By Michael Timms

Early last year, Deloitte release a study showing that 86 per cent of companies believe leadership development is one of their most important challenges, and yet only 10 per cent of these companies believe they have a succession program that actually works.

Surely at least some of the HR leaders at the other 90 per cent of companies have read succession planning books or attended succession planning seminars, I thought to myself. With all the information on succession planning that’s available, I was baffled as to how there could be such a huge gap between “knowing” and “executing.” I decided to conduct my own study to find out.

I recently completed a book, Succession Planning That Works, which documents the findings of my succession planning best practice study. I interviewed executives from more than 50 different organizations to get the straight goods on what has worked well for them, and what aspects of succession planning they have struggled with.

Several themes began to emerge as I spoke to senior leaders from companies that are leading the way in succession planning, but none more important than this: For succession planning to truly work, the whole culture must support it. If the culture of the organization doesn’t support it, managers will never find the time required to develop future leaders. And, as experience has shown, culture change must be led by the top executive.

How to Influence Executive Buy-In for Succession Planning
When speaking about selling succession planning to the CEO, one study participant, an HR leader, said something insightful: “I never tell my boss what his priorities should be.” Instead, he asks his boss questions like this:

• What are the things that keep you awake at night?
• What are our corporate growth plans?
• How does that affect people?
• So what you’re saying is we need more people who can step up?
• Would you like me to look into how we can make this happen more effectively here?

Great HR leaders are great coaches. They don’t tell the CEO what he or she should do, or what HR thinks should be important to them. Instead, they carefully diagnose what issues are important to the CEO. Then, they use their coaching skills to help the CEO see whether succession planning may fix some of their problems.

Coaching the CEO is just one of many methods that smart HR leaders have employed to bring succession planning to the forefront of the discussion at the executive table.

HR cannot change corporate culture and should not be viewed as leading succession planning. For succession planning to receive the attention it requires to actually produce results, leadership development must be a key strategic priority for the organization. Leadership development must be so interwoven into the fabric of the culture that everyone in the company knows it’s a top priority. That may sound like a pipe dream to some, but that’s the reality in companies that are winning the war for talent today.

Michael Timms and Natalie Michael are presenting at HRMA’s 2016 Conference + Tradeshow. Their session, Succession Planning That Works, is on Wednesday, April 27. For more information on this and other sessions, please visit hrma.ca/conf2016.

Michael Timms is a management consultant, speaker and author of the upcoming book Succession Planning That Works.