Watching President Biden endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor last week got me thinking about corporate succession planning.
I Googled “best practices for corporate succession planning” and an article posted to insurance and professional services provider Gallagher’s Website brought up a good point among many—to “start with the end in mind.”
“You need to take the time to clearly understand what you will be looking for in terms of roles to fill, requirements for those roles, and what is important for success at your company. Identify the core competencies, skills, abilities, and other required criteria for someone to be successful at your company in a specific role,” the article recommends.
To me, that means that when you’re recruiting even an entry-level employee, you want to think about the long term, and whether this person can not only do the role they are being hired for, but that they provide evidence of growth potential and ambition.
Both Competent AND Interested in Career Growth?
The hiring manager would need to see evidence that this is both an intelligent, highly competent person and that they have an interest in growing into higher-level or expanded roles.
One question to ask could be: “If we hire you for this position, what are some specific areas of the job role you would like to grow in?”
If the applicant can substantively answer that question, then you know this person is at least thinking about going further in their career, and they are able to identify growth opportunities.
To give applicants the best chance of substantively answering this often-difficult question, the hiring manager could send the applicant the question to answer by e-mail as a follow-up to a successful first interview.
When they come back for the second interview, the applicant then could be pushed to speak further about what they wrote in the e-mail to see if they meant what they wrote and if they really put thought into it.
High Potential, But for a Different Path?
Sometimes the will is there to advance, but the ability is not there. If you have an applicant who expresses great desire for growth and has a well-thought-out career plan they are implementing, creative thinking by the hiring manager may be necessary.
It may be that the growth-minded candidate would be great for your succession planning, but is aiming for the wrong track at your company. For example, they may tell you they want an out-front role with clients, but you may suspect they would be better in more of a back-office role. In these cases, a personality assessment, and close observation for the first six months, could enable the manager to see if their suspicion is correct—that this is a high-potential person, but high-potential for a different kind of work at the company.
Adjusting Plans Based on How the Employee Performs
Effective succession planning needs to be flexible and conducted with as little personal bias as possible. It could help to have more than one person making the judgments on which employees are chosen for expanded or higher-level roles. You hired these high-potential people, found what appears to be the best track for them in your organization, and now you must find an impartial way of deciding which of these individuals gets to advance to expanded, higher-level roles.
You need to listen for clues in conversations with these individuals’ peers. Is there any indication this is an effective, but unpleasant, person to work with? Some ambitious, perfectionist personalities seeking higher-level roles take pride in being hard to work with and consider that rubbing people the wrong way “comes with the job.” Does it really, though?
Don’t Advance Combative Personalities
A final, but super-critical factor to look for in those your organization is thinking of advancing is work style. A highly intelligent and competent person is counterproductive if they alienate colleagues, causing a loss of other valuable employees and adversely affecting your organization’s culture.
What are the most important elements of your succession planning? Do you train managers to hire even entry-level positions with an eye toward the organization’s future needs?
