Its Time to Shake Up your Succession Planning

Its Time to Shake Up your Succession PlanningIts Time to Shake Up your Succession PlanningIts Time to Shake Up your Succession Planning Wiseman, author of Rookie Smarts Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work (Harper Business, 2014)Read an interview with author Liz Wiseman The Agile TeamWhy Learning Beats KnowingToo often well-meaning managersshield their employees from change and disruption, essentially placing a do not disturb sign on the employees door.While employees may seem temporarily relieved, could it be that they are actually unhappy when they are cloistered and comfortable? When is it time to disturb someone, wake them up, and lead them into a discomfort zone?My research focused on just these questions When are employees ready to be challenged and how much of a challenge can they actually handle? We asked approximately one thousand individuals to indicate how long it took them to1)Figure out their current role2)Be ready for their next big challenge,3)Be ready fo r a new role, and4)Begin to feel stale in their current role.In general, we found that after receiving a challenging assignment, peopleHave figured out their role within three monthsAre ready for the next big challenge within just three monthsAre ready for a new role within one yearBegin to feel stale within two yearsWhen we analyzed the data by job role we found that individual contributors are the first to feel stale and the first to be ready to tackle a new challenge. Middle managers, on the other hand, report being ready for an entirely new job or role the soonest.Given that the majority of employees are ready for a new challenge every three months and ready for a new role at one year, what can you do to prevent your workforce from getting stale?Most organizations cant play a perpetual game of musical chairs, moving employees into new roles every twelve months. But here are some other strategies to keep your talent in the rookie zone.1.konzeption one rookie component into each j ob. While the majority of a role may play to the employees strengths and utilize their current job skills, ensure that everyone has at least one aspect of their job where they must close a significant knowledge or skill gap.2.Offer lateral (as well as promotional) assignments. Financial services firm Vanguard routinely moves their management talent between diverse roles. A job swap between purchasing and IT isnt unusual.The current CIO is a deep techie but had just come from managing a high-net-worth-client group. He replaced the CIO who is now running the retail investment group.The previous CIO is now working as the firms chief investment officer. Why the shuffle? It allows leadership to keep the thinking fresh and ensure that management has a panoramic view of the business.3.Make management changes mandatory. Chevron Corporation generally expects members of their upstream global workforceto move to a new assignment every four years. If someone has been overseeing upstream asset m anagement in the San Joaquin Valley in California, he or she might next be running oil operations in Kazakhstan. Nestl, the Swiss food company, takes a similar approach.When senior managers approach three years in tenure (or even before) they must hit the refresh button and move into a different role. This not only keeps the managers fresh and challenged it breathes new life into the organizations they lead.4.Redefine the succession planningcriteria. As you review candidates in the succession planning process, factor in each candidates learning agility - are they curious, humble, playful, and deliberate? Look at their job history to see if they have a track record of success in rookie assignments.If you are considering someone for a job that is mora than one size too big, look through his career history to see if he has been successful in other equally oversize jobs. This might be the best predictor of the ability to handle a stretch assignment.Excerpted from Rookie Smarts Why Lear ning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work(Harper Business, 2014) Copyright 2014 by Liz Wiseman.Excerpted with permission from HarperCollins Publishers.Author BioLiz Wiseman is a researcher, executive advisor and speaker who teaches leadership to executives around the world and is the president of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research.She is a former executive and the author of the bestselling books Multipliers How the Best leaders Make Everyone Smarter and The Multiplier Effect Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools.Read an interview with author Liz Wiseman The Agile TeamWhy Learning Beats Knowing