This document discusses succession planning and provides steps for organizations to start the process. Succession planning ensures an organization can retain institutional knowledge and skills when employees leave. It prepares others to assume responsibilities during transitions. The document recommends that leaders have teams identify priorities, skills, and knowledge needed for positions. It also suggests cataloging this for cross-training and mentoring to build capacity. Documenting the same for leadership roles can ready the team for actual succession planning.

1. PowerSkills Training & Development, Inc.
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Succession
Planning:
A
Place
to
Start
By: Bob Schout, PowerSkills Training & Development, Inc.
A client of mine recently called me and, with a sigh of professional sadness, he said, “You know, Bob,
I was a damn good manager, a value executive director; I helped the business grow and everyone
told me so. But, I fell down with the job of leadership. When I left my last position, even though I
helped to grow the business, like a house of cards, pieces of it collapsed after I left my last position. I
couldn’t believe it. I worked so hard to sustain the growth of the business and the motivation of my
former team. I don’t know what happened.”
This story can be re-told by many of us, at all levels of leadership. We leave and our institutional
knowledge and skills leaves with us. More troubling is the fact that we also allow others to leave
(because of termination, retirement, various forms of leave, illness or a myriad of other reasons) and
they, too, take their knowledge, skills, insights and abilities with them; forcing our organizations to be
in constant, but unnecessary, catch-up mode. It has been said that a great manager ensures
movement and attainment of high levels of productivity, performance, project goal achievement and
client service; but a truly great leader accomplishes all of the aforementioned objectives while also
maintaining the motivation of others, inspiring others, building the capacity of others and of the
organizational systems and infrastructure, visioning the future, and developing plans to achieve all
visions and goals. Wow! That’s a lot to ask….or is it?
One of the 4 core dimensions of leadership1
is the ability to become a Strategic Leader, one who is
able to engage in, and facilitate, planning of all kinds, at all levels (e.g., succession planning, change
management planning, strategic planning, project and program planning, individual development
planning, etc.). This ability is one of the ability skill sets which separates great managers from great
leaders. Succession planning is a key strategic leadership skill set.
Succession planning incorporates both skills and strategies in order to create and sustain processes
by which an organization ensures its ability to retain institutional knowledge and skills, as well as
prepare organizational stakeholders (e.g., employees, supervisors, peers, etc.) to know and be able
to assume, the responsibilities of other positions during times of transition (e.g., retirement of
someone, someone taking extended leave, someone resigning or being terminated unexpectedly,
etc.). Without quality processes and practices in place a team or organization is left to struggle, strain
and fill the gaps when someone leaves a position temporarily or permanently. Succession planning is
not a static process. It is not something that one puts on paper and sets aside for some future
transitional need. It is an ongoing process, set of procedures, peer and/or leadership practices, and
documented plans…all put together and acted upon with regularity.
1
the 4 Core Dimensions of Leadership are aspects of The Leadership Star ™
(Source: Inspired Leadership: On Becoming a Leadership Star, by Bob Schout)

2. PowerSkills Training & Development, Inc.
4224 Plaza Sonata . Santa Fe . New Mexico . 87507
www.yourpowerskills.com Facebook.com/yourpowerskills Twitter@yourpowerskills LinkedIn/RobertSchout
Bob@yourpowerskills.com Ph. 619-517-6299 yourpowerskills@gmail.com
If you’re a supervisory manager or a leader who has never engaged in succession planning, and
wonders ‘where to start’, here are a few simple things that you can do.
1) Invite your team to identify 3-absolute priorities for their position (those which anyone would have
to really focus upon if they were to assume a particular position for a short/transition period). Also ask
each person to clearly articulate 3-skill sets (not simply "customer contact" but rather "customer
contact that focuses upon situation/problem assessment, ensuring that the customer realizes that this
position will absolutely meet their needs, etc.). Finally, have them identify 3-sets of knowledge that
are absolute requirements for anyone who strives to be competent in fulfilling their position
requirements.
2) Then, catalogue this info (sharing it with all team members); and over a year's period you can
choose to have them engage in either peer mentoring, job shadowing, cross-training at team
meetings, etc. This will build the capacity of your team members to be competent and confident in
their ability to step into other positions or successfully on-board a new team member during times of
transition.
3) I would also - if I were you - document the same items for your own position as a manager or
leader, then transform the documentation, using it as a tool for delegation, mentoring of staff, and
training so that, over time, the team members are building leadership capacity.
These initiatives will offer your team a spring-board into succession planning. These action steps only
ready your team members for actual succession planning, which includes a more complete
documentation of job/position action items, development a positional back-up matrix and plan, job
shadowing opportunities and other helpful practices. Having said this, the steps outlined above when
acted upon will help you begin to shift team thought paradigms and team-cultural norms so that
everyone is thinking of the future, planning for transitions which are certain to occur, and considering
their legacy, and seeing themselves in true peer-support roles.
– Bob Schout
©2015 PowerSkills Training & Development, Inc. and Robert J. Schout. All rights reserved.
Please contact us for written permission to reprint or share in any form.
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