By Natalie Michael, CHRP

For HR professionals, succession planning is often a fun project because it is strategic, proactive, and it provides exposure to the senior team.   However, it can easily go from fun to disastrous if the corporate politics surrounding the program are not effectively managed.   In that light, what are those political land mines that you need to be aware of when implementing a succession program?

Here are the four big ones that you need on your radar and some suggestions for ensuring that they don’t derail your program or your reputation.

The Politics of High Potential
First, the term “high potential” is politically loaded.   As an HR professional, one of the big questions that needs to be answered when designing a succession program is whether or not to call someone a high potential. In the “old days” of succession planning, it was common to label some people as high potentials (or HIPOS) and not others.   However, it is now out of vogue.   The problem with the term “high potential” is that it gives some people special status and not others; it can create expectations and entitlement regarding career advancement and moreover, alienate those people who are “high potential.”

It can be equally awkward for those singled out for advancement. For people who are labelled high potential, but plan on quitting, it can lead to inner conflict and a trapped feeling. Do they tell their boss they are happy where they are at and risk being cut out of meetings and information or do they play along and pretend that they want to progress even if they are thinking about leaving?   Unfortunately, both options can backfire.

Moral of the Story: So, if you are designing a succession program and you want to avoid the political implications of the term high potential, my recommendation is to avoid the language all together. Rather than talk about high potentials, evaluate people’s readiness and interest in advancement and simply dialogue about this rather than labelling people.

External Talent Pipeline Politics
Another trend in succession planning is to identify external candidates for upcoming vacancies, along with internal candidates. The idea is that the ideal candidate may not be in-house, so it is valuable to identify people externally who could fill jobs. Once these people are identified, managers proactively cultivate a relationship with them, and have conversations with them about their career goals to see if they may be interested in future opportunities. In theory, it is a wise strategy, but the politics surrounding it are important to be aware of.

External pipelines can be politically charged when managers share details with each other about the outcome of their talent conversations with competitors. For example, if one of your managers approaches a competitor to talk about their career goals and then documents this conversation on a succession pipeline spreadsheet or shares the outcome of the conversation in a talent review, it can have political implications.

Although this is a common practice, imagine the following scenario. One of your managers knows one of the competitors listed on the talent pipeline spreadsheet and has him over for dinner regularly.   At one of their get-togethers your manager says: “I heard you talked to our VP of strategy about joining our firm and you may be interested.”   All of a sudden, what was supposed to be a private conversation between two senior professionals feels like public knowledge in the industry.

Alarm bells go off and you enter the political risk zone. You have just put someone’s career at risk with their own firm, and made it dangerous to talk to your managers about opportunities. You can bet that people across firms know each other and your talent pipeline conversations will get leaked at some point. Let’s just hope you don’t get a dreaded call from your competitor’s CEO to your CEO angrily accusing you of trying to poach their people.

Moral of the story: If you build external pipeline documents, guard the information about related conversations with your life. Do not circulate it, or discuss it in larger forums.

The Politics of Internal Candidate Pools
Obviously, you are not just identifying external successors, you are also focusing some, or more, of your energy on internal successors. So, what are the politics that can plague this part of the process? When identifying internal successors for future vacancies, there are a number of political dynamics that come into play, all of them stemming from managers using subjective criteria for identifying succession candidates rather than objective criteria like their motivation and ability to progress.

For example, remember the “similar to me” bias that creeps into recruiting? This occurs when hiring managers prefer candidates who share personality characteristics or experience that is similar to their own, resulting in rating some candidates more favourably. Similar to me bias also creeps into succession planning and often leads to disgruntled whispering at the water cooler; when this happens the succession process feels “political.”

Another political pitfall occurs when managers admit people into the pool with limited information about their background and qualifications. For example, I once had a manager say to me, “I had a conversation with John in the bathroom a few years back, and he seemed like a sharp fellow.   I think he has management potential.”  Let’s hope your managers have more to go on then bathroom conversations when evaluating your future managers.

Moral of the Story: To avoid stories like this at your company, spend time identifying the criteria for admitting people into succession pools, and the evaluation method for objectively determining readiness and development needs. Also, put ground rules in place such as, “share recent examples” when having talent review conversations. This will bring more objectivity, and less politics, into the process.

Development Plan Politics
Last, but not least, development plans can go from a well-intentioned, proactive initiative to a political trap that sets people up for failure if not carefully implemented.   When implementing succession programs, many companies invest substantial resources into evaluating people’s development needs and putting development plans in place.   The development plans are primarily focused on what an employee needs to work on if they want to progress; once the plans are identified, it is up to the employee to make them happen.   Although these plans are certainly better than nothing, they can lead to negative politics when they do not include objective methods of evaluating progress, especially when the direct manager, or sponsor of the plan, is not held accountable for supporting the person’s progress and removing obstacles.

For example, Marnie is a marketing VP in her company who reports into the chief Mmrketing officer. Her development plan includes being a part of a global marketing initiative and being more facilitative (rather than directive) with her style.  The problem is that Marnie’s boss won’t let go of being the smartest guy in the room and let her lead the initiative. As a result, Marnie’s evaluation of how facilitative she is being does not match other people’s perspective. If in this scenario Marnie does not receive objective feedback about the impact she is having, and the issue between her and her boss is not resolved, the plan will not work. Here’s here’s the political clincher; as with many succession programs, all Marnie has to do is SAY she has made progress and tried a few things, and the program is considered a success. So, really, the person who is the most self-promoting and optimistic wins. Do you detect some politics here?

In reality, if a company wants to truly develop their people, there are a number of factors for making succession management more successful:

1. Put more energy into holding people accountable to change;
2. Assign resources to help people develop;
3. Define roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders (the individual, their manager, and ideally the succession committee); and
4. Use objective feedback mechanisms like post 360 evaluations, or multi-rater input to determine progress.

With this kind of approach, the politics get weeded out, and as an HR professional you can evaluate true developmental progress, not just perceived progress.

Moral of the Story: When designing your succession program, don’t just think about the technical components of the program; pay equal attention to the political issues. In reality, the politics of how you define potential, build internal and external talent pipelines and support people’s development plans can make all the difference between an effective initiative that builds your reputation as a strategic HR leader and a program that you will be cleaning up for years to come.

Natalie Michael, CHRP, is a Succession Management Consultant and Executive Coach with The Karmichael Group in Vancouver.

PeopleTalk Summer 2012