Succession Planning and Strategic Talent Management can help you avoid catastrophic risks and be more competitive now and in the years ahead

By Florian Kete

Mention the word “succession planning” in a small to medium-sized company these days, and you can see the eyes roll. Most leaders these days are worried about top line revenue, and how they’re going make the most productive use of the staff they have and may not want to be distracted by planning for potential vacancies or departures.

What many fail to understand is that there’s a correlation between managing your top talent effectively, overcoming the challenges of the economic downturn, and taking your business to the next level. The “rolling eyes” is precisely the reason someone needs to take it seriously—if your leaders don’t consider it a priority, you can guarantee that no-one else will.

Knowing what to do in case your CEO or one of your key players is hit by a bus is not the only reason to go through succession planning. There are other reasons- but mainly: “It will position your company to be stronger both now and in the years ahead.”

Succession planning is an integral part of strategic planning, Actually it’s somewhat of a misnomer because it’s really an exercise in “Strategic Talent Management.” As Jim Collins detailed in his acclaimed book “Good to Great”, step one to being a great company begins by having the right people on the bus! Unfortunately what works for mammoth organizations like GE and IBM; the firms that have pioneered succession planning—does not necessarily work for smaller organizations.

Succession Planning /Strategic Talent Management for the Small to Medium-sized Business

As you embark on your own Succession Planning Project /Strategic Talent Management Project, be sure to adapt it to the nuances of your business. Take a look at your talent needs over the next 3-5 years and decide how you’re going to fill those needs.

THE TOP FIVE SUCCESSION PLANNING/STRATEGIC TALENT MANAGEMENT QUESTIONS:

These five questions will help you get started on a simplified succession planning and strategic talent management process:

 1. How will you compete in the years ahead? Which positions will be critical to leading the company? Restrict your focus to only positions that are critical to the on-going success of your organization. Don’t get sucked into the argument that “every job at our company is critical”!

2. What talent will get you there? If one of those critical positions becomes vacant, how will you fill it? Increasing responsibilities to someone else’s role usually isn’t a good answer. Maybe you already have people with multiple skill sets AND the desire to do whatever is needed who can fill these roles? If not, you need to know who performs these roles at other organizations that you might want to recruit. What talents that you don’t have will you need to add to your organization in order to compete in the future? Where will you need to be talent-wise to lead the pack or at least to keep up with the pack?

3. What key things you should be working on? If you don’t have an obvious successor and don’t want to steal talent from someone else, are you willing to work on developing an internal talent for a possible role? If so, what are the one or two critical issues that your identified people need to work on during the current year? Are you ready to hold them accountable for developing those key skills? What talent risks do you have right now? Are there key people in critical positions that might leave you? If so, what are you prepared to do RIGHT NOW to prevent them from leaving? Which current employee could be re-assigned to that role successfully?

4. What will you do NOW to develop emerging talent? When is the last time a development conversation took place with talented young people you hope to keep for the future? Has anyone been specific with them about what they need to do to advance their careers? Do they know that they are being tracked for succession purposes? Don’t surprise your young talent that they were being tracked for bigger jobs as you conduct their exit interview!

5. What would you do if you lost a top leader? It might not be a truck that makes you lose a top manager. People have been known to make some crazy career choices after a recession. Can you contemplate life without your top operations person? Or your top financial person?

Succession planning and Strategic Talent Management helps you avoid catastrophic risk, and ensures the availability of experienced and capable employees that are prepared to assume critical roles as they become available.

This process positions your company to be much stronger both today and in the years ahead. In this context you can see how much you have to gain if you do manage your talent with an eye towards the future—and how much you stand to lose if you don’t.

Florian Kete is the Vice President of Human Resources at Excel Polymers. With a background in consulting, business start ups, venture capital organizations and large multi-national corporations (GE, FedEx), he brings a strong, no nonsense business approach to the business of talent management and people development. He is a member of The Senior HR Leader Thought Forum.

Based on a dialogue of leading HR Professionals at the Senior HR Thought Leader Forum at the Union Club in downtown Cleveland

It’s a fact—towards the end of a recession, when the economy starts perking up—the most talented people start looking around for other opportunities.

The best are in demand

Think about your very best employee—either in management or in the field. There are probably several people who come to mind—and really stand out.

Now think about what you would do if these people were to walk into your office and give you two week’s notice today. It’s a scary thought, isn’t it?

Invariably, it is the best people who are recruited away. So now, as the economy is starting to show signs of life, you should take action to keep your “A” players productive, happy, and manage the risk that they accept an “opportunity” with a competitor.

Who are your “A” Players?

Bradford Smart, the author of “TopGrading” says that 10% of your staff are “A” players.

An “A” player is a gifted and productive employee, who’s moved up the ladder, with promotions and responsibilities, and who has a career ahead of them. This person is a change agent; someone others look to for guidance; who others think of as a mentor; someone who sees the big picture; someone who consistently performs to their full potential; someone who brings unique competencies to their job and your company; someone who has career potential with your company.

Can you really afford to lose this person?

“A” players are continuously growing, and show their strength by continually adapting to new and changing environments. The question is: “How to you keep them happy and engaged?”

5 Specific Actions you can take to keep “A” Players

Here are five specific actions you should consider taking to retain your key employees:

1. Start at the top: “A” players demand “A” leadership. During tough economic times, everyone is used to hearing news about the need to “hunker down” and “sacrifice.” Now that your company has survived, everyone’s wondering what your new focus is: “What’s the new operating environment?”, “What are the challenges?”, and “What’s the new strategy?” Communicate the good and the bad. Be transparent and vulnerable. Consider asking for 360% feedback. Being vulnerable and open to feedback at the top makes for stronger leadership.

2. Consider a “closet cleaning”: “This would be my best employee, if he/she didn’t have such an attitude problem.” Like it or not—that person creates a problem because tolerating him or her fosters a culture where employees know that leadership accepts unacceptable behaviors in order to “make do.” It opens the door to other behavior problems. Getting rid of one or two saboteurs sends a strong signal to everyone.

3. Conduct “retention interviews”: Figure out individually what makes your “A” players tick. Meet one-on-one with your top talent and tell them. “You are important.” And then ask “What are the things we need to be doing to keep you around?” You want to challenge your best people with important assignments and make them a part of the decision-making process. If you provide access to strategic information, and seek his or her opinions on what to do next, it will be a “win-win” for everyone.

4. Engage in pro-active career management: Most people, especially the best and most motivated, want to know where their career is headed. Share the company’s strategy, and explain how their efforts are critical to the company’s success. Then provide meaningful feedback and measure their progress. No matter how good an “A” Player is, there’s always room for improvement. The best people want and deserve the truth. Reinforcing what they have done well, but also giving them concrete ways in which they can improve can “help you help them” take your company to the next level.

5. Give your “A” players first chance:  This is a great way to overcome organizational barriers for success. While you are taking inventory of the strengths and weaknesses of your organization, you should be asking “Are there any talent gaps?” “Can these gaps be addressed through training?” Before you look outside for new talent, “can you nurture the talent you need from within?” Expanding responsibilities and developing talent from within is a great way to make your best employees feel valued, challenged, and motivated.

Of course it’s important to recognize and compensate your key employees—particularly if you compare the cost of losing and then replacing a key employee—it doesn’t hurt for them to be well-compensated, but by following the 5 specific actions listed above, it will be a “win-win” and they’ll be compensated fairly for the value they are bringing to your company.

There are many things that you can do to help keep your best employees.

Make sure that you are doing something—because doing nothing will be a most costly mistake

And you’ll risk losing your most important asset: your best people.

The Senior HR Thought Leader Forum at the Union Club in downtown Cleveland is sponsored by Dise & Company – a Professional Services Firm specializing in Executive Search, Corporate Outplacement, and Leadership Coaching.

To learn more about what you can be doing to attract and retain “A” Players, call Ralph Dise at 216-752-1700.

Why you should enlist others to help you identify opportunities for change

By John Milgram, President, Aexcel Corporation

Even the best leaders develop blind spots—areas in which you do not see yourself or your organization’s situation realistically.

These blind spots, or lack of awareness, could potentially cause great damage to your company and all the people who depend on it.

When things are going well … life is easy.  But when we’re faced with a difficult business environment and there is a real need for change, too often we hang on to old activities.  We hope that what made us previously successful will make us successful again in the future. Yet clinging to old ideas is possibly the last thing we should be doing.

Very often as leaders, we’re completely invested in the things that got us where we are.  We are slow to recognize the need for change. We’re in denial for longer than those who look upon us.

“What can we (or I)  stop doing today to become more productive?” ~ John Milgram, Aexcel Corporation

If your organization could benefit from a change, how are you supposed to recognize it? And if you do recognize a need for change, where are you supposed to go for advice?  

Several years ago, feeling that our company could do better, we came to the realization that the activities of our company were grounded on what had been done in the past, instead of what needed to be done to meet the company’s real business needs.

Operating on the notion that our business strategy was based on what we deliberately chose not to do, as much as what we chose to do, I started asking our people the question: “What should we stop doing?”

Acting upon the input from several key people, we phased out an entire line of business that was very time-consuming and cost-intensive. At the time, this line of business seemed off-limits and the thought of eliminating it caused many sleepless nights.

While the decision to phase out this line of business caused a great deal of anxiety, it eventually led to a dramatic restructuring of the way that we did business—lowering our costs, changing our customer base, expanding our distribution, increasing the volume of sales, and increasing our customer satisfaction.

As a result, our company is in a much better position today than it was 5 years ago, and we’ve been able to weather the downturn without laying off any employees—putting us in a much stronger position as the economy continues to improve, and we inevitably face a new competitive landscape.

Now we try to proactively identify those habits, actions, and assumptions that could potentially damage our business. And I rely on key stakeholders to help uncover blind spots and identify opportunities for change, including  (1) Customers (2) Managers (3) Employees (4) Trusted advisors (including my Board of Directors), and (5) Colleagues.

If you are a leader of a corporation, or the head of a division, or an employee who wants to get ahead, you might want to try this exercise. “What can we (or I)  stop doing today to become more productive?”

Coping with change is difficult. But not as difficult as coping with the kind of change you’ll have to cope with if you wait too long—and lose the opportunity to make the constructive change that will help your business thrive. 

If you take proactive measures to uncover your blind spots, you’ll be on the right path towards understanding the real issues facing your organization, and will be better able to adapt to the changes in your business environment.

John Milgram has been with Aexcel Corporation for twenty-one years, and President for sixteen of those years. Prior to that he earned an MBA from Columbia Business School, and worked in the financial services industry for five years. He obtained his BA from University of Pennsylvania in 1981, and graduated from Cleveland Heights High School in 1977

Ralph A. Dise, Jr. serves on Aexcel Corporation’s Board of Directors.

Career management is not just a nicety—it’s a necessity

By Greg Reynolds

“I never saw it coming.” That’s what many executives and managers say after they’ve lost their job. “How did it happen?”—“Well one day they called me into the front office and told me I didn’t want to work there anymore.”  And now they’re just another statistic. One of the current 15.1 million people  in the United States who are unemployed. 

 Just another casualty in the job market

Losing a job is incredibly stressful: you have to spend your savings to pay for your living expenses, your self-esteem takes one on the chin, and many people feel depressed and powerless to take control of their lives…, making it even harder to concentrate, to be on your game, and to find the job that’s perfect for you.

It’s a wonder then, why don’t more people take proactive steps to safeguard themselves from losing their job in the first place? Many managers and executives simply don’t understand the importance of a local network of professional contacts. They think they are too busy to acquire new skills, or to attend workshops by local professional associations.

They didn’t have the time, they didn’t take the time, they felt guilty when they did take the time, and now they’re right-sized, downsized or restructured out of their organization. And without a network of professional contacts, they have to start from square one building their reputation.

Start thinking of your career growth and development like a product manager. You are the product. What are you going to do to enhance yourself so that you are “in-demand?”

Whether you are between jobs,  or feeling secure in your current position, managing your career growth and development like a product manager is going to be like an insurance policy against job loss, and to catapult yourself to the next level of your profession.

Here are some simple strategies to help you stay ahead of the curve:

1. Build your personal brand

  “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you…, and more importantly, and what they think about you.”

 Creating and maintaining a personal brand, and working continually to promote it, are vital to your career growth.

What makes you unique? What makes you stand out?  How do you position yourself as the “go-to expert” in your field? Is this reflected in your resume, your business cards, your online profiles?

Wherever you are professionally, think big and make yourself visible. Make sure to build your profile internally and externally by highlighting your skills in presentations or workshops, writing for publications, and volunteering for committees or panel discussions at a trade conference.

Start small and build from there.

Make sure your message is consistent. Remember that everything you do or choose not to do contributes to your personal brand, from the way you speak to someone on the phone, to the way you conduct yourself at meetings, or how you compose your emails.

And don’t forget that the way you do things is often as important as what you do. Do you speak concisely? Do you command attention? Do you look the part? 

2. Acquire relevant new knowledge and skills

Life-long learning is essential to growth and empowerment.

To stay relevant, professional development is, or should be, an essential component of your career growth and plan: “Professional networking events, trade association meetings and professional development seminars, updates and briefings are not niceties, they are career necessities”. 

Start attending regularly. Is there a class at a community college that can help you strengthen your skills?  Enroll in the class.  To remain proficient in your professional, improve or strengthen your work performance you constantly need new skills and knowledge – now and in the future.  

3. Build your network and expand your horizons

Networking is not only for those actively seeking employment.

You can use networking to meet new customers and prospects, to conduct market research and gather market intelligence, and discover the skills that will be most valuable to your employer or your clients.

By networking you can: 

• Raise your profile by becoming an established and regular networking member of a group, getting your face and the business known, 
• Meet new people and build mutually beneficial business relationships, and 
• Expand your opportunities meeting new business contacts with potential customers, suppliers, and business partners.

To avoid being a statistic, you need to be proactive and take control… work every day on becoming distinguished in your career

Savvy professionals view their own career growth and development like a product manager… “what do you need to do every day to stay competitive and ahead of the curve so you stay relevant?”

Networking activities and professional development functions as excellent opportunities to hone their professional skills and expand their professional network, which will increase their value to the organization and help them grow in their career, which is a safeguard against a job loss. 

Time is of the essence. Tomorrow it might be too late. Start working on your personal brand, acquire some new skills, and get serious about networking today.

You are your own product manager – for YOU 2.0

Greg Reynolds is the Director of Client Development for Dise & Company. You can contact Greg directly at the Pro People Page on Diseco.com.

By Ralph A. Dise, Jr.

Why managing your company’s reputation is more important than ever

“Your reputation, good or bad, can make you or break you.”

Usually we think of managing a reputation in terms of individuals, but this axiom holds true for companies as much as it does for individuals.

Being known as “a great place to work” is highly desirable. Happy, contented workers are more productive, more considerate towards customers, co-workers, and suppliers—and are less likely to make mistakes.  

A company with a good reputation also finds it easier to attract and retain top people.  Attracting and retaining that one great person, the one that’s perfect for the job—who is able to create a workable plan and then marshal the troops to execute it—is the difference between merely surviving this recession or being positioned to take off during the coming recovery.

If your company has a poor reputation, the word gets around quickly, making it much harder to hire the best candidates. This leaves you with “B” players; and stuck in the self-perpetuating cycle of an unhappy workplace.

Companies with a poor reputation suffer because they:

• Have difficulty recruiting the people who could help them the most
• Experience high attrition rates and increased recruitment costs of both time and money, and
• Have low employee morale and decreased productivity

Companies with poor reputations suffer the most during a down economy because consumers and business buyers alike are more cautious about with whom they are spending their money. If you lose a few deals or important new customers because people are skeptical about your company, the consequences to your bottom line will be serious.

 “Don’t promise what you can’t deliver”

There is often a disconnect between what companies promise as an Employer Brand and what they deliver as an organization.  This happens when there is a temptation—to attract higher quality candidates—to overpromise when it comes to the opportunities available. 

In business, as in life, what you do is often more important than what you say.  And that is why it’s critical to deliver on your Employer Brand Promise.  If you can’t deliver the moon and the stars, don’t promise the moon and the stars. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

As a general rule, it’s always better to under-promise and over-deliver.

It’s the duty of the HR Leader to assure that the company has the ability to deliver on its Employer Brand… or change the brand promise.

Mistakes in recruiting are costly. They lead to high attrition, lost time, and lost opportunities.  It’s a shame because mistakes due to failure to deliver on an Employer Brand Promise are completely avoidable.

Your HR practices should deliver a consistent experience that supports and affirms your promise, not only in recruiting, but as these practices pertain to: 

• Development of a compelling and concise Employer Brand
• Skill and competency assessments
• Training
• Compensation
• Performance Appraisals
• Career development
• Recognition
• Social events

But what if your current operations are not “sustainable”?

How you separate from the people you no longer need affects your reputation as much as how you attract and retain the people you do need.

This recession has made it difficult for everyone. By the looks of things, it’s not over yet. Difficult choices are being made every day. Sometimes layoffs are the only solution.

Used sparingly and with advanced planning, layoffs can be an organizational lifesaver, but when layoffs are used repeatedly without a thoughtful strategy, they can have a disastrous impact on your company’s effectiveness.

Remember the “golden rule”

If losing a job is frightening during normal times, today it is even worse.  A sudden lay off can destroy a family’s financial health and lead to the destruction of the family itself. How you separate your unneeded employees in this economic climate really matters. 

Employees, both current and past, will remember their treatment, their severance pay, and whether the employer helped with outplacement services. They’ll remember whether they were treated with dignity, respect, and compassion—or whether they were simply let go with little or no warning. 

If layoffs are necessary, you need to separate your employees from your organization with as little drama as possible, and give them a chance to get back on their feet again.

It really matters—to the people who leave, and to the people who remain.

The most important rule to remember is, “Treat others the way you’d want to be treated.”

The bottom line? Your reputation as an employer, good or bad, depends on it.

Ralph A. Dise, Jr. is the President of Dise & Company, the Director Emeritus of Lincolnshire International, and has worked in the field of Human Resources his entire career. You can contact Ralph directly at the Pro People Page on Diseco.com.

How you answer this question can make or break your organization’s ability to adapt to change in these very difficult times.

“What business are you in?”

“Has your business changed with the economic climate?”

“Are you adapting to change? Or are you unsure of your next step(s)?”

Adapting to change, i.e.—refining your corporate culture and aligning it with today’s economic imperatives—is one of the toughest jobs you’ll ever undertake. Yet it could possibly be the difference between weathering the downturn—or not; or between surviving and thriving.

Most companies have difficulties dealing with change because a company’s culture forms over a period of many years. Typically, the culture is defined by default, unintentionally, reflecting the leader’s management style. It is then reinforced as new people are hired, in part, because they fit the prevailing culture.

Over time everyone gets comfortable and resists change.

For your company to consider cultural change, something significant must occur. Perhaps you lose a key client (or several key clients), you restructure and have layoffs, or face bankruptcy.

You don’t have to wait for a crisis

By definition, a crisis would never occur if executives and managers were proactive about solving problems. Most crises can be avoided if you stay in tune with the changing environment.

In good times when you’re experiencing double digit growth, everything is easy. What happens when the pipeline of new business shrinks to almost nothing?

In tough times, we have an obligation to be proactive, to look at things we weren’t paying attention to before. If you haven’t done so recently, you should gather your management team, and ask the following questions:

1. Are your prevailing values out of sync with your current needs?
An honest appraisal of the values on display in your company will help you determine where you are and what’s required to meet your current needs.

2. Have you articulated the values and objectives your company requires now?
You’ve told everyone the company must now do more with less. But is it OK for managers and executives to challenge assumptions openly? Or do you put a premium on “being agreeable”? Will your company accept risk-taking if there is the promise of great reward? Or are you in survival mode and closed off to new ideas? Are you listening to your line managers and your customers for ideas that could help your company expand revenues, cut costs, or otherwise contribute to the bottom line? Henry Ford said: “We need all the brains we can get, and all the brains we can borrow.”

3. Do you seek out opportunities to celebrate the values that make your company a winner?
Are you recognizing and rewarding the people who are achieving greater results with fewer resources? How about those who bring in new accounts or increase business when everyone else is cutting back?

If you embrace and articulate values that are in tune with the economic climate, you’ll increase your organization’s capacity to adapt. You’ll be in a much better place for the uncertainty ahead.

The question is: “Do you want to be in control of, and define, your company’s values? Or do want to leave it to happenstance, and instead let them define you?”

Ralph A. Dise, Jr. is the President of Dise & Company, the Presiding Director of Lincolnshire International, and has worked in the field of Human Resources his entire career. You can contact Ralph directly at the Pro People Page on Diseco.com.