and don’t make assumptions that you can’t validate.
• Have a solid development plan in place.
This is perhaps the most important step to ensuring a strong bench. Just because you have targeted the logical people for your succession plan and taken steps to ensure they will be a good fit in the future doesn’t mean that they will be ready when you need them.
Your development plans should be tailored to the unique needs of everyone on the list and will most likely include a mix of formal training, coaching, mentoring and stretch assignments that will provide the learning and growth opportunities they will need to be ready when the jobs are.
Don’t leave your succession planning to chance. Take the time to create a game plan that fits your organization, its people and its future.
It is your best shot at building a bench that will help you win the games of tomorrow.
Barbara Poole is a leadership and career development coach with Success Builders Inc. E-mail her at CoachBarbara@SuccessBuildersInc.com.
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