What are the steps in designing a succession plan?

Designing an effective succession plan involves much more than naming successors to a few critical positions. Instead, it involves a strategic analysis of the organization's values, business needs, and future goals. In general, it includes the following:

1. Time investment. To develop others beyond today's job, allocate time to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of your succession plan.

2. Identify leadership competencies. What are the challenges the organization is likely to face? What attributes are necessary in leaders to address those challenges successfully? Defining those competencies in reference to the organization's strategic plan is necessary before you begin looking either at the positions that you've identified as critical or your potential talent pool.

3. Identify high-potential candidates. Don't make the common mistake of looking only at corporate headquarters or among the ranks of middle management for these performers. Preconceived assumptions can be counterproductive; individuals with key leadership skills may be found in the warehouse as well as in the boardroom. Part-timers or others utilizing flexible work schedules should not be rejected out of hand. Finally, it should go without saying that age, race, sex, national origin, religion and disability should have no bearing on your decision. Similarly, don't rely solely on one method of evaluation. The stronger your performance management system, the better off you'll be here, but look also to feedback from coworkers, direct reports, customers, and vendors, as well as the candidate's supervisor. You may have more depth in the organization than you assumed.

4. Appraise fairly and accurately. You can't help anyone develop if you can't or aren't willing to fairly and accurately appraise people. Sound appraisals help identify current strengths and weaknesses to aide in future development.

5. Create development program. Many succession plans fail at this point because they merely identify high-potential candidates but don't take the steps necessary to develop them. A well-designed development plan will:

   1. Be individually tailored based on the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate.

   2. Include on-the-job opportunities and assignments designed to develop valuable skills (such as managing a cross-functional task force; an expatriate assignment; managing in a different division or business unit, etc.).

   3. Provide continuous feedback via mentoring relationships, coaching, guided self-assessment, and 360-degree feedback programs.

   4. Measure continuously and monitor results.

6. Delegate for development. Ask for a list of tasks that are important but aren't getting done and for tasks that are no longer challenging. Assign out-of-comfort zone tasks to encourage growth. You will have to sell it; you may have to convince potential leaders to get out of their comfort zone and accept jobs that are new, challenging and different for them.

7. Build perspective. Expose potential leaders to experiences outside of their department. Help them expand their perspectives by volunterring them for meetings and cross-boundary task forces. Open up the world so that they can see what new opportunities are available for them.

Avoid these common problems with succession planning. Lack of support within the organization, including the lack of acceptance by the corporate culture, failure of the organization to provide adequate resources, and lack of management commitment, will make succession planning an empty exercise. Ignoring the plan and allowing executives to continue to promote as they choose will usurp plan's value. In addition to these general concerns, be aware of:

• Dramatic changes in the organization (competition, structure, products, financial position), which can outpace or negate plans entirely. This is why measurement and monitoring are crucial.

• Too much bureaucracy; if your approach requires too much paper-pushing and too many meetings, it will quickly lose support. Focus on results.

• Subordinating management continuity and organizational protection to the development needs of high- talent individuals. It is the organization's needs that should drive planning decisions. Be careful when you design and tailor programs to develop individuals that you always keep the needs or the organization foremost.

• The need for cost justification and continual evaluation.

Types of plans. The complexity of the plan generally mirrors the complexity of the organization. The basic types of plans include:

• A basic plan that identifies an internal replacement, if possible, for each senior-level or otherwise critical position.

• An expanded replacement plan to include more leadership development initiatives as well more management positions to be filled.

• More complex plans that include an analysis of skills and competencies needed to lead the organization, incorporating formal and informal development activities to enhance those skills, as well as analysis of external recruitment possibilities.