succession planning

outline

The biggest benefit in developing the people who work for you is that you are almost guaranteed to have one or more people ready, when the time comes, to step into your shoes. This frightens some managers, so they don't bother to develop their people: they would rather stand out as competent in relation to a background of incompetents than shine as a competent, confident developer of people surrounded by achievers.

Too few organisations these days are able to look to their own employees for the next generation of skilled people. Having to look outside for good, skilled people is an indictment of your ability to recruit, induct, train, coach, mentor and develop individuals and imbue them with the motivation and loyalty to want to work for you. Properly assessing and developing the individuals who work for you, using their capability and potential, is by far the simplest, easiest, most effective and cheapest way of finding your new deputies, team leaders and managers. Why would you even think of not doing it?

People who already work for you are a known quantity, they understand the culture of the company and they do not have to prove themselves in the same way as someone new to the company.

aim

To enable you to be able to identify, develop and groom individuals in your team for promotion.

objectives

To understand how to identify possible candidates for promotion by recognising potential and capability through competence and performance.
To be able to develop them through coaching, mentoring, delegating.
To monitor these individuals behaviourally i.e. by what they do and say.
To use feedback and Performance Management and Appraisal to control their development.

outcomes

Clear understanding of the importance of continually observing and assessing individual performance.
Ability to identify those with competent performance who have development potential.
Willingness to use succession planning to improve your performance as a manger.
Skills to use formal and informal appraisals with extensive use of behavioural feedback to manage this process.