Living Document For a broad-based succession plan to work, you have to be willing to dedicate the time to creating it, updating it, and executing it. “People put together documents all day,” Duncan says. “The issue is whether or not you use them, you live it, you breathe it, you make it happen.”
And that’s exactly what the Equity Residential president and CEO does. “This is something that day in and day out we spend time on because that’s the only way you stay focused,” says Duncan. He revisits the succession plan at least quarterly and asks his senior management team how those high-potential employees are progressing.
At United Dominion, Toomey also finds the time, taking one day monthly to evaluate and update his company’s succession plan. It makes for a crammed schedule for an already-busy CEO, but Toomey and his counterparts know the risks of letting succession planning slip. “What happens is you’ll make bad judgments and decisions if you don’t have a plan that has been vetted and thought out,” Toomey says. “You’ll react to the moment, and that will cost you over the long run.”
People Planning
Hiring a person for one job—let alone determining the most promising candidates for numerous jobs—can be an over-whelming task. Here’s what industry experts advise to make your succession plan, be it broad or narrow, a success.
- Don’t choose people in a vacuum. Ask employees and supervisors their opinions as you evaluate candidates for likely jobs. You’ll get the inside scoop on a possible successor’s strengths and weaknesses.
- A succession plan will not work without dedicated resources. Involve your human resources group, and hire a development expert to help manage and grow your employees’ talent.
- Ask your board what they expect from the succession plan. What should be the goals? How often do they want the plan to be updated?
- Invest your time. You must be disciplined in revisiting the plan every few months and checking on future successors’ progress.
- Don’t feel like all the planning has to happen internally. A third-party facilitator can pose hard questions you may not want to ask in-house.