Succession planning simplified
A 4-Step Guide for Executives
Transitions
Are Inevitable
Your founder announces retirement. A star VP is promoted to the C-suite. Your CFO finds “greener pastures” in another industry. One day the employee who knows your IT infrastructure the best wins the lottery and calls in sick rich.
What will you do if all of their knowledge, customer relationships and years of experience walk out the door with them?
You also would prefer to promote from within. Developing your next generation of executive talent for a future role keeps them engaged for the long term, and lowers the cost and risk of hiring externally.
Your company can be fully prepared for any contingency by following a handful of succession planning best practices. Best of all, these steps are not time-consuming. You can be well on your way to having a continuity plan in place for every key role in your company in less than ninety days.
Your Succession Planning Process
Construct a Heatmap of Your “Linchpin” Roles
A linchpin is a role or individual whose leadership, functional responsibilities, institutional knowledge, technical expertise or external relationship networks are critical to the function of a team or the company as a whole, and whose unexpected exit could significantly impair operations.
To prioritize who needs a succession plan most urgently, rate your key people according to the following factors: probability of their exit in the next two years, impact on operations, uniqueness of their contribution and availability of internal and external replacements.
Generate a Position Profile for Each Linchpin
The next step is to generate a document for each critical role that captures:
- What they do – major responsibilities, leadership roles, process ownership
- How they do it – required non-technical competencies
- What they know – essential technical knowledge, education and expertise
- Who they know – crucial external relationships with customers, vendors and stakeholders
Think of this as a job description on steroids. A typical linchpin profile can be several pages. You’ll need the help of executives in the company to construct these.
Evaluate Succession Candidates
Now that you have a position profile constructed, you have an objective measuring stick to gauge the readiness of potential contenders for thar role in the future. For each responsibility, competency and area of expertise rate the candidate: “Are they currently ready or proficient? Could they be in the year? In the next three years? Will they likely never be ready?”
Build a candidate scorecard. You might consider utilizing a 360 review or psychometric testing to further appraise their fitness for a future role.
Generate a Growth Plan for Each Candidate
A good candidate scorecard will identify some knowledge and skill gaps to address through professional development over a period of months or years. Linchpins can work with candidates to create a series of learnings experiences. Examples include – shadowing opportunities, stretch projects, micro-learning modules, network introductions and direct mentoring.
Knowing the basic steps of a succession planning strategy is one thing, but for a busy executive or business professional like you, executing on them can be a challenge. We’re here to help. We’d be glad to show you examples of heatmaps, position profiles, scorecards and growth plans so that you can get started.
I’m Ted Beasley, and I’ve been where you are.
I’ve launched numerous successful companies, and have needed to backfill key roles when a valued leader in my org moved on. Sometimes, I was the one moving on and needed to develop my own successor!
At Emergent Execs, we’ve helped hundreds of companies develop their next generation of executive leaders, and have implemented succession plans for a wide range of orgs from multi-generational family businesses to private equity-backed growth companies to small businesses to $100B+ investment funds to nonprofits to government agencies . . . and everything in between.
Want to see how we can kickstart your succession efforts?
BENEFITS OF BUSINESS SUCCESSION PLANNING
LEADERSHIP CONTINUITY
Rest easy knowing that a highly qualified leader has already been vetted, trained and empowered to fill the shoes of any key player in your org.
TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Our customized growth plans will help you retain, cultivate and promote your best people.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Our documented and highly structured approach positions you to handle transitions smoothly, making you more stable, forward-thinking and attractive to investors, partners and top talent.
Testimonials
“Essential Succession Plan”
Our Executive Director and Human Resources Director have expressed high satisfaction with Emergent Execs' crucial contributions to developing this essential succession plan for our agency.
Rafael A.
Texas Facilities Commission
“Able to Implement Globally”
Emergent Execs is an important partner to us. Their offering is an excellent program that we’ve been able to implement globally.
Samantha W.
Silicon Labs
“Engaged Our Managers”
We worked with EE to build a program that would address our specific challenges, engage our managers, and deliver what they needed - from tactical competencies to best practices.
Lexi J.
SecureLink
How It Works
How It Works
Step 1
SCHEDULE YOUR CONSULTATION
Once we hear from you, one of our succession planning specialists will schedule a call with you. At the call, we’ll show you examples of all of our tools – heatmap, position profile, candidate scorecard, customized growth plan and a succession project plan. They’re yours for free with no obligation.
Step 2
WE HANDLE ALL THE DETAILS OF YOUR SUCCESSION PLAN
If you decide you’d like to work with Emergent Execs, you provide us with some basic information about the linchpins and potential succession candidates in your org, and we will methodically work through our tried-and-true succession planning process. We do it in a way that is minimally invasive to your operations. Within a few months, you’ll have a customized succession path for every linchpin role and candidate.
Step 3
OPERATE CONFIDENTLY WITH A PLAN FOR THE FUTURE
If you decide you’d like to work with Emergent Execs, you provide us with some basic information about the linchpins and potential succession candidates in your org, and we will methodically work through our tried-and-true succession planning process. We do it in a way that is minimally invasive to your operations. Within a few months, you’ll have a customized succession path for every linchpin role and candidate.
OUR CLIENTS
HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL GET IN OUR INITIAL FREE CONSULTATION...
An assessment of your org’s succession planning needs
A sample position profile that shows you how to capture institutional knowledge
Examples of personalize development plans for leadership succession planning
A sample succession heatmap to help you think about your most critical roles
A sample candidate scorecard for evaluating potential successors
A customized timeline for succession management