Centralized or Decentralized Succession Planning?

One of the important strategic decisions you'll have to make when determining how to approach your succession planning is whether you want the execution of it to be centralized or decentralized.

Centralized

If you choose the centralized route, HR will be the hub of the succession planning. They will know who is in the pipeline, they will oversee or even prescribe the professional development that those people will need in order to be prepared, they will sign people up for classes, send them to conferences, hire them coaches, and make sure that they are progressing along a career path and/or a learning path.

Decentralized

In the decentralized approach, all of those responsibilities just listed will be taken on by every department head, whatever title you want to give that (manager, director, VP, etc.).  In the decentralized approach, each individual department will plan their own succession pipeline and keep HR in the loop. HR will not have individual sightlines into each department’s or each individual’s succession plan. Instead, HR will be kept apprised of the plan and act as a consultant to the department head.

The role of HR is very different in the centralized versus decentralized approach. In the decentralized approach HR is more of an advisor to each individual department, as opposed to owning the process and making sure that the company, as a whole, has succession planning in place.

Example

If a department head says “I want my folks to have more industry knowledge,” HR would say, “OK, give me a week and I'll come back with a couple of options that might fit your goals.” What HR won't do is assess where people stand now, what development they need, or be involved in the development process in any way other than an advisory role.

HR’s Responsibility

The responsibility that HR has when the process is decentralized is that HR has to make sure that all department heads know what they're doing.

·        Do they know how to plan a career trajectory?

·        Do they know how to delegate?

·        Do they know how to identify special projects or stretch assignments?

·        Do they know how to coach?

·        Do they know how to teach their people how to coach?

·        Are they willing to let people go from their department in order to advance their career and make a more well-rounded contributor to the organization?

The centralized versus decentralized decision depends on how your organization prefers to manage the process and how much time and dedication you think your individual department heads will give to the process. Also, consider if a department head leaves, will the next leader be on board with this responsibility?

Warning: There is one glaring problem when succession planning is decentralized, and that is: if a particular department just drops the ball. HR may not be apprised of the fact that there may be a big gap in the succession pipeline of a particular department. In the centralized scenario, HR will make sure that every spoke in your company hub has a succession plan in place, and people are progressing through that plan.

What Defines a Leader?

This article is NOT about our usual – Succession Planning - but rather it’s about one of the things you really have to think about before your company starts succession planning.

And that is: How do you define “leader” in your organization?

When I speak, I always start my presentations with the question: What does a leader look like? I flip-chart the responses, then ask my audience to “step back” and look at the list.

I ask them: Can you give this list a label? Is there a theme?

I see lightbulbs go off over people’s heads: Oh, these are behaviors or characteristics.

I point out that we talk about “leadership skills” and the need to teach people leadership skills… but the lists almost never contain skills!

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Let’s look at the leadership “skill” of ethics.

We expect our leaders to behave ethically, don’t we? But when do we ever teach ethical behavior? It’s kind of a hard thing to teach, right? “Ethics” is more like an internal motivation or mindset. As a society, we are shocked when a “leader” behaves unethically, but we never teach ethics as a skill, do we? (Yes, some executive leadership programs include this topic, but rarely does typical schooling or training address it because it’s hard to teach a behavior!)

Another interesting wrinkle is this: the concept of ethics could be different for every company. If you run a manufacturing firm, ethical behavior can be very different from, say, a hospital and what ethics means in that setting. In a manufacturing firm, you don’t have to deal with the concept of ethics too often. But in a healthcare environment, ethical behavior can come down to every individual patient, every day.

When it comes to defining leadership, we can’t say “these are the behaviors we expect of our leaders,” without further defining what those behaviors actually look like in practice.

And every company needs to define that for themselves.

Why?

Because you can’t “raise up” leaders internally or hire them externally if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

So here is a starter list of leadership behaviors.

These have been collected from presentations that I’ve given in just the last year.

It’s amazing how long the list is! It confirms that “leadership” is wide-ranging.

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When I ask clients, Tell me what a leader in your organization looks like, tell me how they are defined, so that we can create more of them, or find more of them, they are generally dumbfounded. They just haven’t thought about it before. While the list I’ve offered is a good start, you have to be more definitive about what these words mean for your organization.

Generally, leadership teams are not united on the definitions of “leader” because no one has ever asked them to have this discussion.  Here’s a great analogy: Ask three people to describe the same color. One will say “teal,” another “aqua” and the third “blue-green.”  They all know what that term means in their own heads… but they aren’t in agreement, are they?

I’m prompting you to have this discussion with your senior leadership team.

Conduct a “brainstorm-like” meeting and ask: What does a leader look like in this organization? How do they behave? How do we know they are behaving in a leader-like manner? What do we see?

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Let’s circle back to how this relates to succession planning.

To conduct succession planning without this definition is futile. In order to develop employees into future leaders, you need to know what that means for your organization. In order to hire from outside your organization for a leadership role, you want to be confident they will be a fit with your culture and values.

To conduct succession planning without this definition is futile.

If that means leaders in this organization behave ethically, describe it:

·        Don’t lie

·        Don’t take bribes

·        Don’t operate behind other’s backs

·        Act without bias

·        Act without malice

·        Put the good of the company before one’s own needs or ambitions

So, start with the list I’ve supplied. Have your senior leaders work with it, discuss, and narrow it down to  5 - 6 leader behaviors from the list (or add your own), and then add 6 – 8 descriptions to define what each looks like in action. You don’t want more than 5 or 6 behaviors because it becomes too cumbersome; pick those that are most important for your organization to function repeatedly in the way that you want it to function.

Once you have these defined, you can start identifying and grooming future leaders who will continue to fit the culture of your organization.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn.

Three “Positioning Questions” to Answer BEFORE Starting Succession Planning

Succession planning is like running a marathon. It takes a long time to prepare, run, and eventually reach the end of the race. To do so successfully requires continuous focus and dedication.

When I work with clients, I want to know what their “position” is on three things before we get started on succession planning. If a company doesn’t have the stamina to make it to the end of the marathon, it’s better if we don’t start at all. So when I ask these three questions, it gives me an idea as to whether or not the company has the commitment and the stamina to go the distance. I need to suss out – does the C-suite, as an entity, recognize that succession planning is a critical initiative and will they commit the time, the resources, and the attention necessary to make sure it is successful?

Here are a few of the questions I ask to determine their commitment and focus.

Question 1

Question number one is “What if you don’t do anything?”

I usually ask this at the end of my vetting process, after we’ve talked through many concerns and people have realized what successful succession planning really entails. This question is their “out.” I ask, if we don’t do anything…

·        What would the future look like? What would be the strategy going forward?

·        If you don’t prepare and promote from within, are you okay with hiring senior executives from outside the organization?

·        Would you be okay with closing the doors and simply saying, “Hey, we had a good run, but the owner would like to retire now.”

Many, many companies end the way of the last bullet, above. There is certainly the option to not do succession planning – so “what if you don’t do anything?” determines if the company wants to control its destiny or address leadership changes as they come.

Question 2

The second position question is: Which departments are most important? This one generally gets people up in arms. The response is often, “What?! We don’t have a department that’s more important than any others… and that’s absolutely NOT true. If you’re in pharma, R+D is your most important department, followed closely by sales, right? You have to have something to sell, and you have to have people who sell it. In pharma, the most important departments are R+D and sales. Every company has a few departments that are critical to organizational survival. If they go down... the whole place goes down.

If a client doesn’t have the focus or the money to plan successors across the board, then I ask which departments are the most important and most crucial, and we concentrate on those. We’re still going to make a huge difference to the success and longevity of the organization because we’re giving our attention to the most critical parts of the organization. So if the C-suite is committed to succession planning and committed to increasing the life-span of the company, but has limited resources, we can choose where to apply our time and attention.

Question 3

The third question is, “What is your position on hi-po’s versus up-leveling the whole organization?” Hi-po stands for “high potential” employees. I’ve worked with many companies that will put all their eggs in a few baskets, as opposed to increasing the capabilities of the whole organization. Personally, I’m not a fan of hi-po’s I believe that you get much more bang for your buck by up-leveling the whole organization. So, rather than giving six or twelve people “leadership skills,” such as how to be a better communicator, better collaborator, or how to think more critically, etc. why not develop those skills in everybody? If a company is committed to succession planning, they are, by default, committed to leadership development; so why not include everyone in up-leveling their capabilities? At The Training Doctor, we have all sorts of ways of doing this efficiently and economically; drop me a line if you’d like to learn more. For now, let’s stay focused on succession planning and whether your company is “in” or “out.”

To reach the “finish line” of succession planning you must be prepared to “go the distance.” These three questions can help you to assess your company’s commitment to, and stamina for, the process.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn

Why Do Companies Lose Their Best Employees?

Refer to this “S” image. 🡆

If you think of the bottom curve of that S as when someone enters your company and then starts to move up to the center of that curve, that is someone new to the company who's developing skills and technical knowledge and institutional knowledge, making relationships with others and really immersing themselves in the organization.

The center part of the S is the employee who has hit their stride, they can do their work unconsciously: I'm good at what I do. I don't even think about it anymore. It's hard for me to even explain how I know how to do this. It's just part of who I am. Those people are a real asset to your organization because they hum along constantly being productive, while new people are coming in behind them, starting at the bottom of the S.

The middle of the curve is also the spot where you are most likely to lose your best employees.

The top of the curve is somewhere in the future - where they might become a manager, a director or vice president. The reason companies lose their best employees in the middle part of this curve is because the employee doesn't know there is a future. They don't know that you have plans for them three or five years down the road. And so when they've hit their stride and they're doing their work so unconsciously, they actually can get bored: I've learned it all. I've accomplished it all. I've seen it all before. And I don't see that I'm going anywhere else in this organization.

You, as an employer, are saying: “Hallelujah! This person is at peak productivity”, and the employee is saying, “I’m bored. What’s next?” This attitude is also what makes them the best employees. They're the people who want to keep learning and challenging themselves. They are fabulous employees and they are the ones you want to keep. And yet, too often organizations are unconsciously hurting themselves by not paying attention to the middle part of the S; they’re not giving those folks the stimulation and the engagement that they need.

Solution Time!
When employees have hit this middle part of their career and they're not learning anything new, it's time to move them around in the organization.

• Institute lateral moves where they can take their knowledge and skills to a different part of the organization and apply them in a different way that will challenge them.

• Give them special projects in their own area where they will utilize their advanced skills but in a very different way; such as running a project from start to finish.

• You can ask them What else would you like to learn? or What would you like to contribute to the organization? so that they are engaged and stimulated?

Here are some examples:

• Years ago, I worked with an engineer who spent one day a week working in the training department conducting new hire orientation. He absolutely loved meeting new, young employees and telling them about the work they were about to embark on. He didn’t necessarily want to do it full-time, but he also would not have stayed in his regular job if he didn't have this ancillary stimulus. One day a week was just the special sauce that he needed to keep him engaged.

• A small business owner with nine “consultants” on staff decided to ask them what special projects they were interested in, that would also benefit the company in some way. She did this in place of performance appraisals. Rather than telling them how they could improve their performance, she asked them how they could contribute to the organization. Seven projects were completed and two were adopted as standard operating procedures for all consultants.

So, before you lose your best employees, step back for a minute.

How many of your employees have been with the company for five years, eight years,or ten years? They're stellar. They're humming along. You would suffer a real setback if you were to lose them. What else can you do for them? How can you keep them engaged and stimulated and staying a strong contributor in your organization?

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn

How to Strategically Integrate Succession Planning into the SOP of Your Organization

Succession Planning can seem like a monumental task.

Most companies / owners don’t start because … where do you begin?

But, what if I told you that there are three easy ways to integrate Succession Planning into the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of your company so that it is accomplished organically?

Awesome, right?

Great! Let’s go!

[I will disclose one caveat: This approach does take a lot of forethought, but once you have the plan in place, it’s SOP!]

Here are the three ways to make Succession Planning Standard Operating Procedure:

1. Integrate into performance reviews

2. Marketing

3. Coaching and Mentoring

Let's start with SOP number one: integrate into performance reviews. I find that most managers do not actually know how to have the performance management conversation. More often than not, when managers are trained to conduct performance reviews, the focus is on the process.  They are taught to fill out forms, how to use the software, how to calculate raises, and we hammer them on getting things done on time, but we don't tell them how to actually conduct the conversation or how to make that conversation worthwhile. And we absolutely never instill in them the overarching belief that the purpose of performance reviews is for the long-term sustainability of the organization. People treat performance reviews like report cards: You got a B+ which earned you a 2% raise, and we'll see you next year!

Let’s fix that right now. Here are three questions that you can teach your managers to ask during performance reviews.

The first is, What do you love about your job? This question gets the employee to start thinking positively about the organization and their role. (I recently read something that said that most people do not understand how they contribute to their organization. Can you believe that? No wonder people leave their jobs. They feel no connection to the company.)

The second question would be, What would you like to learn to enhance your skills in your current job or to enhance your knowledge about the business in a broader sense?

And the third question is, What are your career goals for the next year? The next two years, five years from now? You're priming people to think, what do I contribute to this organization? And where could I go with that? What more would I like to learn? How can I expand my career right here where I already am?

This is step one in building your succession pipeline: Priming and enabling people to see a future with your company.

The second standard operating procedure is marketing.

Yes, you read that right. This marketing comes from senior leaders “down” to the rest of the organization.

The folks in your C-suite need to embrace that succession planning is a non-negotiable.  Even more important, they need to be champions of succession planning. They must evangelize to everybody, all of the time, that developing their leadership skills, their knowledge about the organization, and their knowledge about the industry and your business environment is standard operating procedure. Developing skilled, knowledgeable, capable future leaders is a long-term process. But, when you “bake it in” to work responsibilities, it’s not that hard.

The third SOP is to require your up-and-coming leaders to both coach and mentor younger leaders. One of the biggest barriers to succession planning is that people keep all their knowledge in their heads. We just do not have a culture of sharing knowledge and bringing others up within our organizations. But if you require it, if it is standard operating procedure, the process of succession planning is much easier because knowledge, best practices, and lessons learned are always being passed down to younger generations.

A design we frequently use is a three or four-year leadership skill development curriculum in which learners in years two, three, and four must coach peers one year “behind” them, and learners in years three and four must additionally mentor small cohorts of learners who are in years two and three.

So, by years three and four, you have up-and-coming leaders who can coach and give feedback to individuals and can also coach and mentor small groups. And that is 80% of leadership my friends!  Subtly and painlessly you have made knowledge sharing, learning, and coaching others standard operating procedure, which feeds into having capable and ready future leaders - and that's how to do succession planning effortlessly!

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This article was originally published on LinkedIn

Interleaving + Succession Planning

Interleaving is actually a term used in education: It is a process whereby students mix, or interleave, multiple subjects or topics while they study, in order to improve their learning. For example: when learning about Italy, the math segment might teach about how to calculate the angle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The history segment might teach about Italy’s alliance with Germany during WWII, and the health segment might teach about the people who live in “blues.”

The way that I like to think of interleaving is similar to this piece of fabric where you have multiple colors that are intertwined with one another, and it's hard to tell where one begins and one ends. They all work together simultaneously to make one pattern.

Similarly, succession planning isn't a standalone.

It includes career paths that you create for every role and every department in your organization so that people know where their careers can go and what they can achieve in your organization.

As well as learning paths that are cobbled on top of - or done in conjunction with - career paths. So not only do people know where their career will go, but they also know what learning or accomplishments they have to achieve in order to hit all of those career milestones.

And it includes performance appraisals. What are you rewarding people for?

And regular performance appraisal conversations tie all of these things together.

Do your managers know how to have worthwhile performance conversations? Are they asking, “Where do you see yourself in five years? What would you like to learn more about, in this organization? Is there a job you'd like to move to, laterally?” These are questions that generally aren't heard in performance appraisal conversations because most performance appraisal conversations look backward rather than looking forward.

And again, when it comes to succession planning, all of these things are done simultaneously. They aren’t done consecutively, they don’t build upon one another, they are interwoven.  You're doing all of these things simultaneously, which bolsters your pipeline of future employees.

I often say that succession planning isn't hard, but it is time-consuming and quite tedious. You have to maintain extraordinary attention to detail because there are so many moving parts that have to function on their own as well as intertwined with one another. And the organization has to support all of these things simultaneously.

The reason that I use the term interleaving when talking about succession planning (and I’m probably the only person who does!) is because it is a perfect descriptor of the intertwining of the different “threads” that organizations must define and then commit to support in the long term, in order to ensure they have capable and ready future leaders in their pipeline.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

The Importance of Clarifying Leadership Competencies and Skills

• Are you a great communicator? 

• Do your employees trust you? 

• Are you able to inspire people to do more than they themselves thought they could? 

These are all behaviors of a leader - yet most interviews for senior leaders never screen for these qualities. 

In this issue of Succession Planning Tips we are going to focus on the critical differences between behavioral competencies and skills - because without understanding the difference, you cannot hire leaders who gel with your organization.

Why is it important to define the competencies and skills of a leader? 
Differentiating between competencies and skills is important because a lot of organizations are finding themselves having to hire senior leaders from outside their organizations. The current senior leaders have been on the job for decades and companies have not had the foresight to prepare younger generations to step into senior roles. If you are looking to fill senior leadership (aka C-suite roles) roles you need to know what you're looking for in terms of cultural fit with the organization and its values - and 99% of that fit has nothing to do with what the potential new leader knows but rather with how they behave. 

What’s the difference between competency and skills? 
A competency encompasses various skills; skills that put a finer point on defining a leader. 

For instance, one of the competencies you might want your senior leaders to possess is “excellent communication skills.” Who among us has not seen that on a job posting, right? But what does that look like in terms of actual behavior? Is “excellent communicator” one thing or many things? It might mean:

• “In this organization, we speak respectfully to one another.” 

• “We welcome feedback and we act on it.” 

• “It's okay to speak truth to power in this organization.”

Here's a different way of looking at it: Say you have a child who needs a bit of behavior modification.  Saying, “You need to be a good boy,” isn't very specific is it? But breaking down what “good boy” means in terms of skills or behaviors is something you can identify, he or she can comprehend, and you can recognize and reward in practice.

Back to the world of work:
A good rule of thumb is to identify 6-8 competencies and beneath them, 5 to 6 skills/behaviors that further define what that competency looks like in practice. So you might have potential competencies such as:

• critical thinker

•  excellent communicator

•  thinks strategically

•  works collaboratively

•  team-first attitude

•  ethical

Then you’ll need to define the skills/behaviors that demonstrate those competencies - as the “excellent communicator” example does, above. 

When you are interviewing for senior leadership roles your questions should be more about how the person fits within your definition of your company’s critical competencies and not about what they’ve accomplished in their previous roles (we can presume that if they made it to a senior executive interview they have conquered the requisite performance). Rather, ask clarifying and probing questions to determine if someone will be a fit with your organization and continue to promote the values and goals your company and your people work toward. 

Get help crafting questions that get at behaviors and fit. 

Defining competencies and the skills that make up those competencies puts a finer point on what you expect of a senior leader in your organization - both those who are already with you and those you are inviting to join the organization. 

This article was originally published on LinkedIn

The Importance of Breadth and Depth in Your Succession Plan

Succession planning 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀; it's about creating leaders. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮l within your organization today, to ensure a strong leadership pipeline for tomorrow.

In all the years I helped companies with their leadership development there was always one burning question: Can you really teach leadership? 

The answer is yes – but it’s not easy and it’s not fast.

The same is true of succession planning. 

Although I would say it IS easy – if you have the right plan… but it’s still not a fast process.

Part of the reason it is not fast is the need for breadth and depth in succession planning.

Breadth of Organizational Knowledge/Experience

Breadth in a succession plan refers to the variety and diversity of experiences and expertise that individuals in the succession pipeline possess. It involves having a pool of potential successors who have gained a wide range of experiences across different areas within the organization. These individuals should understand the functioning of the organization as a whole rather than simply being experts in their specific roles or departments – which is what “leadership” looks like in most organizations today.

Having individuals with diverse experiences and backgrounds in the succession pipeline is crucial for several reasons:

1. Holistic Understanding of the Organization:

Employees with diverse experiences throughout the organization have a comprehensive understanding of how different departments and functions operate and intertwine. This knowledge is vital for effective decision-making at higher levels when organizational decisions must be made.

2. Adaptability and Flexibility:

Exposure to various roles and functions fosters adaptability and flexibility in future leaders. They are better equipped to respond to changes, challenges, and opportunities, which is especially important in today's dynamic business environment.

3. Cross-Functional Collaboration:

Individuals with experience in multiple areas can bridge invisible barriers and facilitate collaboration between different parts of the organization. Collaboration fosters teamwork and innovation which in turn enhances overall organizational performance. 

Depth of Generations

When you have depth in your succession plan, you have multiple layers and generations of potential successors. It is important to cultivate talent at different stages of their careers and identify individuals who can step into critical roles as they progress within the organization.

1. Long-Term Talent Development:

Identifying and nurturing talent early in employees’ careers allows for a long runway of development opportunities, which is crucial for learning behaviors. If you expect a future leader to be knowledgeable in the operations of the whole company – that will require many years of experiences to achieve.

2. Employee Engagement and Retention:

Employees are more likely to stay if they know that your company offers a future for them and a path for career growth.

Incorporating both breadth and depth into your succession plan ensures a comprehensive and robust approach. It's about not only having a diverse pool of potential successors but also nurturing them at different stages of their careers for a seamless leadership transition.

Remember, succession planning is about preparing for a sustainable and thriving future.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn

Three Stumbling Points (Almost) Every Organization Faces When It Comes to Succession Planning

I spent years helping companies develop their future leader until I realized that I had put the cart before the horse. Knowing how to develop your future leaders and having a purposeful reason for developing them are worlds apart.

The purposeful reason is that you are strategically developing a leadership pipeline that will help carry your organization decades into the future.

Unfortunately, most companies think about leadership development after they've already promoted someone to a leadership roll, which is too little, too late. Simply developing people’s leadership “skills” doesn’t overcome these three stumbling points I’ve witnessed over and over.

1.     Who to pick as future leaders.

Overall, nobody really knows who (or how) to pick as a future leader.

Some organizations like to pick high po’s - high-potential people. Sometimes they choose them right out of college and put all their time, effort, and money into developing those people to be future leaders of the organization. Some organizations wait until people have technically proven themselves and then think, “Since they’re so good at doing the work, they’ll be great as a leader of others as well.” At this point - “later” in someone’s career - the company starts to offer professional development opportunities and asks people to change their behavior to be more “leader-like.”  

My preference is that we develop everybody the minute they walk in the door. That is why our company tagline is Leadership from Day One. Let’s give everybody those skills that we label “leadership skills,” and in the future, if they aspire to leadership… if they like it… if they want to do it… fabulous. They have already got all those “leadership skills” down; and if they choose not to be a leader of others, you have at certainly raised the capabilities of your organization by offering skills development to all. It’s a win-win!

2.     Who’s in charge of succession planning?

The answer to that question is: it’s part the C-suite and part human resources/training/L+D.

The C-suite must be the champions of it, the supporters of it, the promoters of it. They must constantly keep it in front-of-mind for all individuals. This is why we are developing your skills. We see a career for you here over the next X number of years or decades.

But HR or the training department, if you have one, is the one who must execute it; they know what learning people already have, what development they still need, they have access to, and knowledge of professional development opportunities like college programs, LinkedIn learning, and professional association offerings. These departments have their finger on the pulse of where the professional development happens and how to acquire it.

If the idea of succession planning and preparing future leaders does not come down from on high, HR cannot make it happen on their own. So, it is a tandem effort. 

3.     What's the timeframe or the lead time needed for developing future leaders?

If you have not started developing your future leaders already, you are behind the eight ball. Leadership is a behavior and behaviors are hard to teach and change.

You cannot send somebody out to a two-hour mitigating conflict class or giving constructive feedback training program and expect that they are going to understand it, implement it, be good at it, and be able to put it into practice the next time the needs come up.  Behavior change and adoption requires a consistent, slow-drop approach. And, given the myriad of behaviors required (expected!) of a leader... 10 or 15 years of development is reasonable.

Stop the madness of promoting them first and then say, “Oh, hey, let's teach you all those things we didn't teach you before. Now we want you to be functionally good at what you do and manage yourself differently and interact with other people differently.” 

To build a pipeline of effective future leaders, organizations must strategically plan for leadership development much earlier in people’s careers and embrace a long-term horizon that prioritizes developing leadership behaviors, not just skills. Developing leadership capabilities in everyone means that the whole organization will perform better, while some will rise to leadership roles.

PS – In the long run, this is a much less arduous and expensive process that impacts recruitment and retention as well as developing a pipeline of capable future leaders.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn

Step One in Your Succession Plan

When I work with clients or even when I am speaking at an event, I always incorporate an activity where I ask people to name things that they think leaders need to possess or demonstrate and ask them, What does a leadership skill look like?

Typical responses are...

* They have emotional intelligence.
* They are open-minded and willing to change.
* They have a growth mindset.
* They are charismatic and have influence.
* They are people focused.
* They are selfless.

Then I ask the audience to take a mental step back and look at that list overall and see if they see a theme or a label that they can give it.

Inevitably, there is an a-ha light bulb that goes off and they say, “These are all characteristics or behaviors.” These are not skills. So why are we always hearing in the popular press, in advertisements, in marketing that you must teach your folks leadership skills when really the ‘skills’ are behaviors?

We know a ‘leader’ because of his or her behavior. One of my favorites to bring up for discussion is “A leader is ethical.” When do we ever teach somebody to be ethical? How do you teach someone to be ethical? Across the board we expect a leader to demonstrate that they have ethics, but we never really define it or teach it to them.

That is step one in your succession planning.

First and foremost, you must define what a leadership characteristic or behavior looks like in your organization. The last part -in your organization- is the important part because every organization has a different style and culture, not to mention different stakeholders with their expectations. Ethics in a healthcare organization is going to have a little different flavor than ethics in a manufacturing organization or in a broadcasting organization.

So step one is to be very purposeful about defining how leaders in your organization behave so that you A) can start teaching it or B) know what you are screening/interviewing for if you must hire people from outside to fill leadership roles. Having a defined set of leadership behaviors (think of it as a leadership avatar) gives you peace of mind in knowing that you are hiring people who will align with the values and the culture of your organization.

Having a defined set of leadership behaviors (think of it as a leadership avatar) gives you peace of mind in knowing that you are hiring people who will align with the values and the culture of your organization.

One last thing to consider: The thing about behaviors is that you really cannot teach them. We develop behaviors based on experiences or belief systems or reflecting on things that have happened to us, that shape us into who we are.

You can see -just looking around you in society- that not everybody demonstrates the same behaviors. So please begin your succession planning by defining what leadership behavior in your organization looks like, so that you can train to or hire it from the outside if you need to.

Does your organization have a clearly defined set of leadership behaviors (most don’t)?

This article was originally published on LinkedIn

Who Knows You?

𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂?
To all the CEO / Owners / Leaders out there...
If you are planning to step away as CEO of the company, you need to make introductions sooner rather than later because if clients see you as irreplaceable (as in, “I am loyal to Smith & Rogers because I’ve known John Smith for over 20 years”) they may view your successor as a “stranger” and at that point they are equal to 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 “𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳” in the client’s mind.

In other words, if you don’t 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘺, then they will feel free to shop around to find a new [insert your profession here] just like you felt free to look for a new dentist when yours announced their retirement.

𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘: This is especially important if you are not only the CEO but also the sole business development person.
👆〰️👆〰️👆

This missive came about from a conversation I was having with a client last week.

𝘔𝘠 client wants to wait until the last minute to tell 𝘏𝘐𝘚 clients that he is stepping down as CEO.

D A N G E R!!!

Think about it from the loyal client's perspective:

Why are you being sneaky about it?
You don't respect me enough to give me a heads-up?
What will this transition mean for me?!

YOU (Mr./Ms. CEO) have thought it through... but announcing it to your clients like it is no big deal will cause fear, anxiety, and even anger.

Trust me, there is an order and a process for transition, and part of that process is giving stakeholders an early heads-up.

I happen to be mentioning external clients here... but there are internal clients as well.

Don't undermine your well-intentioned transition by keeping it under wraps.

READ THIS ON MY LINKEDIN PAGE

Is There A Difference Between Leadership Training & Leadership Development?​

Recently I attended a webinar with a panel of training and development (T+D) experts discussing the topic of Leadership Training. One individual's statement stood out in particular. This person declared that it takes 32 hours of development (instructional design) to create one hour of Leadership Training.

I nearly spit out my tea!

I created customized training programs for companies for years. Granted, I do work faster than most, but there is NO WAY it takes nearly a week of effort (given a 40-hour work week) to create one hour of Leadership Training.

This person's declaration has been smoldering in my subconscious for a couple of weeks now, and today I think I hit upon the reason this outrageous number was put "out there."

I think it's the difference between Leadership Training and Leadership Development.

Even though I DO think 32 hours is exceptionally high for the creation of one hour of training, I will concede that it is harder to design training than it is to design a development process. (Stick with me to the end of the article when I discuss the effectiveness of each approach.)

I'll give you an example from back when I taught college:

I taught Management 101 and one of our chapters was on teaming and team formation. I could have spent my 90 minutes of class time lecturing on the concepts of forming, storming, norming, and performing. Making slides to support my points. Maybe designing a "contrived" in-class activity that helped them to approximate team formation (but would never have allowed for storming, performing, or norming given the time constraints of training classes)...and hoping that they remembered the concepts for longer than to simply pass the next test.

OR

I could, and did, design a learning process.

I spent 10 minutes making a list of 20 things that can be commonly found on a college campus (a straw, a paperclip, a bulletin board advertisement from someone selling a car).

I then divided the group into 4 or 5 teams (I forget) and sent them out of the room for 30 minutes to go collect all the articles. The first team back with ALL the items won full-size Hershey bars and bragging rights.

THEN we spent the next 45 minutes talking about how they formed, stormed, normed, and performed. Every team had a different experience, every team had a different success rate. Only one team was 100% successful and - it turns out - it was led by an active duty Marine (which I had not known prior to the discussion) who assessed the task, divided up retrievals, gave assignments, and gave a deadline for their return.

THAT is a lesson in leadership that they will remember for the rest of their lives. And it took me 10 minutes to develop.

THAT is the difference between training and development.

Development involves experiences, discussion, reflection, questioning, coaching, application on the job, and more. If you want your future leaders to internalize leadership behaviors they cannot learn them in a sterile training room or in a set time period. They have to experience them and process them.

That's why we are very specific in saying that we offer Leadership Development services. We want your employees to actually be able to perform as a leader performs at the end of their development time (and really, is there ever an "end" to it? We all just learned recently that Emotional Intelligence is a critical leadership skill - that's not something we've taught in the past 30+ years).

Let's get our next generation of leaders prepared by providing them with the developmental experiences they need.

Four Tips for Getting Knowledge Out of SME’s Heads

More often than not, instructional designers create learning on topics that they are not experts in. This means they must rely on subject matter experts (SMEs) to provide the content, while they design the learning process. Trouble is, SMEs are not that easy to work with. It’s likely they have never had to fill this role before and don’t know why you are asking so many questions. Some of them can feel threatened and be purposefully uncooperative.  Only twice in my career have I had SMEs say “Hallelujah! You’re here!” 

Over my 25-year career designing custom training curriculum for all sorts of industries and topics, I’ve developed a few techniques for getting information out of SME’s heads. See if these work for you. 

1 - Do Your Homework

I once had an SME at an aerospace company make me read an entire textbook on Material Requirements Planning (#MRP)– “then you can talk to me,” he said. Let me tell you, if you are not an engineer, that is not fun reading. This SME taught me a very valuable lesson: don’t walk into your meeting expecting them to take you from the ground up. Learn all you can about the topic (and in today’s day and age, that is not hard to do) so that you can at least follow acronyms and ask semi-intelligent questions. And speaking of questions… 

2 - Ask At Least Three Questions 

Lots of SME’s like to tell you “special case” scenarios to demonstrate their extreme knowledge, but that information doesn’t help someone learning a new skill. No matter what the SME tells you, ask at least three questions to pull out more information or have them explain it in a different way. 

Some suggestions are: Is that true in all cases? When would someone do this (what is the trigger)? Why? How did you get from A to B? Is that a typical cause (or outcome)? Can you explain that in a different way? So, is that similar to (relate to a “real world” scenario)?

Example: When working with a casual clothing retailer I was assigned a “shoe guru” who was helping me to design training for the salespeople on the floor (interesting factoid:  Nike will not let you sell their shoes of $100 or more if you do not have a full-service footwear sales staff). He was adamant that we had to include the history of each of the 8 manufacturers they represented. Why? Because he was a guru. He loved athletic footwear. But knowing the history of each company was not going to help the salespeople do their jobs better. It was quite a tussle between the two of us,

He: Must be included

Me: People can sell shoes without knowing this

Finally, we compromised and included the eight manufacturers’ histories in an appendix of the “selling shoes bible” we created. 

3 - Make Best Guesses For Them To Correct 

Most SMEs are so smart and skilled that they don’t know what they know. I remember when I was learning to ride a motorcycle I thought, “This training is terrible, I’d change this, this, and this.” I had every intention of writing to the state entity that ran the school and telling them what they were doing wrong. Now, 15 years in, I have no recollection of why it was so hard to learn. 

At times, when I’ve had trouble getting intel out of an SME’s head, I’ve simply gone ahead and made stuff up. Based on observation or best guesses, I’ll document what I think is happening. I have found it is easier for an SME to see what is wrong and correct it, than to tell me out of the gate what is the right way to do something. This is where being an uninformed neophyte is helpful. Sometimes we shouldn’t be getting our direction from the most skilled individual but rather from the newbie.

4 - Give Them Deadlines, Then Move On! 

As an instructional designer, you have deadlines to meet (usually impossibly short deadlines, but that’s a different blog post). When you are dependent on an SME for the content (not the learning process, but the content) it can be difficult to stay on track because your deadlines are not the SMEs deadlines. It may seem punitive, but you must give the SME deadlines for reviewing the learning and giving you feedback and if you don’t get it – move on. I generally allow 4 – 10 working days. I have also found it helpful to set a meeting and actually be there in the room (or the Zoom) during the review.
This is helpful in two ways: 

• If it is an appointment on their calendar, it (almost always) ensures they do the review

• It can save me time by doing the edits during the meeting

The longest meeting of my life was a 6-hour review and working session, via phone, but we got it done! 

Bonus Tip: Thank Them Profusely! 

You couldn’t have gotten your job done without the help of the SME, so be sure to thank them profusely. Put a recommendation on their LinkedIn profile. Drop an email to their boss thanking them for allowing the SME to take the time to work with you and praising how easy they were to work with. You may even go so far as sending a small gift – once, a colleague and I so enjoyed working with an SME for the better part of a year that we had our picture taken with him and framed it to leave behind as a memento.

Career Paths - Why Your Company Needs Them

Do you work for (or own) a company that has career paths? There are a myriad of reasons why you need/want them.

𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙪𝙞𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩.
When you can show a simple diagram to a prospective employee and say, this is the learning path/career path we have identified for the starting position of (whatever you are interviewing for) people think "Wow! a future! I can go places with this company."

𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣.
People really don't want to job hop, what they want is to GROW in their careers and in their skills. But if your organization doesn't have a plan for how people can move up AND within the organization (not every move is up) then they *believe* they have to go elsewhere to grow. That's on you.

𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙘𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜.
Let's say you have a person who enters your company in a customer service role. By the end of year two, how qualified are they to be a salesperson (rhetorical question. VERY qualified.)? AND you probably have some salespeople who would be great in marketing or business development.

Focus your career paths on adaptable 𝙨𝙠𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙨.

If Janet knows A, B, and C - isn't she pretty much qualified to do L, M, and N?

⭐BONUS ⭐ When you have people who have moved around the company and understand its various moving parts, you have well-trained future leaders who know how to run a 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴, not just do a 𝘫𝘰𝘣.

The biggest misconception we battle when helping companies to develop career paths is that they think linearly. e.g.
𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘫𝘰𝘣𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘰 "𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘳" 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 "𝘸𝘦" 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘫𝘰𝘣𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘰 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. WRONG.

For every starting point, there should be 3 - 5 possible career paths in your company depending on aptitude and interest.

⭐ Open the possibilities.
⭐ Develop career paths.
⭐ Conquer recruitment and retention issues.

If you'd like help developing career paths for your company - give us a call!

The first 3 conversations to have when you are promoted to management over your peers

When I was in my early twenties, I was promoted to be the manager of a department that was adjacent to the one I worked in. I knew all of the employees by name as there were only eight of them, and they knew me, but we had never directly worked together, and I didn’t know their personalities or their personal stories at all.

I felt the most important thing for me to do was to have a one-to-one conversation with each person to get to know them better and for them to know me – and my perspective on being a “boss” - better as well.

This was purely a “gut” instinct as I had no mentor to usher me in to my new role or to ask questions of (in fact, I’m not sure my promotion was based on merit as much as it was based on the fact that I was the assistant manager of the adjacent department, so I at least had some management experience and was a known entity to senior leadership).

To make things a little more difficult, in my “promotion conversation” with the general manager of the company I was told that my first order of business was to cut one full time worker because the company had hit a financial hiccup and needed to conserve money. Great.

Why am I sharing this?

Because a lot of young, inexperienced people are being promoted to management positions over their peers these days, thanks to the great resignation, and I want to help them make the transition as smooth as possible. I cannot help with functional responsibilities – like how to do payroll or order supplies - but I can help with the people-management side of things.

So, in my opinion, here are the first three conversations a newly appointment manager should have with their new team:

Conversation #1

Have a private, one-to-one meeting with each person. Ask them about their life (family, pets, free time preferences), what they like or dislike about the job (you might be able to fix that), and one thing they think should change about their role or the department in general (since the company I am referencing was a 16/7 business rolling start times was a common request from my new team).

This first conversation should be all about them. Help them to trust you by listening to their concerns, preferences, and expectations.

I feel strongly that at the end of this conversation you should emphasize that while they may see you as a peer (which you were, like, yesterday) you now have an allegiance to management and while you will take their concerns and preferences into consideration when possible, you also will be making decisions based on what is best for the organization as a whole.

Conversation #2

The second conversation should be done with the whole team. In this conversation you’ll express your work and communication preferences. You don’t want to have this conversation over and over during the 1:1 conversations and you want to ensure that everyone hears the same message and asks any clarifying questions in front of everyone else.

Work preferences

You might share your working hour preferences – such as, I won’t answer your emails or texts between 5p and 8:30p as that is my “family time.” (Or, don’t contact me after hours at all, because I won’t reply and I promise I will treat you with the same respect.) Or, I like to get caught up on Sundays so don’t panic when you see 3 or 4 emails in your inbox on Monday morning, it doesn’t indicate they are urgent, it just indicates I was working on Sunday, which is my preference because it’s quiet.

Communication preferences

Be sure to share how you do and don’t prefer to be communicated with, for instance, my preferences are:

• An email if not urgent

• “Ping” me (in Slack, Teams, etc.) if you want to see if I am free in the next few minutes to an hour (in other words: Is it OK to interrupt me?)

• A phone call if you need an answer now

Again, personally, I would share that texting is not something I respond to as I rarely have my cell phone with me at my desk and I’m pretty much always sitting at my desk – so you can easily “find me there.”

During this conversation leave plenty of time for them to ask questions OF you. They may want to know if they have to ask permission if they are going to come in late or leave early for a “personal reason,” or they may share that a certain number of customers ask for preferential treatment and the last manager didn’t expect to be apprised of that unless it went over a certain dollar amount… so what is  your “rule” on the subject?

Conversation #3

The final conversation can be done 1:1 or in the group forum, it really depends on the type of work that your employees do – if everyone does a different job, it’s more logical to have a 1:1 conversation. Since you are making a transition from peer/worker to management, your employees know that you know how to do the work, and therefore might have expectations regarding how much you will help them.

This is a tough “line of demarcation” for many new managers (heck! many experienced managers as well) because those who like to “do” often find themselves getting pulled in to “doing,” when they really should be overseeing and guiding. So in this conversation, you’ll want to be clear about what you are willing to assist with and what you will do.

For example, Jules spent many years as an integrator at a B2B financial services firm. Her job was to onboard new businesses and help them transfer their 401k management to her firm. When she took over the department there were times when one of her new employees/former peers would ask her with help when they ran into a snafu, and she would find herself sitting down in their chair and fixing the problem while the employee stood by and watched. After a few months she realized that she would end up being a manager and a troubleshooter if she didn’t change her ways and show her employees how to find their own solutions.

Before you have this conversation with your team, think clearly about what your new responsibilities are vs. what their responsibilities are and what level of “answer person” you are willing to be. Jules could have said to her team, “As an integrator myself, I am happy to help you troubleshoot BUT I also want you to be self-sufficient, so if you need my help, be aware that my involvement will be that of a coach or teacher. I’ll help you to figure it out, but I won’t solve the problem for you because I want you to be capable of fixing it again in the future.”

Transitioning from peer to manager is not easy because there are expectations on all fronts; but a lot of potential problems can be eliminated by taking the time to be open and upfront with your new employees regarding what your new role requires of you and how you will interact with them. Good luck!