Succession Planning
“Succession planning is a process for identifying and developing internal people with the potential to fill key leadership positions in the company. “
– Wikipedia 2011
Succession planning is both a roadmap and a risk-management tool as you are moving up or moving on.
Succession planning:
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Builds on the knowledge and skills of your existing staff. They know you, and they know your organization's stakeholders
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Allows you to promote from within, which greatly contributes to retaining and recruiting talented employees
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Prepares your organization to deal with the unexpected with less trauma
For the employee:
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Identify what you want to do next – inside or outside your organization
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Obtain the skills and knowledge to do your next job
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Discuss your career objectives with your management, your board, and your other stakeholders
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Move up or move on because management knows you have developed your replacement
For the employer:
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Identify staff who have the greatest potential to replace you, and then:
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have them shadow you and
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give them exposure and opportunities to present at meetings and conferences
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Encourage staff to:
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identify and develop the knowledge and skills necessary to do your job
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accept challenging assignments and
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be visible to – and gain the confidence of – your management
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Create cross-training opportunities by:
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encouraging staff to learn about your department, your organization, and your industry and
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challenging them to volunteer to help other departments, serve on task forces, and/or cover for someone who is on vacation or extended leave
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From planning their own futures to helping plan the future for others, people need to have multi-year perspectives. Because this can be difficult, and it is not intuitive, people hire me to coach them.
