Preparing for the Future: Effective Talent Transitions
Moving people into other or advancing roles is the purpose and point of the succession planning process. Development is the core objective of your program. Success should be defined by the growth of your people, not by the number of steps you have, the number of people in the program, or how good it looks on paper. Your responsibility is as much to your team’s development as it is your business. That does mean that in some instances, you will invest a lot of time, effort, and money into their growth and long-term success only to have them move to a new company. Even for those that depart to a higher level role, where they are successful is a positive result of your program. I am proud that many people in the retail industry today were once part of a development program I was engaged in. Getting people ready for new and next-level assignments is a reward in itself. In this article, we’ll look at several ways you can ensure they get the experience, exposure, and feedback they need to make that leap successfully.
Preparing for New Roles and Responsibilities
One of the final pieces of the development plan, and to ensure the succession plan itself succeeds, is to ensure that the associate is ready for the role they are being promoted into. You have invested a lot up to this stage, as have they. It would be terrible to promote them too soon or place them in a situation where they are not ready and have them fail. I have seen this over and over. So much time, effort, and energy get wasted because we move too quickly or make assumptions about readiness. Then they get pushed into a position they cannot handle just quite yet. There may be pressure to move on filing an open position, or the candidate lobbies hard to state they are ready, but the final decision comes down to you. As their leader, you must determine whether they are really prepared to take that next step.
Have a defined checkin process
Feedback and open dialogue are the cornerstones of an excellent developmental program. As a leader, you need to stay connected to the talent you have in various roles to ensure they can reach their full potential. Setting up regular check-ins is critical to ensuring you know where they are in their development and understanding when they will be ready for that next level. This may look different for the various levels of positions you have in your business. As a Store Manager, you would remain close to people at the next two levels down. Are you developing your direct reports to be your replacement or a future peer within your district? You will need to be actively engaged in those regular check-ins. You will also want to be close to the employee level, as they are the backfill for your second-level leaders, who will eventually report directly to you. Those check-ins may not be as frequent, but they should occur. The same would hold true if you are a district leader. You would stay close with the direct reports you are developing but also have a vested interest in who they are developing. Ensure you build in monthly or quarterly time to connect with those future leaders.
During the check-in process, it will be necessary to gather progress updates from their perspective and share feedback on any observations or feedback you have received on them. These check-ins should provide a forum for open dialogue about where their progress stands and what that means to them. You do not want to have people thinking they are in one place (yes, I am ready now) only to find out after the fact that you did not see them in that same place.
Group Interviews and Assessments
One of the best succession planning programs I was involved in conducted a full-day workshop with a group of leaders (assistant managers) who were in the succession planning program. During that day, we mixed a combination of teaching (classroom style engagement), hands-on activities (leading the sales floor for an hour), and reporting out (people in the program presenting an idea or a business update) to the group. We finished with round-robin style interviews. It was an excellent way for the multi-unit leaders to get to know the players better, see them in action in different settings, and speak directly to them.
At the end of the day, some general feedback was provided to the group. We shared ideas on the purpose of the day and what everyone took from it and committed to providing detailed feedback to each individual who participated. From there, the evaluating group met to discuss each of the participants’ strengths and opportunity areas. A detailed set of feedback notes was created, and the direct leader of those individuals would provide that feedback. But it also offered a set of notes that all of us could consult in helping develop in the coming weeks and months as we interacted with these assistant managers in their stores.
It was a highly successful process and program that we added to our succession plan. Everyone benefited from the experience, and it was another way to ensure that when it was time to promote someone, everyone had a good view of the options and how they could best fit into be successful.
Create stretch assignments
Tons of benefits can come from assigning high-potential candidates to projects and assignments that expose them to new and different areas of the business. However, these must be intentional and clearly defined. I have seen this work both to the benefit of participants and also be a distraction.
Having defined projects to engage in will ensure that specific learning can be accomplished. Filling in for an open position is not always the best way to provide experience for budding leaders. That often feels like getting thrown into the deep end before they know how to swim. That will lead to frustration and potential regression for the individual. Having some shadow another leader for several weeks and gradually move from observation to full hands on is a better approach. Another practical approach is to identify projects that reinforce the skills needed for the next level role. Again, it needs to be defined. Provide a project description and a clear set of responsibilities the person will have in the assignment. I am not a huge fan of ‘captains’ within districts or regions because they are often poorly defined and meant only to push more information or manage a metric with their peers. If you can build a program where there is a clear objective with a starting point, assessment period, and outcome, that will net far better results than something that is no more than ‘get your peers or the level above you to hit this number.’
Workshops
This could feel similar depending on how you approach this and some of the ideas above. But putting together group workshops where you can combine both teaching and demonstration is a good way to expand knowledge and assess readiness. These can be as simple as a ninety-minute call where someone from the supporting team presents a topic, and then discussions ensue with the group. This can be an excellent way to review decision-making skills, understanding thought processes, and how individuals think quickly in these types of situations. I like this concept because it is two-way learning. The participants get new knowledge and exposure to alternate leaders. The supporting team gets to see participants in action to observe and assess for development. These types of programs allow you to expand the individual growth plans to tailor them to their specific needs to ensure they will be ready for the next position available.
Getting someone ready for the next-level role, like many other elements of succession planning, is only as good as what you put into it. If the development plans you have for people in your succession program are all tied to book knowledge or online courses, you’ll never get that full sense of what reality looks like for these people. They may end up book smart but not practically ready for the assignment. Succession planning should key in on the success part of succession. Having a program is only the beginning; promoting to the next level and seeing them flourish is the only measure of a well-built program.
In our final core component of this series, we will summarize the benefits of having a well-managed succession planning program for your business. The outputs of the pieces from the previous articles begin to add up to a level of success that will provide you with the opportunity to have a world-class championship team.
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