How to Communicate Your Succession Plan

Helen Schroeder: All right, we are going to get started. Hello and welcome everyone. Thank you for being with us this morning. We’re excited to bring a new webinar to you on how to communicate succession plans.

My name is Helen Schroeder. I will be your co-host for today, so if you have any questions or tech difficulties, feel free to drop a question in the Q&A box, and I’ll do my best to help you. We will be recording this session, and we’ll send a copy of the recording, as well as of the slide deck to you following the webinar, so no need to take notes.

And for those of you who are new to SIGMA, we’d like to take a moment just to introduce you to our organization. We are a professional services firm that offers talent development, succession planning, and psychological assessments for organizations that are looking to build their internal talent pools, like you today. SIGMA has been in business for over 50 years, so as a company, we have a lot of experience, and we’re happy to be here and share some of that with you.

We’ve got about 60 minutes together, so for the first 45 minutes or so, we will walk through the webinar content. And then we’ll save 10, 15 minutes at the end of the session to go through any Q&A questions that you’d like to discuss. Feel free to also keep posting Q&A questions as we go through that discussion. I know sometimes hearing others’ questions will prompt your own. And for anything that we don’t get time to discuss today, we can follow up via email. But for now, please do use the Q&A. That’s what it’s there for. And let me know if you need anything along the way.

Today presenting with us, we have my colleague Leonid Beletski. And before I hand things off to him, I will introduce you, so that you know that you are in excellent hands.

So, Leonid is a junior consultant at SIGMA, and he’s pursuing his PhD in industrial and organizational psychology at Western University. His research is primarily focused on investigating factors that contribute to optimal work motivation, wellbeing, and performance. He also maintains interests in psychometric assessment and personality, and at SIGMA, Leonid applies his expertise to supporting the consulting team with succession planning, as well as talent and leadership development. So, we’ve got some great experience to be drawing from here. And Leonid, thank you for being with us today. I’ll pass it over to you to get started now.

Leonid Beletski: All right. Sounds good. Thank you, Helen, for the lovely introduction. Hi, everybody. I hope you’re all doing exceptionally well. So, let’s get started with our content today.

Webinar Agenda

So today, we’re going to be talking about the best practices associated with communicating succession planning within your organization. So, let’s go through a bit of an agenda, in broad strokes. So, we’ll start with the basics. We’ll go over kind of what succession planning is, and we’ll also talk a bit about how succession plays out at SIGMA in terms of our process, and then we will also get into why communication matters, and why we’re spending so much time on it. Next, we’ll get into the communication process itself, talking about topics like who is involved, what to communicate, and when. And then also along the way, and closer to the end, we’ll be talking about some considerations for you, some best practices, and also benefits of working with a consultant.

What is Succession Planning?

All right. So, first of all, what is succession planning, and what actually makes a good succession plan? So as many of you might be aware, succession planning is a strategic process generally implemented by organizations to identify, develop, and nurture individuals within the company who have potential to fill key leadership positions in the future. And so, it’s a proactive approach. It ensures continuity of leadership and management by preparing employees to take on higher roles when the current incumbents retire, resign, or otherwise leave their positions. So, a lot of people are aware of succession planning in one way or another, but it’s a good idea to go over some core features so that we’re all on the same page.

Features of Good Succession Plans

So, the critical purpose to keep in mind is building up internal talent before it is needed, right?

Clear Objectives

Some defining features that we notice in good succession plans are that they have very clear objectives, right, what you actually want to achieve through your succession planning efforts. They have clear alignment with organizational goals, so your overall plan should be in sync with the strategic objectives of the organization, right? And then typically they also have measurable outcomes. So, goals should be quantifiable, measurable, right, allowing any organization to actually track progress and see, okay, what are we doing right? What should we maybe change and adapt over time?

Continuous Evaluation

So, on a similar note, good succession plans typically have continuous evaluation. So, succession is not a one-time event. It is a continuous process, that involves regular assessments of potential candidates, needs, and other topic areas. They also have regular reviews and updates to make sure that the plan is still relevant, and still adaptable to changing circumstances. And also make adjustments as needed, based on business requirements.

Long-Term Approach

And then also, succession planning by definition should take a long-term approach, a long-term view. So, you know, identifying and developing the talent well before it is needed so that they can fill roles, you know, potentially in the present, but also in the future.

Adaptability

And I’ve touched on this, but adaptability is a key feature of high-quality succession plans. So being adaptable to things like unexpected vacancies, changes in market conditions, shifts in organizational priorities, and I’m sure many of you have gone through lots of these things over the past few years. Also, kind of anticipating different scenarios in advance, and having that contingency plan in place allows you to respond much more effectively and quickly to any of these unforeseen challenges. So those are a few kinds of core features shared by good succession plans.

What Does a Succession Plan Do?

So, what will the succession plan actually do? And a good question to keep in mind and in the background, kind of, as we’re going through this, is if a vacancy were to arise, could you do something about it? So, a good succession plan ensures a smooth transition, right, the seamless transition of leadership, minimizing disruptions to operations and the general productivity. A succession plan can boost engagement and motivation by offering clear career paths and demonstrating that the organization is committed to employee development. And we’ll get into that a little bit later when we talk about how that applies to communication, specifically. And then also it provides stability, and instills confidence among employees, all sorts of stakeholders, even investors, by demonstrating that the organization is prepared for leadership, or other sorts of changes. So ultimately, a high-quality succession plan should give you confidence that your company can effectively fill vacant roles.

Replacement Hiring

So sometimes when we ask people if they are engaging in succession planning, it actually turns out that they’re doing more of what is called replacement hiring. So, I think it’s important for us to compare these related but very different processes. So, they might look similar, but there are very important differences. So, for example, if Helen were to leave today, the situation would look very different depending on whether we have a succession plan in place, or if we had to rely on replacement hiring. So, replacement hiring would mean scrambling to find the best available external candidate as soon as possible, right? Whereas succession planning might involve promoting a previously identified successor into Helen’s role, someone who has already been engaged in the necessary development to kind of take on the role.

Succession Planning vs. Replacement Hiring

So, let’s compare some features of succession planning and replacement hiring, specifically as it relates to communication. And then on the slide, you can see the kind of more general comparison between the two.

So first, succession planning, by definition being a proactive process, involves proactive communication. So, it’s a forward-thinking process, communication, strategic, ongoing, and transparent. Leaders discuss potential future roles with employees. They emphasize career development, leadership readiness, and skill building. In succession planning, the goal is to engage employees by showing them various growth opportunities, aligning the personal goals of the employee with organizational needs. And so, this helps build trust and prepares the organization for smoother transition. And then, succession planning has a very clear message. It creates a sense of leadership continuity and readiness.

Now with replacement hiring, communication is quite a bit more challenging, and often rushed. So, replacement hiring occurs when a position becomes unexpectedly vacant, right? The communication is often, instead of being proactive, it becomes this reactive and urgent thing. So, focusing on we need to fill the role quickly, as soon as possible find the best person that we can, right, and it’s not really focused on long-term development. There’s also limited engagement. So, employees might not really be, or maybe even not at all involved in discussions about future opportunities, and that can lead to uncertainty, and things like disengagement. And you know, sometimes when it comes to replacement hiring, it almost sounds, the communication sounds like crisis management, right? Again, because it’s focused on addressing that immediate need, so you can’t really spend the time to focus on transparency, and development, and all the other features found within succession planning.

So, kind of as a summary, succession planning emphasizes proactive developmental communication, and then replacement hiring is often reactive, and very task-oriented in its communication approach overall. So, succession planning is not about the best person we can get right now, but it’s about identifying and getting the absolute best person for down the road. And so, it sounds like more work off…you know, immediately, but when a role does open up, the process of filling it is very natural, and saves a lot of time and administrative costs.

Why Succession Planning Matters

So, even if kind of at this point, we might agree that succession planning is important, others might not be convinced. So here is kind of a brief summary on this slide of some points that you might use to kind of communicate the value of succession planning to various stakeholders, and then kind of generating that buy-in. So, the key message here is that people are going to leave, right, and it is going to happen whether or not you like it, and so you might as well be prepared for it.

So, the key points here that we’ve already touched on, kind of ensuring that leadership continuity, promoting that employee development, and encouraging the culture of continuous learning, reduction of recruitment costs, right, because hiring people is very expensive, so it reduces the need for extensive external recruitment processes. Yeah, and then internal candidates are often much more cost effective to train and then integrate into higher roles. You might also talk about things like organizational knowledge transfer, right? We already talked about the various employee morale improvements that might come about. And then generally, driving home the alignment with long-term goals, enhancement of stakeholder confidence, and the ability to adapt to change, and various challenges.

So, the bottom line here, the takeaway message here is, unforeseen circumstances do happen, they will happen, and it is important to be prepared. And like I said, it isn’t a matter of if people are going to leave, it is when they’re going to leave, in one way or another. And so, it’s best to deal with it now, then to kind of kick that proverbial can down the road.

SIGMA’s Succession Planning Process

So, what does SIGMA’s specific succession planning process actually look like? So, Helen might drop a link to some resources in the chat. But generally speaking, on the left side here, you’ll see the core components of each of our steps. And then on the right side, you’ll see the SIGMA tool or template that is relevant to each of these steps. So, while the process, you know, we kind of laid it out in a pretty straightforward fashion here, the ways to implement might change from an organization to an organization, but the process, generally speaking, remains the same, with some room for customizing. So, by now, you kind of might be asking, okay, where does communication fit in this whole process? So technically speaking, it’s part of the entire process, all the time. But in our experience, it becomes most critical between the nominate and assess stages that you’ll see on your screen, kind of in the middle there. However, overall, I do want to encourage you to think of communication as interwoven throughout the entire process, pretty much all the time, in one way or another.

Why is Communication Important?

So now, why is communication important? So, let’s talk about why this warrants its own separate discussion, and why we’re spending most of our time, actually, today on it. So, first and foremost, reduction of uncertainty and general kind of anxiety around the succession process. Because a lack of communication can create fear and security and rumors, and clear communication helps employees understand that there’s a plan in place, kind of what the purpose of the plan is, and it helps provide that stability, and reduction in uncertainty. And then, open and honest communication fosters trust between leadership and employees, right? And transparency and succession planning ultimately shows fairness in decision-making and can demonstrate that commitment to meritocracy in all of these decisions that are going to be made.

Communication also sets very clear expectations for employees about future opportunities, or lack thereof, and the development paths that are required for any leadership roles that people might be considering. So, employees know what skills or experience they need in order to grow within the organization. Next, kind of communicating the entire development and advancement opportunities can motivate high-potential employees to actually stay within the organization, right? They see that potential progression for themselves. And so, employees feel valued when they understand they’re part of not just the company’s present, but also the future vision of the organization.

Next, involving people early, and sharing the rationale behind all of these kinds of decisions can reduce that resistance to change, and we’re going to talk about that a little bit more later. But generally, employees are more likely to accept and support changes when they feel both informed, and when they’re also consulted. Next, the effective communication ensures that employees are aware of the company’s long-term strategy. And it encourages leaders to develop successors early, openly, and with very clear guidance. And then finally, a very clear communication process, clear and effective, helps secure buy-in from senior leadership, which is absolutely essential. So, when leadership is fully informed, and kind of aligned, and understands what’s going on, they’re more likely to champion that process, the plan, support development initiatives, and actually engage in mentoring potential successors. So that last piece of leadership buy-in, it ensures that the plan is not just some formality, but an actual strategic priority for the organization’s future.

All right. So those are some points that you might think about kind of how communication fits in this process, and why it is important.

SIGMA’s 3-Step Communication Process

So, at SIGMA, we generally encourage a three-step approach to succession communication, and you will see kind of a little bit of an outline of that here. And the rest of the content today is approximately, and even stuff we’ve already talked about, is approximately organized around these three topic areas.

Step 1: Engage the Succession Advisory Team (SAT)

So, step one being engaging the succession advisory team. Succession planning requires time, effort from many stakeholders. And so, to support the long-term implementation, and communication, and maintenance of a succession plan, we recommend forming a succession advisory team, hereon out probably abbreviated as SAT. And this team, we will be talking about the succession advisory team in more detail in a second here, but this is, broadly speaking, a team of leaders that will set succession plan goals, hold participants to timelines, and champion the succession plan throughout the organization.

Step 2: Share the Plan with Leaders Across the Organization

So next step, in step two, sharing the plan with leaders across the organization. And you can see how communication is essential here. After getting the SAT up to speed, it’s time to include other leaders in the process. And so, these people play an important role in carrying out the actual plan developed by the succession advisory team. And so, these leaders might include executives or managers, or team leads, HR professionals, administrative staff, maybe even current incumbents, and anyone else who might be beneficial for the execution of the talent development process.

Step 3: Inform Candidates of Their Role in the Process

And as the final step, we talk about informing candidates of their role in the process. So, the final step here is to tell the candidates what their roles and responsibilities are. And this communication should be implemented by the leaders selected in step two of the process, not necessarily by the SAT itself. And in their communication, leaders should be transparent about the purpose of succession planning, what everyone’s roles are, etc. And we’re going to talk about some best practices about communicating that information pretty shortly here.

What is the Succession Planning Advisory Team (SAT)?

So, what is this SAT that I was talking about? So, we’re kind of talking about people who are involved in the early stages of the process at this point. Succession planning requires time and effort, like we said, from various stakeholders, and a succession advisory team plays a key role in ensuring the leadership continuity by identifying, assessing, and also preparing potential successors for critical roles. So, think of these individuals as those who will be internally championing succession within an organization. So here are some of kind of the… And they’re listed on the slide here for reference, but some key functions of the succession advisory team are to align succession planning with long-term strategic goals, which we touched on earlier, and it ensures that the leadership pipeline that the organization has is actually strong enough to support any sort of future growth that you might be planning.

They also evaluate the current leadership team, and identify high-potential employees that could take on greater responsibilities in the future, right? And so, for that, they might use tools like performance reviews, feedback, and various leadership assessments. They also collaborate with human resources to design development programs for potential successors, right? This can take the form of many things, mentoring, be it formal or informal, executive coaching, rotational assignments are pretty popular, depending on the industry. So, this ensures that successors are receiving the experiences and skills necessary to step into future leadership roles.

The SAT is also involved in identifying roles that are vulnerable to vacancy, that are most urgently in need of potential succession planning and ensure that contingency plans are in place. And so, this helps mitigate the risk of leadership gaps due to, you know, unexpected departures, retirements or any of the other things that we’ve already talked about. Next, the SAT is generally responsible for tracking and monitoring the progress of potential successors within their development plans. And so, this involves regularly reviewing, updating succession plans, usually based on things like performance, evolving needs, and maybe evolving talent pools. And lastly on this slide, the succession advisory team provides support during leadership transitions, to ensure those smooth handovers, minimizing any potential disruptions. And so, they might offer guidance to the board of directors or the executive team when selecting the best candidate for leadership roles, such as, let’s say, CEO succession.

So generally speaking, the SAT ensures that succession planning is a structured and proactive process, rather than a reactive one, and in doing so, helps organizations maintain that strong leadership and business continuity.

Defining the People Involved

So, like we already mentioned, effective communication of succession planning is critical, and then selecting the right advisory team can help ensure that the message is clear, consistent, and aligned with any organizational goals you might have.

Criteria for Selecting the Right Succession Advisory Team

So, some criteria you might consider when selecting a kind of going through the process of forming an SAT, and thinking about what individuals might be on it, are so first of all, kind of having a variety of perspectives, right? Having a mix of varied backgrounds, departments, and experiences to ensure a balanced perspective overall. And a diverse advisory team helps bring multiple viewpoints. It helps ensure that succession communication addresses the concerns not of just one group, or a select few, but of different groups within the organization. And when the team includes people from various levels and functions and departments, they can better understand and better communicate to their own respective groups, right, ensuring that the message actually resonates with a broader audience, because this is, at the end of the day, kind of an organization-wide effort in many cases.

Next, of course, you might want to kind of pick individuals who already have trust and respect of their peers within the broader organization. So, these credible individuals serve as, you know, as trusted voices, and that might help make employees more receptive to any of the succession-related messaging that’s coming their way. And when those delivering the message are already respected, the workforce is more likely to actually trust the process, engage with the process, and believe that the process is fair, and overall, this helps build that confidence in the succession plan.

So next, this might be kind of an obvious one, but knowledge of organizational goals. So advisory members should understand the higher level broad strategic objectives and long-term vision for the company. So, when the SAT has this kind of understanding already, they can help communicate how succession planning aligns with these objectives to a wide variety of people. And this helps others, such as employees, see the bigger picture, and that helps make them more likely to support and engage in the process, again. So clear links between succession planning and the organization’s future kind of reinforce the importance of that message.

And unsurprisingly, you might want to consider people who you think already have strong communication skills, people who can communicate clearly, so both in writing, speaking, and also being able to communicate to a wide variety of audiences, both let’s say to frontline staff, and maybe to other leaders. And so, succession planning involves sharing oftentimes complex, both complex and sensitive information, right? And so, selecting team members who have those strong communication skills helps ensure that the message is clear, transparent, and has that adaptability to different audiences. And one of the traits that we typically see in people who are skilled at communicating is they can break down different topics, right? They can address concerns, and then, they can also foster the open dialogue that’s necessary about the process, such as, you know, inviting questions.

So next, talking about general fairness and judgment. So, people who you think have the capacity to remain impartial, and make as unbiased decisions as possible, focusing on the best interest of the organization as a whole. So, a succession advisory team that operates with objectivity as a priority helps ensure that communication of succession planning is seen as fair and unbiased. Again, this helps avoid the issue of, you know, perceptions of favoritism, some sort of hidden agendas, and other things that kind of come in there and erode trust that might have been built or make building trust more difficult. And so again, like I’ve said before, when employees perceive the process as fair, they are more likely to engage in it.

So, kind of one of the last two pieces you might consider here is people who genuinely prioritize and value employee development and see how succession planning is part of that broader development, part of offering broader development opportunities. This can help convey that succession is not about just identifying leaders necessarily but also investing in employees’ long-term growth overall. And this can be motivating for employees, again because it shows them that this actually benefits them personally, and this isn’t just some leadership effort that they’re probably going to be detached from.

And finally, you might consider someone, and this is kind of similar to knowledge of goals and strategy, but individuals who are attuned to the company’s culture, and any values. So that understanding of culture and values helps with tailoring succession communication in ways that will likely resonate with employees. And this can kind of also further reinforce the company values. It makes the process feel natural and aligned with the organization’s sense of identity. And we’ll talk about this later a bit, but this also helps reduce resistance to various changes that might be going on.

The Role of the Advisory Team

So takeaway message here, the right advisory team is critical to successful communication of succession planning, right? But the team not only helps manage the succession process, right, but also helps people feel informed, included, and generally motivated to engage with the plan. So hopefully this gives you an idea of what to think about from a communicational standpoint specifically when selecting an SAT.

Who is Receiving the Communication?

Now let’s talk about people who are receiving the communication. So, what are some of the stakeholders, and what are some of the relevant considerations when it comes to delivering communications to a variety of groups?

So, as we talked about, a succession plan involves multiple key stakeholder groups, and they all contribute to the process in different ways. So, the board of directors might set the strategic direction, ensure the continuity of leadership at the top levels, especially the CEO. So, they approve succession plans for senior leadership, provide oversight, ensure alignment with those organizational goals. And yeah, their key concern is generally leadership stability, right, ensuring that future leaders can drive long-term success.

We also have the C-suite, which are responsible for leading the succession planning process within their functional areas, let’s say, and also for identifying and developing any of their own potential successors. So, their key concern is developing talent pipelines, and preparing future leaders, again within the context of their own roles.

HR tends to be quite involved, in general. So, they facilitate, in many cases, and this varies, but in many cases, a very large proportion of the succession planning process. So, they might provide tools, resources, and other guidance as needed. They might also be responsible for talent assessment, leadership development programs, competency mapping, and general maintenance of succession plans, and record keeping. And so, they’re concerned with ensuring the availability of capable leaders and addressing any gaps that they see in skills or talent.

We also have current leaders and managers, right? So, they’re actively involved in mentoring and developing potential successors as well within their departments and divisions. So, they’re identifying high-potential employees, they’re providing feedback, they’re offering development opportunities for those high-potential employees, and so they’re quite a high-volume interface with, potentially, frontline staff, right?

And then there’s also, we can’t forget about the candidates themselves, right? And so, their responsibility in this case is actively engaging in any leadership development programs, or any other efforts that were kind of presented to them. They’re focused on acquiring any skills that they think they need, and also are focused on demonstrating that readiness to their superior for future leadership positions. And so in terms of what they’re thinking about, you know, uncertainty, maybe uncertainty about career progression, or where the company is going, or maybe kind of any of those other things that are relevant to their own career, a lot of those things can be alleviated with kind of best practices when it comes to communication.

And so, another thing that might be kind of front of mind for them is worrying about, okay, so I have my current responsibilities, and all this stuff I have to do already, but I also have these development expectations, right? So, understanding that they’re also put under a little bit more pressure, potentially. But hopefully, I mean given good communication, they see the value in all the things that they’re engaged in.

Our next group may be thinking about the broader workforce, right? They might be indirectly affected by succession planning in terms of, you know, leadership transitions, any sort of cultural shifts that might happen. And so there, one of the focuses might be maintaining, you know, maintaining day-to-day performance and overall morale during any of these changes that might be happening, right? And this is typically buffered, again, by effective and very clear communication. So, they’re kind of focusing on things like stability, trust in the new leadership, and also career development opportunity that might be offered more broadly.

And then, kind of finally thinking about the key concerns that shareholders and business partners might have, right? Thinking about, okay, what do these leadership transitions mean for the shareholder, kind of what does this mean for business continuity, for performance, the return on investment or maybe for customer service quality, and other kind of areas that might be relevant to those shareholders, and for customers or business partners. So, thinking about these various groups, you can start to imagine what is important to them, and what should be the focal point of any communicating that is done.

The Important Role of Leadership Communication

So, as we just saw, leaders aren’t the only people involved in succession planning, but their messaging is incredibly important, right? Because leadership plays a pivotal role in actually driving succession planning initiatives forward. So, without their involvement, succession planning efforts can either become, you know, stalled, or lack the sort of strategic alignment or resources that are necessary to have them succeed. So, they do all this primarily by setting the vision, and actually, actively prioritizing succession planning. They must communicate why succession planning is a priority. It’s not just an HR task, it’s a strategic initiative, it’s vital to our organization’s future.

So, they do this also by, so they set the vision and the priority, and underneath that, how do they kind of support that? They are responsible for allocating resources and support. This can include time, budget, also personnel that’s allocated to develop these talent pipelines. This might also include funding, and time for leadership development programs, and other development efforts. They help maintain that alignment with organizational strategy, and the long-term vision that we already talked about earlier. And generally speaking, they’re responsible for driving the process forward. They’re responsible for making sure the succession plan doesn’t just get deprioritized among all the things that people are already doing, like daily operations. And so, they hold themselves and their teams accountable for regular updates, and progress updates, and other information about succession planning initiatives.

So, in general, if I had to summarize this, leadership sets the tone for the organization, and then buffer that, kind of what they’re communicating, with any resources that are needed, kind of by reprioritizing as necessary, and actually demonstrating that this is valuable, it’s strategic. And so, they’re kind of modeling commitment to growth, and playing a very active role. So even though leaders aren’t the only people involved, it’s important to kind of give leadership communication a bit of separate consideration.

Best Practices for Communicating Succession Planning

So, what are some best practices for communicating succession planning? You might have picked some of these up along the way because we’ve touched on them already a little bit. But these apply to pretty much anyone who’s in the succession planning process, who is involved in communicating to any group, really.

So, first of all, we know that succession planning often involves sensitive information, right? So being as transparent as possible helps build trust. Employees should understand that succession planning is a standard and strategic process that does benefit the organization as a whole. However, even though it’s important to communicate the existence of the succession plan, you know, you might be cautious about sharing specific details, or names, or certain roles too early, because you can imagine how this can create friction, disappointment, maybe unhealthy competition among employees. And so, it is important to be tactful when it comes to succession planning communication and balancing those two areas.

You might also consider kind of when you’re communicating things. You know, succession planning, again being a proactive approach, it shouldn’t be a surprise, right? So ideally, discussions should be part of regular performance and development conversations. This allows employees to understand the organization’s focus on talent development, and also gives the employees some time to prepare, right? Both in terms of what they’re doing, and just mentally. And so, as employees move through the development programs that they might be in, or leadership training, it might become appropriate to have direct conversations about where they stand in the pipeline, right? But these types of conversations should be handled with care just to manage expectations. And so, you shouldn’t make any promises, but kind of focus on the potential, and how ready the candidate is.

All right. And so, kind of the next point here is thinking about who you are communicating to, right? We went through a whole bunch of different stakeholder groups earlier. So senior leaders, for example, they need detailed information on the succession plan, right? Who is being developed for what role, what development efforts are underway, and they should also be involved in any strategic alignment discussions. Whereas mid-level managers, they are responsible for implementing those day-to-day aspects of succession planning. So, they need to understand the process, they need to understand how to engage in career development conversations with their team, and also how to support employees that are identified for future roles.

When it comes to talking to employees more broadly, employees need to understand how succession planning affects them, right? Even if they’re not currently on a specific succession track, right, explaining the opportunities for growth, development, and how they can proactively improve their chances of being considered for future roles, right? Again, avoiding those unnecessary promises, but explaining how it is valuable to them, and what they need to know can help you keep employees engaged.

Also, setting clear expectations, right? So, one of the most important points to communicate is that this is not a guaranteed future promotion. It’s a process of development, and focuses on readiness for leadership roles, but there are organizational needs, and a bunch of other factors that will influence final decisions, right? But on that note, employees should know what criteria are actually being used to select future leaders. So what competencies are you looking for? What behaviors are you looking for? How is performance being measured in this case? And this helps employees understand how to align their efforts, and what they would like to do, so their aspirations, with what the organization is expecting of them.

And finally, here you might consider leveraging both formal, a balance of formal and informal communication, right? So, you might include it in company-wide meetings, you might include it in performance reviews, or leadership workshops. Those are examples of formal channels. But you also might consider casual check-ins, little informal kind of mentoring sessions to provide more personalized guidance. And also, kind of think about how to best leverage digital communication in the context of your organization.

Consequences of Poor Communication

Now let’s talk about the other side of the coin, kind of what happens, and what things look like when communication isn’t done so well.

First and foremost, this is probably the one that comes up the most, is creating those unrealistic expectations, right? Leading employees to believe that being part of this plan guarantees some future promotion. And then, when that is not met, that can cause frustration, resentment, disengagement if those promotions do not materialize, and you can kind of imagine the negative consequences there. So again, like we said, be upfront about what succession planning is, and what it is not. It is a development process, it identifies high potential employees, but it is not some sort of promise of future employment, or promotion.

Next, poor transparency. This leads to confusion, oftentimes distrust, and maybe even suspicion, in kind of the worst of cases. If employees are left in the dark about what’s going on, they are more likely to perceive it as unfair or biased, and there’s way more stuff up to interpretation, right? And it can create that sense of exclusion for those who are not formally identified as part of the pipeline. So, like we already said earlier a few times, confidentiality is necessary regarding individual assessments, right? But you still want to ensure that employees understand the general process, how they’re being identified, how they’re being developed and selected, etc.

Let’s see…okay, so we talked a little bit about exclusion. Kind of at the core of some of this might be unclear selection criteria. If, let’s say you have people communicating selection criteria, but it’s unclear and it’s inconsistent, someone says this is what we’re looking at, someone says we’re looking at something else, this can lead to, first of all, again, distrust in the process, but potentially, even a sense of the favoritism or bias. And then, when employees feel that selections are arbitrary, you know, they might think that it’s based on, oh, a personal relationship with someone else, or maybe someone just happens to like another employee, rather than objective performance and potential. So again, clearly communicate the competencies and behaviors and performance standards that you are looking for, right?

And similarly, sometimes what can happen is inconsistent messaging across leadership. This can be confusing for employees. If one manager describes one thing, if one manager makes a promise and some other manager is completely in the dark about it, that can lead to frustration and erode trust overall.

Now, another issue sometimes is overemphasis on very, very top roles. So, if we’re only focusing on very top-level positions, it can alienate mid-level employees who are actually aspiring to those positions at various levels. And this can also create this perception that this succession planning effort benefits a select few individuals, right, rather than kind of the inclusive, and organization-wide effort that it’s designed to do. So, communicate that succession planning is a holistic approach, develops talent at all levels, and it’s not just for executive roles. And so, think about how to involve those mid-level and frontline roles in your succession planning communication.

And lastly here, the avoidance of difficult conversations, because oftentimes, succession planning involves some difficult conversations. Some people will avoid those open, honest conversations about succession planning, especially when it comes to giving feedback, right, giving feedback, especially to those who just might not be ready, right? And if done poorly, this can lead to miscommunication, and that doesn’t address any potential unrealistic expectations or misunderstandings. So, people should have open and constructive conversations about development readiness and potential, and being honest about it, right? And that does the employee a service because they understand their strengths, and they know what they need to work on to actually, therefore, be considered in the future.

So, kind of as a takeaway point here, managing the pitfalls of communication requires very careful attention to clarity, to transparency, consistency, and also using quite a bit of discretion. So, setting clear expectations, fostering open dialogue, addressing potential concerns, doing these things can help avoid miscommunication that can lead to all kinds of frustration, or potentially even turnover, right? So, it should be intentional, inclusive, and focused on fostering trust across the organization.

Overcoming Resistance

So next, here we have a bit of a middle ground between doing things well and doing things poorly. In the communication process, we can sometimes have kind of what I would call resistance factors. So firstly, let’s say the general resistance to the message of change, because it might feel uneasy. People might not like that there are going to be future changes in leadership roles, team dynamics. And so, people might understandably feel uneasy about the transition and think it might destabilize their own role. So the solution here, or kind of a tip might be to frame succession planning as an opportunity for personal growth. It’s not a threat to one’s stability, right? We’re moving our organization forward; we’re moving our employees forward. This is not some threat to your specific role.

Next, leadership. This happens sometimes, leadership might not see the importance of actually being open in discussing succession planning. Some people might prefer to keep discussions private, and that might be more comfortable for some, but we talked about the issues that that presents. So maybe engage leaders, and encourage them to communicate openly, and highlight how open discussions can help build trust, reduce any sort of rumors, and demonstrate that the organization is committed to future success, right?

Some employees might feel that only a select few are being considered for succession planning, and that happens often, we talked about this earlier, when top roles are, let’s say, over-emphasized. And this can lead to perceptions of that favoritism and also feeling excluded from the process. So, like we said, if not communicated well, the process becomes too secretive-sounding, and that can make things sound a little bit too biased. And so, like we suggested earlier, make it clear that succession planning focuses on identifying leadership candidates, and that the organization values development of all employees. Share that career development opportunities might be available to others down the line, and that succession planning is just one element in the general kind of puzzle of employee growth.

And so, when it comes to communicating leaders, and employees might feel that open discussions about succession could be interpreted as someone is losing control, or stepping down, or something just isn’t right, okay, and that can create, understandably, anxiety, and again, that speculation. So, like we said, communicate that succession planning is a long-term strategy. This isn’t some crisis, and we suddenly need to replace someone. Again, this isn’t replacement hiring. This is something we need to do to ensure long-term stability and success, and it’s not a sign of immediate leadership changes. It’s about preparation, it’s about development, and is not about, you know, an abrupt transition, or some sort of crisis.

And finally, some people are quite resistant to open feedback. So, employees or leaders might resist those open discussions about succession because they’re uncomfortable. Both giving honest feedback, especially when it’s not positive, or receiving it can be uncomfortable. And this can, again, when not done correctly, lead to unclear expectations, and a lack of subsequent commitment to development. So, fostering that, I guess we could say kind of climate or culture of constructive feedback, where those conversations are encouraged is definitely a good idea. So, using clear, actionable language to communicate where employees stand, right? Okay, so here is where you are, here is what you need to do, and here is what we can do to help you kind of improve on these points that we talked about, right? So, overcoming these kinds of resistance factors is another thing to consider.

Maintaing Engagement with the Succession Planning Process

All right. Now finally, maintaining engagement with the succession planning process. So, we talked about some best practices when it comes to delivering communication, various stakeholders, but communication is an ongoing process, right? So, a lot of things we talked about don’t just apply at one specific time point. So, I encourage you to think about this as a long-term process, just like succession planning itself. So, communicating the purpose and benefits of succession planning, and why it matters, and reminding people through various channels. Focusing on the positive impact on employees, right, how it’s going to benefit them, how it provides career development paths, training, etc. Encouraging input and participation on the part of everyone who’s involved, right? So, we know that when you ask people for their feedback, and you get them involved, they’re more likely to be engaged in the entire process. And you might discover some interesting things throughout those conversations too, that might be very actionable. So, you can use a variety of feedback mechanisms, be it anonymous surveys, or just informal conversation to facilitate that.

Offering those clear development opportunities, right? Creating individual development plans, and checking in with them over the long term, to help maintain that engagement. Also, recognizing and rewarding contributions of those who are actively engaged in their development as part of the succession planning process. So, you can do this through formal recognition, performance incentives, or maybe offering employees opportunities to new and exciting projects, or maybe some responsibilities that they are interested in taking on.

Let’s see… Yeah, and finally, kind of reinforcing over and over again, and I know I’ve said this many times, but it is very important, the long-term benefits and the long-term nature of succession planning, linking it, linking succession planning to organizational stability over the long term to organizational growth. And then it becomes easier to explain how succession planning benefits individual roles, because our company is going to be better prepared. And so, this isn’t a destabilizing factor for your role, it’s actually quite the opposite, right? So, by involving people, by recognizing their efforts, maintaining transparency, and all these other things that we’ve talked about, you can help maintain this engagement, and maintain a prepared workforce that is then going to be ready for any subsequent roles.

Communication is Not an Event

And so, the very last point I want to make here is, we notice that people who do communication well, they tend not to make it an event, you know? We’re not just all getting together once, and we’re all just, I’m going to communicate something… I mean, today we’re doing that. But in the context of succession planning, it’s just a regular thing that people do, when they do it well. You don’t have to wait for some big milestone to communicate relevant information. Sometimes you can just do an informal update, and that’s totally sufficient. So, making sure that internal parties that are doing the communication are consistent, because people need to know who to go to for questions. And finally, the biggest barrier we see to communication is when it’s simply not happening, right? So definitely keep that in mind.

And we know that communication is one of the biggest challenges with succession planning, which is why we’ve developed content specifically on the topic.

Benefits of Working with SIGMA

And so, I just want to say if you find that you need help with this particular area, we are always happy to support you. I also wanted to share a service that we are offering. The idea here is that if anyone is interested in speaking with a consultant, we are offering a 30-minute free consultation. All you need to do is fill out a five-minute survey to give us a better idea of where your succession planning process is at, and then we will provide customized tips and tools completely free of charge.

Q&A Discussion

All right, and that is it from me. I guess now we can move on to the Q&A portion of our time together.

Helen Schroeder: Thank you very much, Leo.

So, for everyone, if you want to take a look at the Q&A in the discussion, I’ve posted links to some of those resources that Leo mentioned along the way. We’ve got our six-step succession planning process, and a blog on how to create a succession advisory team, which hopefully will be helpful to you. And then a link to that succession planning diagnostic, if you would like to chat more with a consultant individually and get some customized tips and tools for what your organization is needing.

How Can You Tell Someone They’re Not Included in Succession Planning?

Okay. We’ve got a couple of minutes, so let’s plow through a few questions. First one for you, Leo, is, “You spoke a bit about how sometimes conversations are difficult, and you might need to tell someone that they’re not ready yet. What is a good way to tell people that they are not included in a succession planning or talent development process?”

Leonid Beletski: Yeah, so if you’ve identified kind of a particular pool of individuals, and let’s say they are the people who are going to be part of some talent development process, or some effort within the organization, communicating that someone wasn’t selected is definitely challenging, right? And so, some of the things we talked about today, clearly communicating why that decision was made, again without any sort of judgment, just being completely open and honest, and so follow all of those things that we talked about.

But also, one thing that you might be able to mention is that, you know, they’re not part of the development process for now. You could consider calling any sort of initial efforts as a pilot project of sorts, right? So, it’s not like a one-time thing. There might be possible opportunities opening up in the future. And so, kind of leave those opportunities open, potentially, and explain that, you know, this isn’t just like a one-and-done situation. We’re committed to helping you develop. Here are some things that you can work on, and then maybe in the future, when we kind of put through, let’s say, another development cohort, then you might be better prepared for it.

That’s the best that I can say in terms of how to prepare for that.

Helen Schroeder: Thank you. That’s a really good approach.

How Can Senior Leaders Communicate Support for Succession Planning?

Okay, I’ll slide one more in here. “You mentioned the importance of senior leaders communicating their support for the succession planning process. What would that look like, practically? If you’re a senior leader, how do you go about doing that?”

Leonid Beletski: Yeah, so we talked about, we had a slide talking about how leadership tends to be critically involved in the succession planning process. And so, I would say going beyond just verbally endorsing the process, and saying, you know, if there’s anything you need, let me know, actually putting organizational resources behind the efforts is probably one of the main things that you can do. And kind of being a leader, and being someone who people listen to, internally championing that process, right, and making it a part of the organization’s strategic priorities over time, right? So doing those things, in addition to genuinely putting resources behind it, so giving employees time for their development efforts, telling managers that this is something that we’re prioritizing, making sure that there’s funding for any development programs, that helps ensure that it’s not just something that is talked about, it is actually something that is done. So, anything that you can do is always a good idea.

Helen Schroeder: Those are great tips. Thank you.

Concluding Remarks

Okay, I’m keeping an eye on the time, so I’m going to wrap up with just a couple quick announcements. And if you have any more questions that you’d like to speak to us, or one of the consultants about, feel free to send us an email, and we can continue the conversation there.

So first off, if you are here to receive a professional development credit for either SHRM or ATD, please let me know. You can send me an email. I’ll drop my email in the chat as well. Particularly for SHRM, I will need to send you a Certificate of Completion so that you can get your credits for that.

And then, if you liked what you saw here, we do have one more webinar running this year, in November. It is our Introduction to Succession Planning. So, if you want to take a step back, and dive deeper into that six-step process that Leo outlined, that would be a great one to attend, and to bring some of your colleagues to as well. Then you’re already on the same page about what it means to be developing a succession plan.

Okay. Let me just type my email out for you here. There you go. Okay. So please do send me a note if you’d like a professional development credit for SHRM, and I’ll make sure that you get your Certificate of Completion.

Okay. Thank you all for joining us. And thank you also, Leonid, for being here, and presenting an excellent webinar. We hope you found this session practical and keep in touch if there’s anything else you need from us. Hope you have a great day.

Leonid Beletski: Bye, everyone.