I’ve seen so many organizations with succession planning in place (some of which even have a dedicated person to manage succession planning).  While CEO succession is something that have been talked about for some time, cascadding succession planning initiatives to other levels are somewhat new to many organizations.  Though it works theoretically, many are still skeptical about its implementation and may suggest that the cost of succession planning is not justified due to the low success rate (planned vs. executed).

While I’ve not got hold of any statistics (which alerted me that this could be a good thesis topic), I am of the view that there are often issues in the execution of succession planning if it does not get the buy-in from the board of directors and senior leadership team.  Let’s take a look at the top 5 roadblocks (no particular order) and how can we remove them.

1. Defensive / territorial incumbent - this is often caused by incumbent who are lacking in confidence and would do whatever it takes to defend its position.  Therefore, they may often identify “successors” who will never be ready or do little to develop his successor.  To circumvent this, talents identified should not be done solely based on head of department’s recommendation but rather the leadership team.  In addition, the identified successor should be placed under the mentorship of a leader of different function.  Afterall, the higher it goes in the corporate hierarchy, the lesser the functional expertise matter.
2. Vacancy not in sight - Many good employees leave an organization after being groomed as a successor because they’re ready but simply do not believe that a vacancy will be created in the near future.  I’ve blogged about this before (that this is among the lowest of my concern if I have the 2nd successor in place) but it still remains one that is much talked about.  The key to removing this barrier is to ensure that the vacancy is “created” within 2 years of readiness.  How is this done?  Create a pool of “utility talents” works on cross functional projects rather than heading a department.  This is with the intention of rotating from department head’s role and project-based role to ensure continuous innovation and getting a breath of skills.  With that in place, compare the “ready candidate” to be “incumbent” and the one who is in a better position to head the department does it while the other moves into “utility talents” pool who will also develop in other areas.
3. Never ending renewal of contact - When item 1 & 2 above combined, this is what you get.  Incumbent who does not want to develop the next in line and therefore there will never be successor while the contract of incumbent gets renewed way beyond retirement.  Successor will then see no vacancy is sight and lose motivation to continue.  Management will need to recognize that no person will be 100% ready for any roles until they are in there.  Therefore, a maximum contract period policy shall be in place to stop this.  Any employees on contract should only be position as advisor and department head role to be handed over to the successor instead.
4. Succession planning seen as “paper-filling” - Many managers do not take succession planning seriously.  That’s especially true when they do not plan to be long with an organization or is contented to remain in the position for long to come.  The mindset that “if I’m dead tomorrow who cares about the organization” is prevalent since there’s no gain from giving it more focus.  I’ve seen organization doing succession planning where a successor is “1 year from readiness” for 2 years even after the incumbent position became vacant.  There were no serious thought given into it and no development beyond filling the form.  To prevent this, organization has to have a policy in place where no external hires are allowed if there’s any successor who are within 2 years of readiness.  This will not only force the successor into a steep learning curve but also ensure that managers are conditioned with the right mindset in giving succession planning a more serious thought beyond form filling.
5. Matrix reporting - When there’s a matrix reporting where the incumbent reports to several managers with different business objectives, there may be different successors identified for the position too depending on their individual strength as desired by different managers.  It will need to be made clear who has the final say in this as well as ensuring point number 1 where a senior leadership committee is used to identify talents rather than solely depending on managers.

I’m not too sure if there are anymore.  I’m sure working on a cost-benefit analysis of succession planning initiatives has many other variables but it’s sure to be an interesting topic of reseach.  Any thoughts?

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Tags: career, hr, Human Resources, leaders, Leadership, strategy, Succession Planning, talent management

This entry was posted by Clayton J.C Tan on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 8:28 pm and is filed under Business Strategies, Human Resources, Leadership & Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.