Succession management

The ability to be agile as well as a willingness to step outside well established comfort zones are essential to keep abreast, let alone ahead, of the field. An effective Succession Management Strategy supports an organisation to move seamlessly from the present into the future.

What is Succession Management?

An organisation wide resourcing, management and development process. It provides a framework within which an organisation can continuously review and evaluate its needs in order to identify, manage and develop all its resources to meet current and future imperatives.

How is it different to Succession Planning?

Succession Planning has its focus on the people part of the organisation. Succession Management focuses on the organisation's core purpose and brings together all the processes required to deliver it into a coherent whole. This includes Succession Planning.

What are the benefits?

Succession Management enables an organisation to:

• Shape and control, rather than react to, the future
• Ensure vision and values drive resource
• Management rather than vice versa
• Make the most cost effective and efficient use of all its resources
• Gain the commitment of all staff and stakeholders to achieve its goals

A successful Succession Management process will . . .

• Link strategic thinking, planning and operational management firmly and continuously to an organisation's vision and values
• Bring together the needs of the organisation and each individual within it
• View resources holistically, intertwining business and people development
• Ensure everybody always knows where they are now and where they need to go next
• Focus on high performance, high involvement, high ownership, high results

. . . my perception has changed hugely while working on the xué programme. My own personal learning has come on enormously and I can see Succession Management as a key part of leadership.