While no one denies the importance of Succession Planning, many feel their current approach lacks enough relevance to be effective.Succession planning is a key business process. It ensures the availability of competent staff that are prepared to assume leadership roles as they become available. A businesses thrives because of highly capable and motivated leaders. Without proper succession planning, the future success of that business is left to chance once a leader is gone. So if it is so important, why is it so difficult to implement?

Below are a few reasons we’ve come across with several clients.

• Tends to focus on the ‘planning’ effort and not as much on the ‘execution’ (i.e., development)
• Focuses on exclusive groups for senior executives – rather than the entire employee base (e.g., risk of losing Sr Product Engineer is just as important as losing the CFO)
• One time effort; as opposed to an ongoing process
• Succession Planning is not relevant to the employees – therefore they are not engaged, or willing to engage, in the development effort (i.e., “what’s in it for me?)

So knowing this, here are two easy tips to help make succession planning effective and more relevant inside your organization.

• Move succession away from “planning” to “development.”  Good succession has little to do with ‘planning,’ and everything to do with developing the experiences of employees. So why not, combine employee career development into the succession planning effort? Engage the entire organization – at all levels – with tools that empower them to take hold of their own career path – and a path that is guided and consistent with the organizational needs of the future. If, for example, a mid-level manager aspires to move up into a more senior role, that person should be able to see the requirements needed to advance. You can do the same for succession roles. And in this way, combining career development into the succession effort, you can make it more relevant, as everyone is involved and clearly understands what is needed to advance.
• Keep it Real.  Avoid the costly “paralysis analysis syndrome.” Good successoin planning does not require pages and pages of charts, forms, graphs, assessments, and so on. Collecting this information will just lengthen the process and consume much of your time – time you don’t have. Instead, define the areas of the organization that are key for succession, assign the specific characteristics, skills and competencies needed in this segment. These should correspond directly to your future organizational requirements. Then simply analyze the existing group against the future requirement. The product of this analysis is a “gap;” and that gap will drive the required learning to ensure that segment is properly equipped if someone should decide to step down.