Filling the Leadership Pipeline

Replacement planning is still the norm in organizations, but it doesn’t address the leadership issues these companies face.  Most jobs must change to keep pace with newly evolving markets, products, business structures and leadership requirements.

 

To increase your succession planning effectiveness, follow these guidelines:

 

1. Focus on performance. High performance is the admission price for future growth and development.  Full performance across all leadership levels is the succession planning objective.

 

2. The pipeline demands a continuous flow. Succession planning must include all leadership levels.

 

3. Pipeline turns (passages) must be fully understood. People need to work at the right level. This cannot be determined until skills, time applications and work values for each level are clearly communicated and assessed.

 

4. Consider short- and long-term simultaneously. Both are critical.

 

The starting point is understanding the natural hierarchy of work that exists in most organizations. In most large, decentralized business organizations, this hierarchy consists of six career passages or “pipeline turns,” as described by Charan, Drotter and Noel in their book The Leadership Pipeline:

 

· Starting Point: Managing self

· Passage 1: Managing others

· Passage 2: Managing managers

· Passage 3: Functional manager

· Passage 4: Business manager

· Passage 5: Group manager

· Passage 6: Enterprise manager

 

Recognizing the requirements and pitfalls associated with each leadership passage is crucial for both leaders and their bosses, who can then provide better coaching and differentiated accountability.

 

The Pipeline Perspective

 

As you become familiar with each leadership passage, you’ll find yourself thinking about careers and succession planning development with a fresh perspective.  This will provide insights into how to fill your leadership pipeline.  You can structure a process to develop leaders on all levels and ensure they’re working at the right levels.

 

Each passage requires people to acquire a new way of managing and leading, which emphasizes:

 

1. Skill requirements – new capabilities required to execute responsibilities
2. Time applications – new time frames that govern how one works
3. Work values – what people believe is important; the focus of their efforts

 

Organizations are therefore challenged to place people in leadership positions that are appropriate to their skills, time applications and values.

Succession Planning to Fill the Pipeline

 

The following five-step plan will facilitate succession planning:

 

1. Tailor the leadership pipeline model to fit your organization’s succession needs. Substitute your company’s titles for the leadership passage terms used here. The six leadership passages may accurately be only five (or more) at your company.

 

2. Translate standards for performance and potential into your own language.  Clear, detailed, unambiguous standards greatly enhance succession and development     planning, offering managers better ways to communicate with subordinates who under perform or believe they should be on a faster track.

 

3. Document and communicate these standards throughout the organization.  When people understand the standards for judging potential and performance, they know what they must do to advance.

 

4. Evaluate succession candidates through a combined potential-performance matrix.  This enables senior managers to consider all direct reports during their succession planning—not just the supposed “high-potentials.”

 

5. Review plans and progress of the entire pipeline frequently and seriously. Ideally, your organization will have at least one annual succession meeting that revolves around this performance-potential evaluation, as well as quarterly reviews and monthly action reporting.