Advanced Succession Planning 2006

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Advanced Succession PlanningNext Generation Practices for Ensuring Your Organization's Future

Copyright 2006, WisdomNet, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

This white paper may be distributed in its entirety, with appropriate copyrights attached.

Any reproduction, reference, republishing or other use without written consent and credit to the authors is strictly prohibited.

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May, 20

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1Succession Planning - Copyright 2006, WisdomNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

WisdomNetTM

The Knowledge To Drive Performance

About the Author

Brian Wilkerson is the co-founder and CEO of WisdomNet. He

serves as a strategist and consultant to a number of large global

companies and has worked extensively with Fortune 500 clients

to help them solve their toughest problems and capitalize on the

greatest opportunities. His previous experience includes leader-

ship roles in global corporations such as Level 3 and Andersen

Consulting (now Accenture) and extensive work in international

development.

He has extensive experience in leading strategy development and

operational improvement efforts across a range of clients in both

domestic and international settings, with a particular emphasison making strategy successful through the combination of

operational excellence and human capital management.

Mr. Wilkerson speaks extensively on a range of topics such as

business strategy and strategic planning, innovation, global

outsourcing, and talent management for organizations such as

The Conference Board. The press also regularly seeks him out

for his insight on a number of topics and he has been quoted

in diverse publications ranging from the New York Times to the

Denver Business Journal. He has also published a number of

articles and book chapters. Mr. Wilkerson is actively involved in

the community, with a particular emphasis on social justice

issues. His educational background includes a Masters Degree

in Environmental Planning from University of Colorado and a

Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Cin-

cinnati, as well as a Certificate in Human Resource Strategy and

Practice from the Human Resource Planning Society.


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Table of Contents

About the Author .................................................................................... 1

Introduction ............................................................................................ 3

Succession Planning Evolution .............................................................. 6

Next Generation Approaches and Tools .................................................. 8

Integrated View ......................................................................... 8

Talent Pools .............................................................................10

Early Warning .......................................................................... 11

Advanced Workforce Planning ..................................................12

Decision Analytics ....................................................................13

Organization Spiderweb ............................................................15

Selection and Transition Focus ................................................16

Knowledge Mapping .................................................................17

Systems Evolution ...................................................................18

Summary ..............................................................................................21

References ............................................................................................22

Company Information ............................................................................24


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Over the past five years, the focus on succession planning in

organizations has dramatically increased. WisdomNet defines

succession planning as "an executive led talent planning process

focused on creating a pool of high performance leaders to meet

the strategic needs of the organization". It has been one of the

fastest growing service areas in the Human Capital consulting

arena and seminars related to the topic have seen record atten-

dance. There are a number of reasons for this increased focus,

all of which relate to the critical link between people and the

performance of the organization.

From a strategic perspective, more organizations are recogniz-ing that there are both leaders and individual contributors that are

critical to their performance. Succession planning is no longer

focused on just the "top jobs" but rather more broadly at who in

the organization is critical to doing what the organization needs

to do. In some organizations, this means front-line individual con-

tributors with critical skills in addition to key leaders. Many organi-

zations have experienced turnover in these types of positions

and the ensuing disruption and some have the potential to see it

before it happens. Most are also recognizing that the skills

required to ensure high performance are not easy to acquire or

develop. The talent market has become increasingly tight, and

while training internal staff can give important foundations, there

is no substitute for experience in the role. Executive roles in

particular have become increasingly complex, and the impact of

bad hires or bad decisions from those hires can have a much

more significant effect on the organization. Consequently, orga-

nizations are increasingly looking at ways they can get ahead of

the curve and avoid disruption through more effective succes-

sion planning.

In addition, many organizations are seeing the tip of the much-

heralded wave of baby boomer retirement. While the economic

challenges of the last 8 to 10 years delayed some of this activity,the pace of retirements has increased in most organizations, and

almost all see the potential for significant departures in the next 3

to 5 years. In fact, a sampling of WisdomNet clients showed that

most anticipated 50-70% retirement among their management

ranks within that timeframe. This is an unprecedented level of

turnover, and even if it is at the far end of that time horizon, it will

Introduction


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have a significant impact on the workforce. Just as important as

the sheer numbers is the level of experience and perspective

that will be lost when this generation leaves the workforce. Many

of these retirees will be in very senior positions and will have a

long tenure within the organization relative to the remaining

workforce. Even if the fundamental skills in these positions can

be replaced, the loss of knowledge, experience, judgment,

relationships, and perspective will have a significant impact on

organization performance.

Numbers involved in the turnover and the experience levels are

just two factors among many that are driving the interest insuccession planning. Other factors such as the increased

demand for highly skilled workers and leaders bring uncertainty

into the organization and provide the potential for disruption in

performance if someone is suddenly lured away. One need only

look at the legal battles between Google and Microsoft over key

talent in China to understand the stakes and level of focus in this

area. In addition, issues such as global security, immigration

reform, regulatory reform, and a host of others all impact how the

organization looks at talent and the increasing focus on

succession planning. This focus is not confined to the private

sector as public sector organizations face many of the same

dynamics and challenges.

Effective succession planning yields a number of benefits to the

organizations that put the appropriate focus on it. These include:

Ensuring continuity and minimizing disruption - the

organization stays focused on achieving its objectives

Providing the groundwork for achieving future goals and

improving the performance of the organization

Increasing the effectiveness of leadership developmentinvestments

Delivering higher performance now as targeted development

increases the skills of staff for their current positions


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Providing more challenging development opportunities and

career path opportunities

Providing a platform for preparing the organization for the

future and driving the changes in the culture and operations

needed in order to be successful

As more organizations have recognized these potential benefits,

the practice of succession planning has evolved. This white

paper explores that evolution and looks at a number of new

strategies that organizations are employing to ensure effective

succession planning.


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Succession Planning Evolution

Over the past fifteen years, the practice of succession planning

has evolved significantly. Succession planning is no longer a

matter of tapping someone on the shoulder for that C-level

opportunity and creating an "heir apparent". Many organizations

have realized the dangers of such an approach. This is just one

of a number of evolutions in succession planning that are

illustrated in the diagram below.

Today, succession planning is a much more dynamic process

that is focused on securing the future talent of the organization. It

reaches across levels and boundaries, and is focused on

creating a pool of talent that is available to meet the needs of the

organization at multiple levels, regardless of the genesis for that

need. Most organizations have started looking at succession

planning as parallel processes- one focused on addressing

immediate succession needs, with the other focused on

ensuring an adequate pool of talent available to address needs

as they evolve. The diagram below illustrates this parallelapproach.

From: To:

Annual Event

Selection of "Replacements"

Focusing on Senior Levels Only

Stand-alone Program

ROI in the Future

On-going Process

Creation of Leadership Pool

Extending into Mid- and

Lower-level Management

Part of Integrated Strategyfor Managing Talent

ROI Now and in the Future


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As the diagram illustrates, both processes involve understanding

needs and employing strategies to address these needs across

different time horizons. As the diagram also notes, addressing

succession needs is not merely a matter of recruiting or training.

A wide range of strategies can be employed to address

succession challenges. For example, when someone leaves a

position, organizations do not automatically just seek to replace

that position. Some look at the turnover as an opportunity to

reorganize the way work gets done and create a more efficient

organization. Many look at a succession event as an opportunity

to actually increase the skills or redefine the role associated with

that open position to give the organization even more capability.

Since most organizations today "run lean", they look to maximize

every talent decision they make, and not just ensure that the boxes

on the organization chart are filled.

This evolution in succession planning has led to a number of new

techniques and tools focused on improving the effectiveness of

this process. The next section describes tools that we have

either seen our clients successfully deploy or have helped them

develop and use effectively.

Leadership

Profile

Critical NeedsAssessment

Gap Analysis

Long Term

NeedsAssessment

Selection and

Monitoring ofPool

Participants

Identificationof Strategies

to Close Gaps

Career

Developmentand Goal

Setting

Development Activities

- Rotational Assignments

- Leadership Training

- 360 Degree Feedback

Selection and

Transition

Succession Pool Development

Replacement Planning Process

Improved ReadinessImproved Performance


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Next Generation Approaches and Tools

WisdomNet has worked with an extensive list of clients in both

the public and private sector to help them increase the effective-

ness of the succession planning approaches. In addition, we have

done a number of speaking engagements across the US, outlin-

ing innovative approaches to this topic. Through this work, we

have seen a number of innovations and advances in succession

planning, and have been responsible for creating a number of

them ourselves. Some of these are as simple as different ways

of thinking about the succession challenge, while some are

specific tools or techniques that help organizations address

succession planning. An overview of some of the key approaches

and tools follow.

Integrated View

Organizations are increasingly focused on making talent deci-

sions more objective and based on data. This is in stark contrast

to the informal or instinctive nature of many talent decisions in

the past and is a recognition that talent decisions are no different

than other business decisions they should be based on data

and facts rather than intuition or extraneous factors. For example,

no successful company would decide to build a new facility

simply because the drawings looked nice or they felt like they

needed it. The company would look at costs, potential use,capital funding vehicles, anticipated return on investment, pro-

jected future growth needs, lease market data, and a host of other

factors. More and more organizations are looking at talent through

the same lenses, which requires both increased data and

dramatically improved access to this data.

Increasingly organizations are moving towards some sort ofTalent Profile to aggregate this data and associated decisions.

The talent profile brings all of the information about a person

together into one place where it can be used by the appropriate

decision makers. This often involves pulling data from multiple

sources and systems and has in the past generally ended up assome sort of binder of information. But this was generally a

labor-intensive and time-consuming process for HR and support

staff. Even a simple decision such as the appropriate candidate

to fill an internal opening could involve getting past performance

from one system, the candidate resume from another, basic

employee information from a third, and past training and develop-

ment from a fourth. This doesnt even account for the evaluations

Talent decisions

are no different than

other business

decisions they

should be based on

data and facts ratherthan intuition or

extraneous factors.


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that might reside on a managers PC or worse, are not docu-

mented at all. Today, organizations are leveraging technology to

help aggregate all of this data in one place and give them instant

access to a comprehensive picture of their talent. This talent

profile functionality has become increasingly popular because of

the power of the data and the reduction in administrative burden

(see example below).

One of WisdomNets clients, for example, migrated from paper-

based to electronic talent profiles to improve efficiency and

refocused the efforts previously given to compiling data to

improving analytics. Among a number of efforts in this area, the


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client and WisdomNet created objective scorecards for deter-

mining who qualified as High Potentials that were based on the

various data points collected in the talent profile and eventually

automated the collection and analysis of this information to

create automated initial identification of high potentials from among

their global workforce of more than 10,000.

Talent Pools

The concept of creating a pool of High Potentials in an organiza-

tion is almost as old as the practice of succession planning itself.

A pool is nothing more than a group of individuals with common

characteristics. But WisdomNet has seen many of our clients

dramatically expand their use of pools to better identify, track,

and manage various cohorts of staff. For example, one of our

clients separated their high potentials into pools based on what

level of potential they had. This particular client defined this as

how many levels up in the organization they could potentially move

(and of course staff could move into different pools over time).

Other clients have separated candidates who are candidates for

replacing current managers, but dont necessarily qualify as high

potentials in the organization. Each of these pools has specific

development strategies associated with them and are tracked as

cohorts in terms of progress against development, investmentand return, retention, and a number of other factors.

WisdomNet has helped a number of our clients take this concept

one step further by blurring the lines between internal and exter-

nal pools. We have seen that the right candidate to address a

particular talent challenge could be made up of an internal

resource, an external hire, or even some sort of contingent labor

solution depending on required timing, investment, criteria

weightings, etc. Many of our clients have found that they can make

better succession planning decisions by looking simultaneously

at these various internal and external options and the relative cost,

benefit, and likelihood of success for each option. This of courserequires thinking about a number of Talent Management processes

such as recruiting (applicant management) and contractor

management very differently, but it provides a significantly

increased range of options for addressing talent challenges and

a higher likelihood of successfully addressing them. In many

cases, this type of blending of talent pools is done through Talent


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Management software with both the ability to track information

about internal and external options and powerful search tools to

hone in on the right solution for a particular talent challenge. Like

other areas of the business, advances in decision support are

helping companies sort through more data and make better

decisions about talent.

Early Warning

One of the fastest growing trends in succession planning is the

development of early warning mechanisms around potential tal-

ent issues. This includes significant focus on predictive turnover

modeling. As an example, WisdomNet has built a Turnover

MappingTM tool that takes data from various sources and

aggregates it into a profile of potential turnover in all parts of the

organization. This can include employee and manager percep-

tions, flagging of particular conditions in the talent profile, third

party retention assessment tools, past turnover trends, and

others. The goal is to provide the organization early warning data

about potential turnover issues and give them time to target the

appropriate strategies to address it. This could include ramping

up recruiting, targeted retention initiatives, or any number of

strategies. The key is to be aware of the information early enough

so that the organization can proactively address it.


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Other clients have begun to focus on a few critical sets of factors

that tend to be predictors of turnover in their organization. For

example, one global financial services company has begun to

look at what they call Long-Term Hold by examining factors such

as long-term incentive compensation (including vesting

schedules), stock option exercise activity, tenure, level, and a

host of other factors to target particular retention risks among

critical talent, leadership and high potentials. Others have

focused on job satisfaction measures or trends in key talent

going to competitors.

Many of these approaches are dependent on technology and theability to aggregate and correlate significant amounts of data.

Technology has also allowed a number of companies to move

toward more automated detection of potential issues. For

example, WisdomNets I-TMSTM software allows companies to

set up e-mail alerts that notify key HR or leadership when

particular conditions are met. This might be when a particular

staff member is marked as a retention risk in the system and the

system identifies that this person also does not have any

potential backfills associated with them. This type of automated

alert ensures that the organization maximizes the time available

to deal with potential talent issues before they become real

issues.

Advanced Workforce Planning

One of the fastest emerging trends is actually the linkage of

succession planning to workforce planning. Certainly the

discussions that typically take place between HR and business

units around how many people do you need are nothing new.

But this is just a shadow of the potential for workforce planning.

Increasingly organizations are seeking to move to a more disci-

plined approach to workforce planning that is much more

advanced. Some of this is related to the desire to get early

warning data about potential needs, but it is just as much relatedto the desire on the part of organizations to better understand

and better prepare for what they will need to meet their future

goals. Many are starting to look at scenario modeling for the

dependence of business goals on talent acquisition and reten-

tion. For example, one of our clients recently used advanced

workforce planning to model the costs of different strategies for

entering a new business line and the associated feasibility. As


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success in this new area was heavily dependent on the ability to

acquire, develop, and retain the right talent, the company was

able to balance cost considerations with likelihood of success to

determine the right entry strategy.

Workforce planning is evolving from an exercise in headcount

planning to a comprehensive look at how to optimize talent. No

longer is it an exercise in how many people will need to be

recruited in a year, but rather a driver of strategies around

recruiting, training, retention, workplace policies, contingent

labor strategies, facility location, and even outsourcing. As an

example, WisdomNets approach to workforce planning is ground-breaking and unique, and combines the organizations process

architecture, required outputs, goals, systems infrastructure,

headcount, skills, required service levels, costs, and a host of

other factors into an empirical model that tells the organization

exactly what they will need to meet their needs today and

tomorrow. This includes suggestions on optimization (process

automation and improvement, outsourcing options, appropriate

contingent labor mixes, etc.) and the risk and return associated

with each strategy. Already in use by both large corporations and

government agencies, this approach and tool has allowed

organizations to make the concrete link between people and

performance and has given organizations the tools to empirically

analyze what their workforce strategies should be (including

succession planning).

Decision Analytics

As discussed above, advances in technology and decision

support have enabled organizations to bring together more data

and make better talent decisions. But just as important as the

data is the analytics that are applied and more organizations are

focused on improving these tools. Some examples have been

discussed, such as objective criteria for determining high

potentials, but the range of tools that have been developed anddeployed over the past five years is significant.

One element of this focus on decision analytics is an increase in

tools for cost-benefit analysis around talent decisions. Organiza-

tions are increasingly looking at their various talent options using

traditional cost-benefit-risk analysis. For example, a common


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decision in organizations is whether to fill an open position with

an internal or external candidate. More organizations look at the

cost of each option vs. the likelihood of success and the criticality

of the position to the business rather than simply defaulting to

promote from within policies or other non-objective decision

criteria. This is symbolic of the overall trend towards more

objective decision-making around talent.

WisdomNet has helped a number of our clients take this a step

further by developing Decision Trees associated with key talent

decisions. These decision trees help document the factors that

should be considered when examining particular talent decisionsand also help ensure that the decision is based on data. An

example appears below showing a simple decision tree for a

situation where a high potential is being blocked by an

incumbent from moving into a higher-level position. This is a sim-

plified version for illustration purposes.

The decision tree walks the user through a series of criteria and

suggests an appropriate strategy based on a particular situation.

One of the key advantages of these tools is that they give line

managers a process to make better decisions. This helps build

Replace

vs. RetainReplace vs. Retain Decision

Used when incumbent is blocking a HIPO,Future Leader, or Replacement Candidate

who is ready for Succession

HIPO, Future

Leader, or

Replacement

Candidate

Would the anticipatedperformance of the potential

be higher than that of theincumbent?

Is there

another role

available for the

incumbent?

Is incumbent

interested in that

role?

Replace

Incumbent

Keep

Incumbent in

Role

Create Strategic

Development Assignment

for Potential

Is strategic value ofincumbent higher than

that of potential?

Create job share or

Strategic Development

Assigment for Incumbent

Move Potential

into Role

NO

YES YES YES

NO NO

NO

YES


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the effectiveness of the managers and also helps ensure that

key talent decisions in the organization are being made consis-

tently and with the right factors, even when HR is not involved.

Moreover, WisdomNet is also helping our clients automate these

tools to provide suggested strategies to decision makers based

on available data, these strategies can then be customized to fit

the situation.

Organization Spiderweb

In the past, succession planning decisions have generally been

targeted on finding the best candidate for the position that is in

focus. For example, if a leader will soon be retiring, there is a

significant effort put on evaluating the credentials of potential

internal and external candidates to determine the best skills and

fit. In most cases, however, minimal attention is paid to the ripple

effects of a given decision. For example, if internal Candidate A

is determined to be the best from a standpoint of skills,

experience, and interest, what happens to the business unit that

Candidate A will come from? Is there a ready replacement for

Candidate A in their current role? Will critical business priorities

suffer if Candidate A leaves their current role? If it were an

external candidate, what would be the potential impact on

internal candidates who were passed over? All of these consid-erations are getting greater attention in organizations.

WisdomNet has helped a number of clients establish analytical

approaches to manage this Organization Spiderweb. These

approaches include how to analyze the downstream impacts of

various succession options at not just the next level, but through

multiple layers of the organization with the goal of choosing the

option that optimizes overall organization impact. The diagram

below illustrates a simple version of the type of criteria matrix that

would be used in this type of decision.


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Areas of Business Impact

Qualific

ations/

Readine

ss

Project

edUnit

Perform

ance

KeyCus

tomerR

elation

ships

ReplacementCandidate

A

Replacement

CandidateB

ReplacementCandidate

C

Replacement

CandidateD

2

1

3

4

1

4

2

3

2

3

1

4

Critical Position

While technology certainly makes this type of analysis easier, it

is not a prerequisite for this strategy. To manage this decision

process, we have seen a number of clients use spreadsheets or

simply just document the appropriate criteria and discuss the

decisions and potential impacts as a group. The key is that more

and more organizations are looking at the far-reaching implica-tions of a particular succession decision and guiding their

strategies with this knowledge. Consequently, they are seeing

much smoother transitions, higher success rates, and less

organization disruption.

Selection and Transition Focus

Another shifting emphasis in succession planning is around

selection and transition. As discussed above, organizations are

focusing on more disciplined and objective criteria for

determining how to address a particular succession need. They

are also beginning to increase their focus on how they managethe actual transition in the organization. In many cases, so much

effort was put into the selection process, that the transition

activities were almost non-existent. The assumption was that if

the right candidate was chosen, their success in their new role

would be assured. Many organizations are realizing that this

doesnt always reflect reality, and some have the scars from failed

executives to prove it. Consequently, WisdomNet has seen a


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number of clients put in robust and structured transition experi-

ences for internal and external successors. These experiences

generally include combinations of training, mentoring and

coaching, job experiences, relationship building, assessments,

and a host of other factors related to ensuring job success. In all

cases, the progress of the successor is closely monitored to

ensure that they are both achieving the goals of the position as

well as developing themselves appropriately. This process is being

mirrored with both internal promotions and external hires, and

generally includes both common experiences across all

executives and specific development based on each executives

unique needs. In our experience, these types of programs havedramatically improved the success rate of successors.

Knowledge Mapping

At a more tactical level, organizations are increasingly focused

on minimizing the knowledge loss that often occurs when there

is turnover in a position. The goal of these efforts is generally to

translate knowledge in a staff persons head into organization

knowledge through a process called Knowledge Mapping. This

process helps organizations identify, prioritize, document, and

disseminate knowledge that is critical to the operations of the

organization. As can be imagined, the scope of this can be in-credibly broad, and it is important that organizations focus their

efforts on the components of each job that are critical and that

cannot be intuitively figured out when someone steps in to a

new role. For example, someone who comes from within an

organization may already understand the budgeting process

associated with that organization. However, they may not

understand the regulatory filings that a particular department is

responsible for if they did not come from that department. More

importantly, they may be able to get the regulatory forms from a

web site, but will they understand how to fill them out

appropriately, or know the right person to get answers from at the

regulatory agency? All of these are potential targets forknowledge mapping.

The fundamental process for knowledge mapping includes:

Map knowledge required to execute a particular task / role /

job (focus on critical jobs or those with high time to

proficiency or high turnover)


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Determine how knowledge will be captured and

disseminated (people, systems, procedures, etc.) focus on

application of the knowledge and not just documentation

Determine how knowledge will be transferred in the event of

succession

Ensure that the knowledge transfer process is both

documented and practiced to ensure minimal disruption in

the event of a transition

Again, these efforts should focus on components that are difficult

to learn, require time to attain proficiency, or critical to starting

successfully in a job. Most organizations do not have the time for

people to stop doing their jobs for weeks in order to document

what they do. Our clients have found that setting realistic

objectives for incremental progress around knowledge mapping,

for example documenting one key aspect of the job per quarter,

is the right approach for ensuring that they are prepared for a

transition.

In our experience, organizations must also look broadly atknowledge mapping, beyond just the formal, to ensure that they

are capturing both the informal knowledge and important

relationships critical to ensuring smooth transitions. For example,

how do you ensure that a successor can get the same kind of

response from IT around a critical job component when that re-

sponse for the incumbent was based on a 15-year relationship

between the incumbent and a key person in IT? If this is a critical

component to ensuring continuity and minimizing disruption, it

must be managed as part of this process. The same could apply

to key customer relationships, relationships with government

officials, key vendor relationships, and a host of others. The

important thing to remember is to focus on the elements of a job

that are critical to its performance.

Not all of these techniques are appropriate for every organiza-

tion. Each organization must look at where they are in terms of

their needs, current level of data, systems support, management

skills, and HR capability to determine what the right mix of


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advanced strategies would be. It is clear, however, that nearly

every organization will need to consider some number of these

approaches and techniques as the complexity of succession and

talent challenges grow.

Systems Evolution

One enabler of more effective succession planning has been the

evolution in HR systems. Succession planning software has

existed for many years, but Integrated Talent Management

Application Suites such as WisdomNets I-TMS TM software has

allowed organizations to really take succession planning to thenext level. In the past, tools in this area have primarily been

focused on moving boxes around on organization charts. But the

current generation of Talent Management applications goes far

beyond this. Talent Management applications allow organizations

to have a complete view of their talent, as well as a comprehen-

sive picture of the organizations talent needs and challenges.

This includes the ability to automatically aggregate the full picture

of talent from the individual to the organization level. Now

organizations can quickly tell who they have, what they can do,

what they are doing today, and what their gaps might be. In

addition, organizations now have powerful tools to look at trends,

gaps, needs, and strategies for addressing succession planningchallenges. All of this is possible from the integration of disparate

data from disparate sources into a comprehensive picture of

talent and the availability of tools to analyze this data at various

levels. Increasingly, systems have become a foundation for

effective succession planning and are a critical component of

strategy in this area.

WisdomNet has been a leader and innovator in this field, and our

I-TMSTM application was the first fully-integrated Talent Manage-

ment Suite on the market. We believe that organizations must

manage Human Capital with the same clarity, discipline, andobjectivity with which they manage other business assets. This

requires the processes, systems, and most importantly,

measures that clearly show the return on Human Capital. This

was the genesis of our I-TMSTM tool, and it has helped a number

of organizations increase the effectiveness of their Human Capital

Management. Because we are consultants and solution delivery

experts first, our technology aligns with proven practices in

We believe that

organizations must

manage Human

Capital with the same

clarity, discipline, and

objectivity with which

they manage other

business assets.


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succession planning and has the flexibility to accommodate the

diversity of needs and approaches in this area. A number of the

innovations discussed above have been built into our software

as tools, and I-TMSTM is one of the most powerful tools in the

market in this area. This includes integration to all the related

Talent Management processes and linkages to our ground-break-

ing Workforce Planning tools.


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Summary

Succession planning is no longer the purview of large progres-

sive companies. It has become a critical component of ensuring

the success of both public and private sector organizations and

a significant focus of organizations around the globe. In that vein,

succession planning has evolved significantly from the back-room

conversations about the next CEO. It has become an important

part of how the organization does business and is both broader

and deeper in its scope. Succession planning is often integrated

into how leaders manage their teams, and has become an

explicit consideration in many talent decisions. It has also

become more complex as talent challenges increase and the

criticality of talent to organization performance has also increased.

This has led to a number of new approaches and tools for

succession planning. These are focused on making the process

more effective and accounting for the increased complexity of

today's organizations. They include both new ways of analyzing

risks and needs, as well as new strategies for addressing them.

Increasingly, organizations are seeking ways to manage their

talent assets in the same way they manage other organization

assets and are coming up with more advanced ways to identify

and address talent needs and challenges. Some of this has been

made possible through the evolution of HR technology, but much

of it comes from more advanced understanding of talent dynam-

ics and how to approach these challenges. WisdomNet has been

at the forefront of this evolution, and we have worked with our

clients to develop a number of the tools and techniques described

in this white paper.

This is certainly not the end to the succession planning evolution.

As technology advances and more organizations address

impending retirements and talent shortages, there will be a need

to continue to evolve the practice of succession planning. Many

of the gaps that will be coming in the workforce will not be able to

be solved by traditional strategies. Some estimates place the sizeof the coming generation in the workforce at half that of the cur-

rent generation. This dynamic alone will force a fundamental

revolution in how organizations acquire, manage, and develop

talent, and many organizations will find their success or failure

linked to their abilities in this area. WisdomNet will continue to be

a leader and innovator in this field and to push the practice of both

succession planning and Talent Management as a whole.


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References

Abraham. Integrating Technology to Meet Challenges of Public Sector

Human Resources. www.ipma-hr.org.

Charan, Drotter, and Noel. The Leadership Pipeline: How to build the

leadership powered. Wiley, John & Sons, 2000.

Ciampa and Watkins. Right from the start: Taking Charge in a New

Leadership Role. Harvard Business School Publishing, 2005.

Corporate Leadership Council. Assessment Methods for Promoting and

Developing Managers. November, 2002.

Corporate Leadership Council. Models for Strategic Staffing Processes.

March, 2003.

Corporate Leadership Council. Succession Planning Practices. May,

2003.

Farley. HRs Role in Talent Management and Driving Business Results.

Employment Relations Today 2005.

Gygi and Wilkerson. A Compelling Model for Workforce Planning: Making

Organizations More Agile. WisdomNet White Paper, 2005,

www.wisdomnet.net.

Leibman, Bruer, and Maki. Succession Management: The Next Generation

of Succession Planning. HRPS Journal. http://www.hrps.org/

publications_journal.html.

Metz. Designing Succession Systems for New Competitive Realities.

HRPS Journal. http://www.hrps.org/publications_journal.html.

Orellano and Miller. Succession Planning: Lessons From Kermit the

Frog.. SHRM white paper. www.shrm.org.

Robb. Succeeding with succession: tools for succession management

get more sophisticated. HR Magazine January 2006.

Rothwell. Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity

and Building Talent from Within (3rd Ed.). New York: AMACOM, 2005.

Schall. Public Sector Succession: A Strategic Approach to Sustaining

Innovation, Public Administration Review. 57(1).

Watkins. The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at

All Levels. Harvard Business School Publishing, 2003.


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Wilkerson. Effective Succession Planning in Public and Non-Profit

Organizations. WisdomNet White Paper, 2002, www.wisdomnet.net.

Wilkerson. Effective Talent Management: Improving Business Results

through People. WisdomNet White Paper, 2002, www.wisdomnet.net.

Wilkerson. Technology for Strategic Partnering. HR.com March 2004.


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WisdomNet creates innovative consulting and product solutions

for the worlds best companies with a matchless level of exper-

tise and service. WisdomNets extensive experience in strategy,

operations, and human capital, coupled with our technology

expertise allows us to generate real results for our clients. In

addition, products such as the leading-edge Integrated Talent

Management System (ITMSTM) help our clients maximize the per-

formance of their strategic assets. WisdomNet can help you solve

your toughest problems and capitalize on your greatest opportu-

nities.

For additional information, please contact us at:

E-mail:

Website:

Phone:

Headquarters:

Company Information

[email protected]

www.wisdomnet.net

303.316.0381

WisdomNet, Incorporated

1600 Stout Street, Suite 1800

Denver, Colorado 80202

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Advanced Succession Planning 2006

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