Without a succession plan, knowledge and experience simply walk out the door

He shook his head sadly and gave a resigned little wave as knowledge and experience walked out the door…again.

It wasn’t really the number of people exiting that bothered him (goodness knows there were some still here he wished had gone years ago!), rather it was the depth and breadth of what was in those heads that upset him the most.

The organisation was headed into troubled waters.

Who would fill the void?

What extra burden would this mean for him this time round?

Trouble was, you couldn’t help but get pretty jaded when colleagues you respected and admired moved on to greener pastures. And those greener pastures weren’t hard to find in this labour-tight market. In fact, anywhere where the person up top showed some appreciation for your efforts would be greener than this!

COVID and multiple lockdowns have taught us that life is too short to waste it working in an environment where we are unappreciated, where our talents are wasted, and where experience and knowledge is undervalued and squandered.

More people will leave organisations in the next 12 – 24 months than ever before. People approaching retirement will choose to leave the workplace earlier than they might once have planned. Those who seek more flexible work arrangements will find industries that support the blended lifestyle they crave.  

People who are miserable in jobs they feel trapped in; those who feel micromanaged; those who long to do what they’re good at every single day; they’ve all had the opportunity in these last two years to re-evaluate their future.  

They’re now ready to make choices.

As leaders, it falls to us to find ways to hold on to our good people; to understand what drives and motivates them, and to meet those needs wherever we can.

And in the absence of being able to retain that knowledge and experience, it falls to us to have a contingency plan – a succession plan.

Failing to have a succession plan is grossly irresponsible.

It’s not just the distant future of an organisation that depends on continuity.  

Imagine if five of your best people, with years of knowledge and experience, walked out the door tomorrow. Could your organisation continue to provide the same level of delivery or service without missing a beat?

We can mitigate that risk by ensuring there is always an understudy or two to take the place of those who have built a store of corporate knowledge.  

We can also develop our leadership skills to better understand what is required to retain our top people, while still developing talent in the wings – but that’s a topic for another day.

Succession planning rests on identifying individuals who are behaviourally and cognitively well-aligned with the role they will understudy for. Skills can be taught; knowledge and experience develop over time; but behaviour is innate.  

Behaviour is an expression of our drives and needs – therefore it’s very hard to change behaviour.

Succession planning also relies on the transfer of knowledge and the building of experience shared between “principal” (the person whose role you’re planning succession for) and understudy.   

What if you have a “principal” who is reluctant to share knowledge and develop a successor? It happens. Fear of becoming redundant, the use of knowledge as power or a bargaining chip, or simply a preference to work alone, unaided. Whatever the motivator, a principal who is unwilling to develop a successor is a huge red flag and cannot be ignored.

Identifying the right successors is made easier with human analytics powered by The Predictive Index.

Figure A shows a person (ABCD dots) who is an unsuitable behavioural match for the role (orange landing strips), while figure B shows someone who is much better aligned with the role.  

Figure A

Figure B

Using that person’s data-driven Personal Development Chart, Cognitive Assessment and Management Strategy Guide they can be groomed over a period of time to step into the desired role.

Succession planning is not a nice-to-have strategy – it’s a must-have!

Every key role in your organisation should have a successor waiting in the wings.

Besides good management, succession planning opens a compelling career pathway for high potential individuals, which in turn promotes job satisfaction, higher productivity and engagement, ultimately resulting in better retention of your good people.

If you’d like to know more about the strategic approach to succession planning that we take at The Heartware Group, using human analytics powered by The Predictive Index, book in for a call, or shoot us an email to [email protected].