Strengthening Succession Planning

Effective succession-planning systems call for (1) rigorous evaluation of leadership potential and (2) thoughtful design of developmental pathways for high-potential leaders . Good systems foster cross-functional expertise and help to groom the company s future general managers. In global companies, they expose up-and-coming managers to international experience early in their careers. Increasingly, they also factor critical career breakpoints or passages into the development equation.

But most existing systems fall short, in both evaluation and development, because they lack a framework for characterizing developmental assignments. Without such a framework, it is problematic to make comparisons between high-potential individuals placed in dissimilar situations. Succession planners also lack a way of describing ”and thus managing ”the sequence of positions through which high-potential leaders progress.

Succession planning can be strengthened substantially by looking not just at the people, but also at the transitions ” startups , turnarounds, realignments, and sustaining -success situations ”they have experienced . The ST _A RS model provides a basis for evaluating performance in very different types of situations. Perhaps more important, it provides a basis for charting the progression of high-potential leaders through a series of positions that build their capability to manage a broad range of business situations.

To illustrate , think of your own job history. Take some time to fill out the development grid, a tool for charting professional development shown in table 10-1. The rows represent functions in which you have worked, and the columns represent types of business situations you have experienced.

Table 10-1: The Development Grid

	Start-up	Turnaround	Realignment	Sustaining Success
Marketing
Sales
Finance
Human Resources
Operations
R & D
Information Management
Other

Chart every management position you have held, plus any major project or task force assignments. For example, if your first managerial job was in marketing in an organization (or unit) in the midst of a turnaround, place a circled 1 (indicating your first management position) in the corresponding cell of the matrix. If your next position was in sales in a new unit (or dealing with a new product or project) ”a start-up situation ”enter a circled 2 in that cell. If at the same time you were on a task force dealing with operations issues for the start-up, enter a 2 inside a triangle (indicating a project assignment) in the appropriate cell.

Record all your managerial jobs, and then connect the dots to illuminate your professional trajectory. Are there any blank columns or rows? What do they signify about your readiness for general-management positions? About your potential blind spots?

As discussed previously, preparing people to manage different types of business situations constitutes a fourth dimension of leadership development that complements analyses of (1) breadth of functional expertise, (2) extent of international experience, (3) and key passages between levels in the organization.