SIGMA Success Profile™
Building a Strong Success Profile with the SIGMA Success Profile™ Template
If you ask a dozen people, “What is the key to success in a leadership role?”, you’ll receive a dozen different answers. Every leader has their own style, and every role comes with its own set of requirements. The unexpected loss of a leader, due to personnel changes or retirement, can create a gap that is hard to fill. This difficulty grows exponentially if an organization is unclear about the characteristics that made that leader so successful. Building a strong SIGMA Success Profile for each key role can help you bridge the gap.
What is a SIGMA Success Profile?
The SIGMA Success Profile template is an analytical worksheet designed to describe the talent needed for success in a critical role. The goal of the worksheet is to outline the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies needed for the role, both now and in the future. A SIGMA Success Profile provides leaders with a clear, comprehensive list of the requirements for a critical role. As a result, each SIGMA Success Profile sets the standard for training and development, while also acting as a benchmark against which to assess and evaluate succession candidates. In this way, a SIGMA Success Profile for all key roles can be used to create a more simplified and standardized process for talent assessment, development, and selection.
Note: The SIGMA Success Profile template is best used following the identification of high-impact roles within the organization. Use our Critical Role Identification Questionnaire to help with this process and select the roles that will most benefit from further assessment. Once you have identified the critical roles in your organization, the second step in the succession planning process is to create a SIGMA Success Profile for each critical role in order to evaluate which candidates are the best fit by analyzing and interpreting the results of various assessments, interviews, and examinations conducted along the way. Begin by downloading the SIGMA Success Profile template below.
Now that we’ve really narrowed down our needs into one specific role, the most important or the most critical role at this point, the one that makes most sense to succession plan for, now we can really drill down and understand what’s important for that specific role, and what we call that is our succession…or our success profile. And in building that success profile, it should capture requirements of the position both today and more importantly, the future.
Critical Pieces of Building Success Profiles
The critical pieces here are, imagine the individual in this role has probably been there 15, 20, 25 years. It’s very difficult to separate Joe Smith from CFO. But it’s really important when we’re building the success profile to think of the role, the position all by itself separate from Joe. And as you can imagine, if you think of an individual like this at your organization, when individuals have been in a role for a long time, a lot of times their role will bleed into other areas of the organization. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when we’re building requirements for the role, think of the role by itself.
Gather Input
In generating this information, we need to gather input from a variety of sources. Certainly, the current incumbent is a really great resource. They’ve been doing the role for a significant length of time. That can both be a positive and a negative. The positive part is obviously they know the role of the role better than anyone else. The negative is they base their knowledge of the role on what they’ve been doing for the last 20 to 25 years. What we want to do is we want to build the success profile for what’s needed in the future so you can see that the incumbent’s perspective can only be one perspective in this process. A really great resource that’s sometimes not used are that individual’s direct reports. A lot of times they certainly have a great perspective and knowledge about what that role does because they’ve been working for that individual for several years and they also have a little bit different perspective and an eye towards the future. So, I think collectively if we gather the information from our incumbent, their direct reports and essentially the executive management team would consolidate that data together and come up with really the best fit for what that success profile looks like.
Organization Strategy
And finally, the one really critical piece that weaves through this success profile is your organization strategy. If we’re building a success profile for the future, we need to know where the organization is going to go in the future. So for example, if your organization is planning for really aggressive growth over the next 3 to 5 years, you can imagine that what a chief marketing officer does today for a company of 50 employees is going to be very, very different if our company is going to be 500 employees 5 years from now. So, that strategy piece is a really critical piece as we’re building the success profile.
Building the Success Profile
Building the success profile itself, in terms of the steps, it’s a relatively simple process. What we want to do from a pure logistics standpoint is for each success profile we’d want the position, the individual in the position, their planned exit year if we know, and it’s actually a great excuse to have the conversation with the incumbent if you haven’t already, and the urgency of which is obviously closely…really closely related to that exit date. We want to list the position requirements, and from a position criteria standpoint, it’s best if we have a job description that we can at least use as a baseline. And, you know, certainly, that may or may not be outdated. It will act as a baseline. And then we would gather input on from both the incumbent and their direct reports in terms of what would be needed for the future. And finally, again, just as a reminder, and I probably sound like a little bit of a broken record, but it’s really critical to always remind yourself, are we thinking of the person? Are we thinking of the role? For example, your CFO obviously needs an accounting designation, maybe 15 plus years in finance, etc., that’s the relatively easy part. But we all know that leadership is clearly determined by a variety of factors, including things like competency, character and emotional intelligence that you’ve probably heard a lot more of within the last few years. Scientifically validated assessments, which is a core part of our business at SIGMA are an excellent way to measure current talent and actually inform discussions about what’s important for the future. We’ve talked about gathering information from the incumbent, from their direct reports, certainly from the senior management team, but assessments can really close that loop and really add a lot of objective data to the process.
And finally, the key piece here is we’ve developed our success profile. We have a lot of really great information and essentially this is the target. This is what we’re shooting for as we develop successors into this role. But remember, this is not a static document. This is going to change maybe even on a year to year basis. We recommend, once you develop the document, actually put in your calendar at least on an annual basis to review and challenge the assumptions in that document.
Benefits of Building a SIGMA Success Profile
A SIGMA Success Profile is an immensely valuable tool that offers a clear understanding of the specific responsibilities and requirements associated with a critical role and allows these requirements to be assessed against the traits and qualities of individual candidates. When used in conjunction with appropriate psychological assessment tools, a SIGMA Success Profile can be used to:
- Align job requirements with true indicators of success.
- Select and hire employees who are a good fit for the role.
- Establish role clarity.
- Create effective onboarding programs.
- Draft targeted employee development programs.
- Conduct objective, effective performance reviews.
- Troubleshoot areas where knowledge, skills, experiences, or competencies need development.
Why a SIGMA Success Profile Matters
Having a strong SIGMA Success Profile for each critical role in your organization is important because a SIGMA Success Profile allows leaders to:
- Nominate succession candidates who show potential for the role.
- Leverage a consistent benchmark for evaluating candidate assessment results.
- Identify gaps between candidates’ current competencies and what is required for success.
- Create targeted development plans that are tailored to the needs of each succession candidate.
- Measure progress in candidate development against a standardized benchmark for success.
- Select the best suited candidate for succession using objective criteria for success and relevant psychological assessments.
Applications: How to Use a SIGMA Success Profile
The purpose of a SIGMA Success Profile can extend beyond succession planning and can benefit many aspects of your organization. By developing a SIGMA Success Profile for each key position in your organization, you will improve HR, talent assessment and management, and business development ventures. Practices that can benefit from the comprehensive psychological assessment and examination facilitated by a SIGMA Success Profile are:
- Hiring and recruitment
- Onboarding and talent development
- Leadership development and promotion
What Information is Needed to Build a SIGMA Success Profile?
Before you begin building a SIGMA Success Profile, ensure that you have the necessary information — or a way to obtain it. Consider the requirements for success in each critical role, including:
- Educational experience
- Work experience
- Technical and professional knowledge
- Personality and behavioral traits
- Talents, aptitudes, and intellectual capacities
- Leadership skills
How to Build a SIGMA Success Profile
The SIGMA Success Profile template allows you to fully explore the knowledge, skills, experiences, and characteristics that are required for success in any given role and lays the groundwork for the objective assessment of desirable candidates for the role. This comprehensive template and the appropriate psychological assessments were designed to help you gather and document all of the important information about a critical role in one place, and to assist you in evaluating potential succession candidates for that position. Follow the step-by-step instructions below to build a strong SIGMA Success Profile for each of your organization’s critical roles.
1. Start with Demographics
Begin with basic demographic information. List the critical role and name of the current incumbent. Use the results from the Critical Role Identification Questionnaire to indicate the expected time of vacancy (Eligibility Year) and how urgently a succession plan is needed for that role (Urgency; more stars indicate higher urgency). Next, list important position demographic information, such as the location of the role, level of seniority, and business area.
2. List Position Criteria
Use the job description for the role to list the position criteria, including:
- Necessary education.
- Required experience.
- Valuable knowledge and skills.
- Role duties.
3. List Current Competencies Required for the Role
Using input from the Succession Advisory Team (SAT), incumbent, and those who are in contact with the critical role, list the current personal characteristics and competencies required for the job. This may include factors such as personality, ability, disposition, and skills.
Note: The SIGMA Success Profile template includes columns for both leadership competencies and role-specific competencies. In the “Leadership” competency column, list skills and abilities that are required for all leaders in your organization. Think of common characteristics you would look for when hiring senior management positions. In the “Core Role” competency column, list those skills and abilities that are unique to the critical role. These leadership and core role competencies will then be evaluated against various psychological assessment results for the selected candidates for succession.
A Note on Incorporating Talent Assessments
When creating a SIGMA Success Profile and using it to help assess succession candidates, it is important that individuals are drawing from a standardized list of skills and abilities. This standardized list is called a competency framework. Using a competency framework will ensure that everyone in your organization is using the same terms to describe skills and abilities and encourage consistent assessment of viable candidates. Using a competency framework also allows organizations to leverage talent assessments in conjunction with the SIGMA Success Profile, in later stages of the succession planning process. The benefits of using other psychological assessments in conjunction with the SIGMA Success Profile template are significant. A valid and reliable talent assessment enables leaders and SIGMA experts to:
- Objectively assess candidates’ skills and abilities
- Remove biases from the decision-making process
- Standardize measurements across candidates
- Reliably assess changes over time
- Save time and money on developing an internal assessment strategy
- Make consistent and reliable decisions about succession candidates.
Using various talent assessments can increase both the efficacy and efficiency of the succession planning process. We strongly recommend leaders consider incorporating talent assessments at this stage in the succession planning process, so that the competency framework can be used to create a robust SIGMA Success Profile for the role and, ultimately, select the best candidate. This will allow for easier comparison between candidates’ results and requirements for success later on. If you are interested in using a proven and scientifically validated psychological assessment in your succession planning process, take a look at SIGMA’s flagship leadership assessment, the Leadership Skills Profile – Revised™ (LSP-R).
4. Consider Future Competencies
In addition to current competencies, consider future requirements for leaders in your organization, and for individuals looking to step into the critical role. Think about characteristics needed to stay current with industry trends, or any traits best suited for the future of the organization. Align these competencies with strategic planning where possible and record them at the bottom of the SIGMA Success Profile template.
5. Review each SIGMA Success Profile
Once you have completed the SIGMA Success Profile template, your organization should have a clearer understanding of the requirements for success in each critical role. Before moving on in the succession planning process, review each SIGMA Success Profile to ensure it meets this objective. Once you are ready to move on, the next step in the succession process is to nominate successors for each critical role.
Tips for Building a Strong SIGMA Success Profile
TIP #1. The SIGMA Success Profile should be developed for a position, not a specific person.
It can be easy to confound a role with the person currently occupying it. When building a SIGMA Success Profile, be sure to focus on the position rather than the person. Consider what skills and abilities are required for success in that role, rather than what skills and abilities the incumbent currently has. This is your chance for a fresh look at the position. Reflect on the job requirements, tasks, and expectations for the role. What skills or experiences are needed in order to satisfy those requirements? What traits or characteristics would help a person excel at those tasks? Some of these characteristics will overlap with the characteristics of the current incumbent, but new ideas may emerge from the process. Combining the SIGMA Success Profile with proven psychological assessments helps objectively match identified position requirements with individual characteristics. Approaching each critical role with openness and objectivity is important for ensuring an inclusive and equitable succession planning process. Rather than selecting the candidate who most closely resembles the current incumbent, a position-based SIGMA Success Profile allows your organization to identify who would truly be the best fit for the role.
TIP #2. Preparing for the future begins with a strong SIGMA Success Profile for each role today.
No one stays in the same role forever — especially top talent. The reality is that between retirement, promotion, personal circumstances, and competing employers, every position will need a succession plan at some point, and if it is not prepared ahead of time, it will need to be made along the way. Unfortunately, last minute succession plans usually end up looking more like replacement hiring. A proper succession plan is proactive by nature; it entails an ongoing talent development process rather than a reactive talent replacement scramble. To prepare for the future and establish a strong succession planning process in advance, critical roles should be identified and a SIGMA Success Profile built for each role today.
TIP #3. Gathering more information will improve your SIGMA Success Profile.
A strong SIGMA Success Profile takes multiple perspectives and assessments into account. Look beyond the SAT and try to get a holistic view of what is required for success in each critical role by gathering information from multiple sources. The incumbent is a great first point of contact. In addition to the incumbent, ask direct reports, supervisors, and peers for their perspective on the skills and abilities necessary for an individual to thrive in that role. Review the results with the SAT and work together to combine the information and create a well-rounded, accurate SIGMA Success Profile for each critical role.
Managing the SIGMA Success Profile
Managing your SIGMA Success Profile for comprehensive succession planning in various roles is a continuous process that involves:
- Understanding the need for succession planning in your organization.
- Identifying the knowledge, skills, and abilities of potential succession candidates through the use of proven psychological assessment tools.
- Implementing each SIGMA Success Profile consistently throughout succession planning.
- Updating each SIGMA Success Profile as roles change within your organization.
Remember, a SIGMA Success Profile is a living document that can and should be updated regularly. It is your tool for understanding one of your organization’s critically important roles and it builds a foundation and reference point for all subsequent steps of the succession planning process.
Need Help Getting Started?
If your organization needs an effective succession plan fast, SIGMA’s Succession Planning Sprint offers a simple and cost-effective way to build a robust succession planning process and ensure your organization’s leadership is positioned for success and prepared for the unknown. SIGMA’s consultants can provide you with the support you need to get succession planning done. We offer customized consulting services that can be tailored to meet the unique needs of your team. Our experts can help you identify critical roles, build a SIGMA Success Profile for each, and help you analyze the results of various psychological assessments and examinations to select the best candidates, giving you back time to focus on day-to-day tasks and other strategic priorities.