“The hallmark of a great leader is one who sets his or her successors up for success, rather than failure.”
The key to successful succession planning is to establish systems that make it possible for the organization to go on when a key individual leaves. And that goes for all key staff — the CEO, and any other critical positions.
Your team needs to build its own Leadership Team Playbook to serve as a guide for how you will communicate, decide, and lead. Here are five things to include:
Section I: Member Strengths
Begin building your Playbook by identifying those areas of strength where your team members will make their greatest contribution. Include insights gained through the sharing of Personal Histories and results from individual team member MBTI®, FIRO-B®, and TKI assessments. Personal Histories are shared in a team meeting. The assessments are taken on-line at The 6:8 Leader Group/SkillsOne web site, and are shared through individual interpretive reports. This section may also include results from other individual assessments such as Stand Out™, StrengthsFinder®, or Belbin Team Roles.
Section II: Clarifying Questions (See Post: Measuring Your Organization’s Health)
This section comes right out of Patrick Lencioni’s playbook (see his book The Advantage). It includes your team’s response to the six critical questions leaders must answer to give employees (and volunteers) the clarity they need to create a healthy organization. The six questions are as follows:
Why do we exist?
How do we behave?
What do we do?
How will we succeed?
What is the most important, right now?
Who must do what?
Section III: Strategic Plan (See Post: Strategic Planning with Hoshin)
Through the use of a Hoshin Plan, you will identify the Strategic Breakthroughs and related Projects that will help you plan and execute your strategic, organizational objectives. Hoshin Planning provides a process whereby everyone in the organization knows what direction to go and how you plan on getting there. The Hoshin Plan is a one page strategic project portfolio.
Section IV: Operational Measures (See Post: Visualize Your Performance with a Dashboard)
Operating objectives can be tracked using an organizational dashboard. An organizational dashboard is an executive information system. Like a car’s dashboard, an organizational dashboard provides decision makers with the input necessary to “drive” the organization. It may be designed to display summaries, graphics (e.g., bar charts, pie charts, bullet graphs, etc.), and gauges (with colors similar to traffic lights) in a portal-like framework to highlight important information.
Section V: Succession Plan (See Post: Succession Planning)
Succession Planning is the process of identifying a plan for the considered replacement of key employees. The key to successful succession planning is to establish systems that make it possible for the organization to go on when a key individual leaves. Systems, not individuals. And that goes for all key staff—the CEO, and any other critical positions.