When you have seen the award -winning HBO show “Succession”, You know how dramatic and challenging it can be to be a succession plan for the next generation of managing directors. I personally worked in companies that took the succession planning seriously and those who did not do it, and the difference was strong.
Accordingly This report from 2023“For three years, the critical turning point is that valuable managers consider whether they should search internally or externally after their next opportunity.”
I felt that in my own professional experience. If there is no plan for me to climb internally after three years in a company, I feel undervalued and look for other options.
By developing a successor plan, your company can prepare for smooth transitions if the managers withdraw or accept promotion. A well -thought -out plan can significantly influence the morals of the employees and position their team so that they treat future business challenges. Read on to learn the advantages and disadvantages of successor planning so that you are prepared for every transition.
Table of contents
What is succession planning?
Succession planning is a strategic process to identify employees with high potency and take measures to prepare them for future management positions. It helps your company to develop and keep the talent pipeline so that you can quickly take on free leadership roles.
Some follow -up plans look for 12 to 36 months when a guide retired, progress, progress or leaves. Others, including successor plans for CEOs, look into the future to secure the next generations of managers.
We will later cover the details of C-Suite crossings. However, all successor planning have similar advantages to thinking and recognizing what they want in a successor.
What is the importance of successor planning?
The Global leadership forecast 2023 reports that 59% of the CEOs “attract top talents and maintain” and also prioritize 50% priority of the “development of the next generation of managers”.
It is important to remember that baby boomers are Hits of the retirement age in 2025 Never seen in numbers before. The succession planning has never been a more critical strategy for CEOs and companies to close the gap between new employees and pensioners.
The advantages of strong leadership are obvious. It improves the sales of employees, ensures that goals are carried out and contributes to the survival of the company. So if a crucial guide leaves, a succession plan can help to be filled and your company continues to thrive. But that’s not the only advantage.
Advantages of business succession planning
- If you find and develop people for future leadership roles, you can promote from the inside. These employees have organizational knowledge and internal relationships that are missing external employees.
- Let employees know that they invest in them is a great moral thrust. Motivation and loyalty to the company can also increase.
- The training of employees for leadership roles forces them to identify the skills, knowledge, practices and relationships that are required for every role in their succession plan. This can attract new talents, keep current employees and keep them competitive.
- The setting of highly specialized rollers is not easy. Succession planning will help you find people with unique skills when it comes to replacing the current employees.
At the moment, Managers who want to develop skills Outside of their daily work, more coaching and development orders want to be evaluated and formal training. Subsequent planning is the perfect way to formalize training for current and future managers.
Best practices for succession planning
Succession planning is not easy. If you take these best practices into account when choosing successors, your company is well equipped to manage transitions and unexpected changes.
Formalize a plan.
The earlier you set a succession plan, the better. You do not want to risk a leadership vacuum in which teams do not feel supported. This can quickly lead to an entire team or a department, especially if the leader is particularly strong and has a close relationship with their direct reports.
As soon as you have a succession plan, write it down. Then make it clear that there is a plan if the inevitable transitions take place.
Pro tip: Fill out for free Succession planning template Evaluation of the management strategy of your organization.
Stay dynamic.
Volatility is common in every company. People move cities, find new jobs and retire. Your succession plan should be able to adapt to changes. Instead of creating a plan and only rethinking it once again, if the time is suitable for filling out a role, you see the plan as a developing process that needs to be updated constantly.
Pro tip: Remember that the most common review with employees, understanding of your passion, achieving goals and more is important for maintaining top talents. Ambitious employees do not stay at a job where there is no plan for them.
Rate the talent.
Part of a fluid successor plan is the time to evaluate the interests, skills, performance and opportunities of employees. This can be done with 360-degree feedback, weekly reviews with managers, informal training or tools such as the Nine-Box network.
The aim is to make an idea of ​​the strengths and weaknesses of people, the career goals and the growth opportunities of people so that they know who may be suitable for leadership roles.
Pro tip: Read the free instructions “How to be a guide “ And see which of your employees contains the potential for leadership. Encourage the candidates to read the guide so that you can think about your own goals and efforts.
Communicate openly.
Communication builds trust in what makes it easier to determine the expectations and ensure that everyone is on the same side. If you create a succession plan, you have honest conversations with employees.
Find out where people want to be and tell them where they are. The jumping point is to make your plan reality, and the successors will appreciate your openness if it is that it offers you a role.
Pro tip: Ask your candidate what type of timeline he would see for your professional role. You could be surprised that some candidates want more time for training, while others feel safe to move quickly.
Make variety and inclusion a priority.
Company with Women in leadership roles experience Almost 50% higher profit and stock performance. Actually, 78% of managers Expect that your HR managers will do more for Dei next year, which will make your top priority.
Prioritization of DEI matters during the succession planning, since these are internal prejudices that have settings managers. For example, a certain role may have always been filled by a gender, which can influence the opinion of a manager about who should be successful. By evaluating your own prejudices and the commitment to Dei you will find the best candidate.
Pro tip: Remember, different teams will work better, improve your company’s culture and promote a safe work environment for everyone.
Example of business succession planning
When asked, a whopping 61% of the organizations stated not to have a direct report, who could Enter your CMO role morning. This is a bad sign of C-Suite successor plans. Without a strategy to replace managers, a company can quickly go downhill.
What does the succession planning look like if they are done correctly?
When researching this piece, Apple was repeatedly mentioned as a successor planning model. To explain, we have to go back in the past. After the famous founder Steve Jobs left the role of concentrating on cancer treatment in 2011, Tim Cook – the COO – took the position at that time. Since then the company has grown into one Market capitalization of 3.4 trillion dollars.
What made Tim Cook’s term so successful? Well, cook and jobs formed a close relationship and worked together for over 12 years. But beyond that, the company Apple UniversityAn Executive Education System that is supposed to help executives think. This program helps to keep the spirit of innovation in the company for those who may lead to the whole line.
Let us go forward quickly to 2024. The company has many managers of approximately the same age who may be retired on the horizon. Publications like Bloomberg can be able to do this Speculate who could take the reign Because several managers have taken on more public roles for the company.
The snack:
- Steps strong relationships between managers and potential successors so that upcoming managers can learn the ropes.
- Find a way to train or train managers and invest in future talents.
- Use potential future managers in publicly directed roles so that the transitions appear to your customers smoothly.
Succession planning steps
1. Create a plan for your plan.
This step is to define the goals of your Succession plan and align with everyone involved. For some companies, this means meeting their board to outline strategic priorities. For others, a meeting with high -ranking managers must be required to define this that they are looking for in a successor.
You will be ready to pursue the next step as soon as you:
- Define the roles, skills, core competencies and experience required for a successor.
- Collect information and feedback on the above -mentioned team or experts in your network.
- Practify the needs of your company. Consider sales trends, age data, remuneration strategies and management training.
- Update your job descriptions and all management models to reflect the information you have collected. You would like to make it clear about your expectations before looking for candidates.
Pro tip: Use Drift Kings Medias Free succession plan begin.
2. Identify potential candidates.
With the successor profiles and job descriptions you have created, you are ready to look for candidates. Make sure that your approach is easy to repeat and introduces as few prejudices as possible. It can be helpful to receive support from the HR team that can share the tools that are necessary to integrate candidates and can facilitate the process.
To identify candidates, you can:
- Search for managers who develop others, go for projects, take measures to support the company’s vision and have strong leadership qualities.
- Get an insight into the goals, disposition and potential of every candidate by performing interviews, creating surveys and setting up focus groups.
- Ask people for ideas on how to improve the succession and leadership to maintain a buy-in and find out who deals with the process.
Pro tip: Ask potential candidates to take part in specific management training or to complete a course. This can better prepare this for the successor and find those who will not take responsibility seriously.
3. Inform candidates.
There is a big debate as to whether companies should know that they are successor candidates or not. The information of people about their potential will not only motivate them, but also prevent them from being surprised with the company about their future. A great candidate can jump the ship when he is in the dark and believes that he can find a better opportunity elsewhere.
Instead, communicate your intentions about the positions, people and planning. Simply make your expectations incredibly clear about the roles and the people involved.
Pro tip: If you are not sure that a certain timeline for the successor of a candidate, make sure you know that there is no defined date and that you often check in to evaluate your progress. Notify them immediately if you have a timeline. Candidates who receive vague expectations and schedules can be frustrated and even disillusioned with the potential succession plan.
V.
Your company probably has programs for onboarding and training. Development, however, is about creating the opportunities for people, gaining experience beyond their current role and skills. This is particularly important for team members who can be in a specialized silo.
As soon as you identify the candidates you want to develop, you would like to determine the specific skills and knowledge you need to move to the next level. This often includes A Succession planContinuous feedback, mentoring or coaching, formal training and open conversations between the employee and his manager.
Pro tip: Mentoring of a candidate is not as easy as checking in a week. Discover the different types of mentoring and how you can better coach your candidate in this blog.
5. Do a test run.
When potential successors accelerate their growth, they become real candidates for leadership roles. This is the ideal time to start test runs to test your knowledge and to expose you to different aspects of a position. If you expose candidates in real situations, you can emphasize what effective leadership looks like and give you an insight into the company’s overall goals.
There are various ways to include candidates. Simply choose the method that makes sense for the role:
- Job Shadow is a leader who finds out about her daily tasks.
- Take responsibility when your manager is gone.
- Invite them to sit down on higher meetings.
- Bring them in discussions about strategy, execution or corporate forecast.
- Take a participation in the attitude process for junior candidates.
- Enter more responsibility for projects or take them into work.
Pro tip: An essential part of the succession planning is to ensure that your candidate is sufficiently trained and prepared. Add your most important requirements and goal posts Succession plan So you can keep an eye on the willingness to candidates.
6. Adjust your setting strategy.
Finally, the time will come when you extend an offer of a potential candidate. And you need someone to take on your role. Fortunately, the successor can use his new leadership qualities to interview the person or to train the person who fills their position. This can be an employee a few levels or a new use.
For this reason, it is important to adapt your attitude strategy to take into account the roles of the successor. Without her, your plan will not run so smoothly, and his team will probably try to close the gap.
Pro tip: Candidates for their new role have not been achieved. Take a look at this blog how employees are effective on board from your first day to your first year.
7. Implement the plan.
Succession planning is a complex process with several short and long-term layers. But at some point it will be time to make the transition. Make an announcement and celebrate the successor. This shows the employees that their company is proud of a strong leadership and has a plan for the career development of everyone.
Sometimes a gradual transition is required. Family businesses often struggle with the smooth successor planning due to family relationships, emotions and intertwined stories. In this case, a clear succession plan based on business requirements is extremely important to ensure the continuing success of the company.
Pro tip: Set clear expectations by writing specific goals that describe in detail whether the succession planning was a success. Let your successor know the exact key figures you want to reach during your first year and what your success will look like.
CEO succession planning
DDI reports “Today, only 40% of managers state that their company has high -quality managers. This is a significant decline compared to two years ago. “
This is a low score for such a high business priority-especially in view of the majority of CEO successors internal settings.
Harvard Business Review (HBR) states that “the selection of the next CEO is probably the most important of all decisions that the board of directors of a company makes.” The replacement of a CEO must contain a long -term, well -devied plan that is associated with both short and long -term corporate priorities.
The successor planning of the CEO can follow steps similar to the succession planning of the employees, but there are specific considerations for this role at the highest level. HBR describes the following tips on the development of a CEO successor:
- The competencies, personal attributes and experiences of a candidate must be associated with business priorities. A charismatic senior leader may appear like the top selection, but a company may need a successor with technical skills at expert level in addition to the social skills.
- Think of several generations instead of concentrating on the immediate successor. The successor is a long game, so you would like to position it as a continuous process to develop top talents.
- Identify seven potential CEOs in your company across all generations. This can take off the stress of each CEO transition and help to ensure that your talent pipeline becomes first-class.
- Training of CEO candidates through a combination of experience in work, executive coaching, education, mentoring and cross-functional training.
The development of talents to take on the role of CEO requires time and effort from high -ranking stakeholders. But it is absolutely worthwhile to prevent the vacuum from being able to leave this leadership role if the successor is poorly managed.
If a board is involved in the process, HBR, Board meetings, recommends using talent development to combine strategy sessions. In this way, stakeholders can ensure that strategy changes reflect the skills required for potential successors.
Succession planning of the employees
The succession planning extends to employees in all roles in a company. If you look at it in this way instead of saving follow-up plans for managers, you can identify employees at all levels with high power employees. You can then take steps to develop them into executives who are able to assume additional responsibilities if a role is opened.
When looking for successors, they pay attention to employees who are interested in the knowledge of new skills, familiarize themselves with changes, adapt to uncertainty and new leadership and manage various work environments. All potential successors should be motivated and busy in the process, as they have the chance to expand their knowledge and to take on more demanding roles.
If you see a way for the growth of an employee, you will see it too. So if an important leader or a new position for the director is created, you know exactly the right people who can be set for the role.
Note from the publisher: This post was originally published in September 2021 and updated for completeness.