Marshall Goldsmith and Patricia Wheeler’s latest edition of Leading News has a great article on succession planning that I have permission from Marshall to share.
The article resonates with me because I’m one of those guys who’s designed and managed “A” succession planning systems and processes but sometimes feel like I’m getting “C” results.
We’ll have our performance potential discussions, fill out talent profiles, create IDPs, design and deliver great leadership development programs, do coaching, provide feedback, and yet at the end of the day, benches are still too thin, key positions are filled with external hires, and CEOs and Boards are still not completely satisfied. According to Marshall, most of them are pretty dissatisfied.
So why is that? In his role as a trusted coach and advisor to a lot of CEOs, Marshall and his partner, Jim Moore, have some valuable insights to share on what’s wrong with succession planning and how to fix it…..
Four Tips for Efficient Succession Planning
One of the most common leadership development questions that I hear from executives is, "Why does succession planning feel like such a waste of time?"
The head of engineering is a high performing leader who has the potential to be COO. She has always been in an engineering role. If she had sales experience, she would be even more ready to be the COO so her development plan is written to include a job move to be head of sales. However, this company would never take the risk of putting someone without sales experience in the top sales job — so her development plan perpetually says, "move to a sales job" even though that will never happen.
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