Kathryne A. Newton, MBA, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Graduate Programs

Program Head, Supply Chain Engineering Technology

School of Engineering Technology

Purdue Polytechnic Institute

Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN

kanewton@purdue.edu

Succession Strategies:

Grooming Future Leaders

Good Afternoon!

Topics for Today

- Using strategy to guide succession planning- Identifying leadership potential- Developing skills through experiences- How to be a “Coach” and a “Mentor”- Don’t forget business acumen and soft skills

Top Priority

Must Plan Strategically for the Future

You Know You are Managing Strategically When…

� You have a strategic plan for the future of your

company….written down.

� Your company’s priorities/actions reflect it.

� Your employees know the plan and have the

training, resources and incentives to achieve it.

� You are setting benchmarks and measuring

outcomes in terms of “Key Results” on a

timetable

� You are communicating those outcomes and

making adjustments to the plan as needed

So… What is Succession Planning?

Succession planning is a focused process

to ensure leadership continuity;

developing intellectual capital for the

future, encouraging individual employee

growth and development, and retaining

talent in the pipeline.

Why Bother with Succession Planning?• Company leadership is key to employee job satisfaction,

commitment and retention; particularly true for top talent

• Employees value most the leadership qualities of: • the ability to listen… genuinely

• the willingness to give credit where credit is due

• the ability to adapt to their team

• infectious passion

• unimpeachable integrity (Forbes, 2018)

• CEOs’ tenures average a little over 6 years

• Only 1% of companies rate their succession management plans as excellent; 66% rate them as fair or worse

Succession planning and leadership development are critical NOW because:

• Unemployment is LOW… easy to lose people

• Speed of and Type of Change is now hard to predict

• Aging workforce – need to retain institutional memory

• Increasingly Complex Challenges

• Greater Leadership Responsibility at Lower Levels (Task Migration)

• Important for Recruiting and Retaining the Best Employees – boosts morale

Don’t Believe Me??

What are the Top Three Changes You are Experiencing in the Workplace? PEARL 2018

Be Strategic in Your Choices:What Kind of Leaders Will you Need?

What Kind of Leaders Will you Need?

• Start with a Workforce Risk Assessment, considering such issues as…

• Turnover of staff

• Anticipated loss of corporate knowledge

• Challenges in attracting and retaining staff

• Current and anticipated knowledge and skills gaps

• Investment in staff development…build vs. buy

• Issues of performance and cost related to work preference for older, younger and diverse workforces.

What Kind of LeadersWill you Need?

• Collaborative?

• Inclusive in decision-making,

seekers and users of feedback

• People Developers?

• Mentors and coaches (team-

orientation); straight talk

• Digitally-minded

• Uses technology to connect

to customers and employees

What Kind of LeadersWill you Need?

• Global Citizens?

• Diverse mind-set

• High priority on social responsibilities

• Focused on the Future?

• Builds accountability across levels

• Great at sensing and adapting

• Champions of innovation

Leadership Talent is often Easy to Spot

Identifying Employees with Leadership Potential

• Picking future leaders is not as simple as identifying your top performers…. They are NOT necessarily the same people.

• Look for key traits that indicate potential of future success as a leader:

• Empathy

• Poise

• Outgoing nature

• Attention to detail

• Ambition

• Optimism

• But…these are foundational. Training and development is essential

From Raw Talent to Leadership Skills

• From empathy to emotional intelligence – “skill in perceiving, understanding, and managing emotions and feelings.”

• From poise to confidence – leaders must have confidence in themselves and their ideals

• From outgoing nature to courage – can’t follow the masses, true leaders take risks.

• From attention to detail to focus – how do they approach new assignments?

• From ambition to vision – Planning for the future

• From optimism to voice – Align voices appropriately to key messages

Know Company:Align your Succession Strategy With your Corporate Culture

Continuum of Managerial Succession Plans

Replacement Planning

• Identify Successors

Succession Planning

• Identify Successors

• Develop Successors

Succession Management

• Identify Successors

• Develop Successors

• Include all

Organizational Levels

BASIC COMPREHENSIVE

Key Elements of a Management Succession System• Formal or Not-so-Formal – key pieces standardized

• Systemic – overall system-wide perspective to build breadth in leadership capacity

• Systematic – Should be connected across levels complete with a roadmap for developing: Skills, Competencies, Attitudes and Perspectives built upon each other

• Built in diagnostic and assessment mechanisms to identify developmental readiness in employees

• Experientially based (special assignments) – Built-in learning based on work-related experiences

Last and Most Important Key: Must Be Tailored

Every Managerial/Supervisory Employee Should have an Individual Development

Plan that they are Accountable for Making Progress on Each Year

Training vs. Development

• Decide what’s needed – check your company’s short-term and long-term goals. Do a Gap Analysis

• Yes, some technical skills

• Beyond that… Organizational Leadership Skills• Teambuilding• Coaching and Visioning• Negotiating• Conflict Resolution• Communication

Delivering “Training”

• Have some conversations to set direction and goals

• View training as a process rather than a one-time event

• Remember, people learn better with more frequent, shorter “chunks” of classroom training

• Don't forget … more real-world is better

• Create a “learning culture”

Develop Over Time

•Develop over time with practice:•Reading

•Mentorship

•Role-play

•Lots of hands-on experiences

Emerging Best Practices

1. Top management involvement

2. Targeted processes to focus on clearly defined, specific goals

3. Comprehensive assessment programs based upon competencies

4. Creation of talent databases incorporating performance, assessment, demographic, education, experience, and career interests

5. Identification of future talent requirements

6. Structured and individualized development programs

Best Practice 1: Top Management Involvement

•Communicates importance of planning for the future

•Allocation of adequate resources

•Modeling of effective coaching and development

•Key development resource to high potentials

Best Practice 2: Targeted Processes

•Evolutionary versus revolutionary

•Clearly defined set of goals

•Meaningful executive reviews

•Eliminate administrative burdens

•Using technology to facilitate data gathering, tracking and decision making

Best Practice 3: Comprehensive Assessment of Talent

• Behaviorally defined competencies

• Learning agility and derailment factors

• Defining performance and potential

• Early identification of talent

• Multi-source methods

• On-going feedback processes

• Continuous re-assessment

• Test learning agility, development of competence and performance

Best Practice 4: Creation of Talent Databases

• Integration of data from multiple systems, including HRIS (HR Information System), Recruitment, Learning, Etc.

• Definition of missing talent data elements

• Collection of missing talent data• Education, competencies, experiences, career interests,

mobility

• Reporting to facilitate decision making

Best Practice 5: Identification of Future Talent Requirements

• Competency, skill and experience requirements for critical positions

• Profiling the development content of key jobs• P & L accountability

• Forming/managing external alliances

• Detection of current and future talent gaps

• Targeted career pathing and development

• Sourcing and recruitment plans to secure new external talent

Best Practice 6: Structured and Individualized Development Planning

•Formal, structured development plans

•Targeted, individual activities with emphasis on experience-based learning

•Transitional coaching during stretch assignments

•Reporting and tracking of progress and outcomes

•Accountability for performance

Continuing Challenges

• Ineffective balance between identification and development

• Identifying successors/hi-po’s not in line with most organizational cultures

• “Executive cloning”

• Poor linkage to business strategy

• Overemphasis on replacement planning

• Lack of top management support

• Poor business unit buy in

• Lack of organization-wide talent database

What about Generational Differences?

Generations At A Glance

Generations Veterans/

Traditionalists

Boomers Gen X Millennials Gen Z

Birth Years 1922-1945 1946-1964 1965-1976 1977-1997 Since 1997

Current Age 70- 93 51 - 69 39 - 50 18 - 38 18 -

Also Known As…

•Veterans

•WWII Generation

•Depression Babies

• Baby Boomers

• Woodstock

Generation

• Xers

• Baby Busters

• Post-Boomers

• Latchkey Kids

• Nexters

• Gen Y

• Nintendo

Generation

• “Entitled

Generation”

•Gen 2020

•“Trust-fund”

generation

Key Traits •Excellent Work Ethic

•Formal, Detailed

•Trust Authority

• Optimistic

• Dissolving Families

• Semi-formal

• Bottom-line

• Accept Rules

• Fun

• Self-Reliant/

“Selfish”

• W/L Balance

• Irreverent

• Skeptical

• Immediacy

• Multi-taskers

• Tech Savvy

• Accepting

• W/L Balance

• Socially

Responsible

• Driven to Innovate

•Hyper-Connected

•Multi-taskers

•Media Savvy

•Socially Responsible

•Tolerant of

Alternative

Lifestyles

•“Nice”

The Generations at WorkWork Ethic and

Values

Veterans/

Traditionalists

Baby Boomers Generation X Generation Y

“Millennials”

Generation Z

Work is… An obligation…

for life

An exciting

adventure

A difficult

challenge

A contract

A means to an

end

Fulfillment

Career

Multitaskers,

Readily move

Leadership Style Directive

Command-and-

control

Consensual Collegial

Collective Minded

Everyone is the

same

Challenge others

Ask why

Challenge

authority

Respect “earned”

authority

Change Self

Align Actions with

Values

Dialogue

Interactive Style Face-to-face

Formal letters

Team oriented,

Love to have

meetings

Entrepreneurial, Loyal

to Profession

Participative, Work

“with,” not

“for”

Technology

dependent,

Integrated

Feedback and

Rewards

No news is good

news

Satisfaction in a

job well done

Home ownership

Unappreciative

Use Money

Title/recognition

Job Security

Sorry to interrupt,

but how am I

doing?

Freedom is the

best reward

Whenever I want

it, at the push

of a button

Meaningful work

Social rewards

Recognition

Public Praise

Messages that

Motivate

Your experience is

respected

You are valued

You are needed

Do it your way

Forget the rules

You will be with

other bright,

creative people

Online training

Work and Family

Life

Ne’er the twain

shall meet

No balance

Work to live

Work-Life Balance Balance – Freedom

and Flexibility

Structure Stability

Preparing Your Business for an Aging Workforce

• Create an exit strategy for older employees• Phase retirement?

• Mentoring/training assignments?

• Flextime scheduling• Helps with absenteeism, retention and job satisfaction

• Treat everyone equally – be careful in your decision-making

• Younger doesn’t mean more productive: focus on competency and talent. Older generations may be more productive and wise.

• Develop your workforce – use two-way mentoring programs

How to Groom a Team Member for Promotion

• Stop solving problems for the staff member – actively coach to solve their own problems.

• Invite the staff member to shadow you – especially high-level conversations

• Delegate more to the person – encourage them to stretch

• Give lots of feedback

• Work on management skills in particular

To Coach or to Mentor? What’s the Difference??

How to be a Coach and a Mentor

• While they are clearly different, they are complementary tools for developing future leaders

• Both are valuable and necessary, both inside and outside of the workplace.

Thank You!