Preparing For The Future

Succession Planning refers to the strategy of identify and developing a pipeline of future leaders for a specific role or to replace a person, in a company. It is essential to identify who could be next in line to take over a role, not just for the top management, but for all supervisory and specialized roles, to ensure a smooth transition and continuity of business in case an adverse situation arises.

Some companies conduct a formal succession planning activity, mapping potential employees as successors for leaders on an organizational chart, whereas others run this more informally, without revealing the names of the identified successors to anyone but the concerned people.

Line managers too should kick-start the process of identifying people who can fill in their shoes as soon as they feel that they are ready to move to the next level. This helps them move into newer roles faster, should the opportunity arise. Here are 6 tips for getting a succession plan off the ground:

1. Seek approvals: Speak with a senior about the succession plan & the identified candidate before taking the first step. If the Senior does not approve of the successor after they have been informed or trained, it can be highly demotivating. Prepare a robust outline for this.
2. Shortlist candidates: Identify one or more team members who have the potential to take on added responsibility. Apart from performance against goals, some of the factors to consider include attitude, knowledge, collaboration skills, motivation levels and discipline.
3. Communicate the plan: During a 1:1 conversation, identified successors should be informed that they are being considered to take on a bigger role with added responsibility. Line managers should also share the outline of a development plan right at the start. At this time, team members should be encouraged to ask questions about the next steps and share any concerns that they may have.
4. Set the right expectations: Managers should make it very clear that training a potential successor only gives them an edge when they apply for a promotion (since they have already been handling a part of the job) and in no way means that the candidate will get promoted for sure. Every organization aims to run a fair and transparent process when it comes to promoting people and the successor will have to go through the rounds, just like the others. That said, once a potential successor is ready for the next level, it is best to present them with growth opportunities.
5. Review progress regularly: The candidates identified are more likely to succeed if they get ongoing feedback about how they are doing. They should not only be told about their strengths and areas of opportunity but must also be told how to capitalize on their strengths to overcome their weaknesses, if possible. If a potential successor is not performing as expected, they should be informed about that too.
6. Do a test run: Managers training potential successors should be able to delegate some of their tasks to the team member. This helps them assess how the potential successor is handling the additional responsibility or needs more training. At the same time, the manager may just learn more innovative ways to complete the tasks.

The objective of succession planning is to ensure that the business runs smoothly, even in the absence of a key player. When done right, this activity can save Line Managers a lot of time & effort.