Creating leaders for the future:

Succession Planning

Objectives

Understand and explore current leadership trends which highlight the importance of leadership development.

Introduce the critical elements of a strategic succession plan.

Explore the role of coaching, mentoring, performance appraisal and development planning in a comprehensive succession plan.

Making Sense of it all

SIOP, 2019 suggest these trends in today’s complex workplace:

• Work/life balance interventions

• Creating agile organizations

• Data visualization and communication

• Changing nature of work

• Automation of jobs and tasks

• Sexual harassment; #MeToo at work

• ‘Gig economy’ = contract work

• Working with Big Data

• Diversity, inclusion and equity

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning

Gaining Insight

What are the trends in the Catholic Cemeteries?

SUCCESSION PLANNING - Are you ready for this?

• 70% of companies say they do some form of succession planning, yet

• 62% say they have too few internal candidates to meet their organizational needs.

SUCCESSION PLANNING -Are you ready for this?

Succession Planning:

Developing the bench strength throughout the organization so when a vacancy occurs, qualified candidates are available within the organization.

Where is the knowledge?

Many times and at higher-level positions, 80 - 90% of the corporate knowledge is in

peoples’ heads!

What’s needed for

future success?

Assess your talent

What are the gaps?

Develop the talent pipeline

SUCCESSIONMANAGEMENT

SUCCESSION PLANNINGAre you ready for this?The heart of Succession Planning is the evaluation of your employees' performance and potential!

SUCCESSION PLANNING - Are you ready for this?

• What’s needed for future success?

• What are the positions that are mission critical to your organization’s future?

• What are the competencies needed to be successful in these roles?

• That is, what are the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and other abilities that are needed for success in the position.

• “What should be” for success

SUCCESSION PLANNING - Are you ready for this?

Assess your talent

• Inventory of your talent pool.

• Who are “high potential” people? “HiPo”

• Who are the “high performers”? “HiPer

How do you do that?

Overview of the Performance/Potential

Grid -The Nine-Box Grid

What - The matrix is used to evaluate an organization’s talent pool to identify the HiPo’s.

Overview of the Performance/Potential Grid -The Nine-Box Grid

Why

1. 1. It’s a simple and cost-effective way to assess any population on two important dimensions

2. It’s a great catalyst for robust dialogue

3. Used in a group setting, it promotes good open debate. The multiple perspectives provide for a much more accurate assessment

4. The process can facilitate a shared sense of ownership for the organizations talent pool

5. It’s a great way to identify development needs and transition to development planning

18

SUCCESSION PLANNING - Are you ready for this?

What are the Gaps?

• What are the gaps between what’s needed for each job and the current competencies of the team member.

• What’s needed to move the talent to the next level?

• Create the development plans for your HiPoand Hi Per staff members.

Action:

•Confirm and document assessment

of performance and demonstrated

leadership characteristics

•Plan to have person in

new role or new company

within 3 months

Action:

•Challenge to reach “Outstanding”

•Assess if could move outside

of current role (e.g., desire to move)

Action:

•3 month performance plan

•Ensure focus is on performance

(e.g., no extra teams or assignments)

•Make sure person has

tools/information/resources

to be a success

Action:

•Affirm their role model/SME function

•Assess if could move outside

of current role (e.g., desire to move)

Action:

•Make a point to recognize

their specific, valued contributions

•Action plan to ensure they are growing

within their role/potentially outside of it

•Action plan for enhancing

demonstrated leadership characteristics

Action:

•Set clear and specific

performance criteria.

•Ensure person has tools, resources,

and information to be a success

•Ensure successful

on-boarding process

Action:

•Development plan and accelerated

career path firmly in place.

•Know their next two career steps.

•Identify specifically

when they will move and why

•Celebrate with them and challenge

them. They are our future!

Action:

•Set clear and specific performance

criteria

• Assure person has tools, resources,

and information to be a success

•Delineate next career steps given that

certain perf. criteria are met.

Action:

•Assess mobility

•Further assessment on demonstrated

leadership characteristics

•Perhaps a coach if 1 or 2

potential areas are “derailers”

•Communicate path… might influence

mobility or desire to move.

•Recognize the exceptional performance

•Delineate next career possibilities.

Pe

rfo

rma

nce

-W

HA

T

Demonstrated Leadership Characteristics - HOW

Talent Review Follow-up Plan

SUCCESSION PLANNING - Are you ready for this?

Develop the Talent Pipeline.

• Build new skills

• Development plans for targeted staff members

• Transfer the knowledge

The Performance Counseling

Process

We approach the counseling process much like a detective. Our goal is to ask good questions at the outset, piece together the information that we uncover, and then coordinate efforts to resolve the issues. The performance counseling responsibilities include these steps:

• Gather Data

• We must begin by gathering data. What do we know? How might that be different from what we suspect? Having a difficult conversation based on data is much easier than having one based on suspicion.

• Identify Performance Gaps

• Symptoms of performance issues are often not the same as the underlying causes of the problems. Some digging might be required to get to the root of the issue.

• Have a performance discussion

• Arguably, these are the most difficult conversations to have with employees. How can we put a positive spin on these tough discussions?

• Follow up

• It may sound like a no-brainer, but what are the consequences if we don’t follow up? What if we are really strapped for time?

Performance Management

There are 3 dimensions of performance management:

• Coaching

• Counseling

• Progressive Discipline

• Performance Coaching

• Coaching is the kind of conversation that takes place when an employee is meeting expectations: How are things going? That makes sense – what are your next steps? Will that help you achieve the goal? The conversations are developmental and collaborative.

• Performance Counseling

• Performance counselling conversations are more directive, but are similarly goal-oriented. The primary difference is that they are more remedial in their focus. You want to understand why the performance is falling short, then help the employee create an action plan to remedy the shortfall. The goal is to salvage the employee while keeping a close eye on protecting the company’s interests as well.

• Progressive Discipline

• When counseling doesn’t seem to be working, progressive discipline is the process used to formally document performance issues and define in clear, concise terms specific action steps the employee must take to remain employed. Timeframes are associated with each milepost to determine if the employee is meeting his/her performance improvement plan.

What is Coaching?

What is Coaching?

• The International Coach Federation defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. ICF envisions a future in which coaching will be an integral part of society and ICF members will represent the highest quality in professional coaching.

Cornerstones of Coaching

• The client is naturally creative, resourceful and whole.

• Coaching addresses the whole person.

• The agenda comes from the client and not from the coach.

• The coach and client partner and work together as equals and is based on mutual respect.

• Coaching is about action that inspires change.

In coaching, the client does the work and owns the outcomes!

Learning to Ride a Bicycle

• The counselor would help you discover what is holding you back from riding the bike. They would go back into your past to discover what kind of experience you had at an early age with a bicycle.

• The consultant would bring you a bicycle manual and tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the workings of a bicycle. The consultant would then depart and return six months later to see how you were doing.

• The mentor would share their experiences of bike riding and the lessons they had learned. The mentor would bestow all the wisdom they had about bicycle riding to you.

• The coach would help you get up on the bicycle and then encourage, endorse, acknowledge and support you while running alongside until you felt comfortable enough to go it alone.

Powerful Questions

• All the information is with the coachee

• Asking creates buy-in

• Asking empowers

• Asking develops leadership capacity

• Asking creates authenticity

Yes - No Game

• One person is the “questioner”

• Pick a topic and begin to ask the “questionee” only-open ended questions

• Let them answer as fully as they can

• The questioner wins if they can make it 5 minutes with out making a statement or asking a “closed” (yes/no) question

Top Asking Mistakes

Closed questions

Solution oriented questions

Leading questions

Seeking the “one true question”

Rambling questions

Rhetorical questions

“Why” questions

THINK, PAIR, SHARE

• How do you feel organizations that you have been a part of would be able to benefit from coaching?

Let’s practice some questions!

Scaling Questions

• Effective way of measuring how close you are to the desired outcome

• Offers intuitive logic that is readily accessible

• Task: elicit descriptions of points along the scale

• Imagine a scale that runs from 1 to 10…

Scaling

• On a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 representing the future perfect and 0 the worst it has ever been, where are you on that scale today?

• You are at (stated number) now: What did you do to get this far?

• How would you know that you have gotten to an (stated number) +1?

GROW Model

• Goals- goal setting for the session.

• Reality- checking to explore the current situation.

• Options- options and alternative strategies or course of action.

• Will/Wrap-Up- What is to be done, when, and by whom?

Goals

• What do you want to achieve from this coaching session?

• What goal do you want to achieve?

• What would you like to happen with ______?

• What do you really want?

Reality

• What is happening now (what, who, when, and how often)? What is the effect or result of this?

• How would you describe what you did?

• Where are you now in relation to your goal?

• On a scale of one to ten, where are you?

Options

• What are your options?

• What do you think you need to do next?

• What could be your first step?

• What do you think you need to do to get a better result (or closer to your goal)?

Will/Wrap Up

• How are going to go about it?

• What do you think you need to do right now?

• How will you know when you have done it?

• Is there anything else you can do?

Let’s Practice!

• Use the GROW model to coach your partner

• Try to stick to the GROW process

• Avoid the temptation of giving advice

• Focus on asking powerful questions

• Try to end with a client driven action item

How do we manage?

Know your own bias and avoid labeling

Focus on commonalities rather than differences.

Work on creating collaborative relationships

Make sure you spend time with your employees so that you understand what is important to them

Utilize mentoring that cuts across the generational divide

Use incentives that are specific to each and understand where each employee is on their career/life path

Session Feedback

• What are your biggest take-aways?

• How can you apply this information?

• Start/Stop/Continue

Start – Stop – Continue  

This worksheet is designed to help you create a development plan based on current feedback. Research shows that recording goals leads to higher achievement. 

  

Actions to START: 

 

Actions to STOP: 

 

Actions to CONTINUE: 

 

  Name:                Date:            Dr. Sheila Boysen  Dr. Michael Cherryboysensh@lewisu.edu | 847.754.5678  cherrymi@lewisu.edu | 708.308.7445