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Succession Planning: Laying the Groundwork for Continued Success

Succession Planning: Laying the Groundwork for Continued Success

Business leaders know that succession planning is essential to ensuring organizational continuity and growth. Simply stated, succession planning is the process of lining up the right people to take over important roles in the company as they open up. The process typically entails identifying and then developing promising candidates for promotion, thereby maximizing the likelihood of a smooth and successful transition.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Well… it is and it isn't. Succession planning can, in fact, prove a daunting process. Some of the obstacles to doing it right include:

Failure to conduct a thorough job analysis of each position to be filled.

Lack of internal benchstrength (e.g., having a weak or limited talent pool within the organization).

Lack of effective tools and strategies for identifying high potential employees.

Failure to groom high potentials for advancement within the company.

What are the potential consequences of failing to create an effective succession plan? Typically, one or more of the following can be expected:

Frantic or chaotic efforts to fill vital roles within the organization as openings arise (and they sometimes arise with little or no warning).

Uncertainty among key contributors as to where they’re headed within the organization.

Loss of valuable time for training and development of high potentials. (This type of preparation has a major impact upon the individual’s effectiveness in a new role. It dramatically increases the likelihood of success for the individual and the organization. It ought to be a priority.

Intense competition among key employees who believe they are vying for promotion.

Marked disruption in overall organizational performance.

In order to avoid such poor outcomes, organizations must be proactive. They need to do each of the following:

Identify the core skills and capabilities associated with success for each key position.

Evaluate the various competencies of their most promising employees.

Develop these talented folks so that they're prepared to take on the myriad challenges and responsibilities of their future positions.

Once a company knows what it needs and who it’s got, it’s in a great position to develop talent internally and look outward to fill in the gaps. This sets the stage not only for intelligent succession planning but also for implementation of this most essential business activity.

Copyright 2006 Bywater Consulting Group, LLC, Liz Bywater, PhD. All Rights Reserved.





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Dianne Crampton
Dianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website

Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Are your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website

Linda Richardson
Linda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website


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Liz Bywater
(Visit Liz's Website) Dr. Liz Bywater is a highly respected career success coach and corporate consultant. As president of Bywater Consulting Group, she assists her clients through private career consultation, executive coaching and leadership development, career transition coaching, pre-hire assessment, team development, management training, workshop facilitation and keynote speaking. Liz is internationally recognized for her expertise in workplace performance and leadership excellence. As such, she has been interviewed for radio as well as print and online media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the NY Times, Crain's Business, USA Today, Yahoo! HotJobs and more. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Cornell Entrepreneur Network, and the Society for the Advancement of Consulting. You can follow Liz's Career Success blog here: http://bywatercareersuccess.blogspo t.com. For more information, visit http://www.bywaterconsultinggroup.c om. To sign up for Liz's free e-newsletter, filled with tips for improving individual, team, and organizational performance, send an email to info@bywaterconsultinggroup.com. Or call toll free: 800.846.4546.

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