Talent reviews and succession
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7 min read
Key findings
An emergency succession plan below board level records the interim holder, delegated decisions, successor availability and who tells whom.
A named successor passes an availability test and an evidence test before anyone asks them to step in.
Interim cover and the permanent appointment are decided separately and in writing, or the interim becomes permanent by default.
Ready now means the person could take the role this quarter with normal support and no change to its scope.
The exit is used to audit the plan within 30 days.
An interim appointment made in the first week tends to become permanent by default.
An emergency succession plan states who holds a role's decisions from the day its holder leaves, under what title and for how long.
Below board level it also records whether the named successor is available and ready, because that is the part that fails first.
In the first week, the practitioner separates the interim cover from the permanent appointment, in writing.
Most guidance on the subject was written for chief executives and for non-profit executive directors, and it assumes a board that can meet within a day.
The person who has to act is more often an HR business partner whose divisional director resigned on Monday.
That practitioner advises on interim cover, tests whether the named successor is ready, and decides what the team hears, usually before the executive team has met.
What An Emergency Plan Contains
A plan that works at divisional level holds six items for each critical role.
The interim holder, named in advance
The decisions and spending limits that pass to that person
The named successor, with the date availability was last checked
Who tells the team, clients and regulators, and in what order
The handover notes the role holder keeps current
The date the plan was last tested against a departure or a rehearsal
A slate of names is the third item alone, and it fails without the other five.
The First Seventy-Two Hours
The first three days decide whether the business keeps running and whether the permanent decision stays open.
Confirm the last working day, the notice terms, any leave still to be taken and who already knows.
Name who holds the role's decisions from the next morning, and confirm signing limits with finance.
Agree the wording of the announcement with the executive who will chair the response, and with the departing leader where the terms allow.
Tell the team in person, before the news reaches them by email or through the corridor.
Call the clients, regulators and partners the role owns, in an order agreed beforehand.
Ask the departing leader which commitments and relationships only they hold, and write them down.
The sixth step protects the most and is the one most often left until the last week of notice.
Interim Cover And The Permanent Decision
Two decisions are usually taken together in the first week and should be kept apart.
The first is who holds the role's decisions from Monday.
The second is who holds the role permanently, and by what process.
An interim appointment made in the first week tends to become permanent by default.
Choosing anyone else starts to look like a demotion of the person already doing the job.
Separating the two decisions in writing keeps the permanent one open.
The word interim carries three different meanings, and the executives and the person in the role can each be assuming a different one.
Holding the role until a permanent appointment, with no expectation that the holder will be considered
A trial, with a real chance of becoming permanent
A temporary post that serves as a development assignment
The expectations attached to an interim role are often contradictory unless the key stakeholders agree the results and the timeframe.
Say which meaning applies, what results are expected, when the arrangement ends and what happens on that date.
A split of the role across two or three people is a fourth arrangement.
It protects the permanent decision and costs more in coordination.
Testing The Named Successor
The named successor is tested before anyone is asked to step in.
The first test is availability, and it takes an afternoon.
Can the person's current role be covered, and by whom
Is their own manager willing to release them, and has anyone asked
Is the move possible for them, geographically and personally
Is anything already in motion, including another internal process or an external approach
A slate that has not passed those four questions is a list of preferences.
The second test is the evidence behind the name.
General Mills talent leaders report that talent planning succeeds in less than a third of cases, and they describe ready-now successors who did not appear when the jobs opened.
They name three causes.
False positives. A strong performer in middle management is assumed to be the next senior executive, on a single evaluation point and with current performance mistaken for senior capability
Hidden negatives. Flaws that are known at some level are tolerated because of other strengths or a protective sponsor
Preferences. A mobile successor announces a stay-put preference after the plan was written
The remedy for the first two is the evidence rule used in a talent review, which asks for a dated example behind every readiness rating.
The remedy for the third is more frequent, candid career conversations with the people on the slate.
Ready Now Defined
Most frameworks classify successors as ready now, ready in one to two years, or ready in three or more.
The first category is the one that gets inflated, because it is the one the board asks about.
A defensible definition is narrow.
Ready now means the person could take the role this quarter with normal support and no change to the role's scope.
Anything that requires the role to be split, a deputy to be appointed, or the person to be shadowed for six months belongs in the second category.
A narrow definition produces fewer ready-now names, and the executive team can rely on the ones that remain.
Where the internal candidate would not be shortlisted externally, the slate records willingness and not readiness.
External Benchmark For The Slate
A slate assessed only against internal candidates shows who is best available and says nothing about whether they are good enough.
Two cheap checks correct that.
Ask a search firm what the market looks like for this role, without commissioning a search.
Compare the successor's evidence with the specification the business would write for an external hire.
Where the internal candidate would not be shortlisted externally, the slate records willingness and not readiness.
That is worth knowing before the departure.
Telling The Team
The team hears the news in person from the executive who chairs the response, on the first working day.
The announcement states what is known, which is the last day, who holds decisions from tomorrow and when the next update comes.
It does not speculate about the permanent appointment.
The date of the next update goes in even when the update will say that nothing has changed.
Clients, regulators and partners that the role owns hear next, in the order the plan set beforehand.
Critical Roles Below The Senior Grades
Key person risk sits in roles that a seniority list never shows.
The test is what stops if the role is empty for three months.
It brings in three kinds of role.
Roles where revenue or service stops
Roles that hold a regulatory or safety obligation
Roles that hold scarce technical knowledge
The third kind is where most organisations are most exposed and least prepared.
A principal engineer with twenty years of undocumented context about a legacy system is a succession risk that no grade-based list will surface.
Succession planning for critical roles sets out how to agree that list with the business.
The same list decides who a talent review covers.
Telling The People On The Plan
Organisations disagree about whether to tell successors, and the disagreement is usually unexamined.
Two positions are defensible.
Telling people produces an expectation that the organisation then has to manage.
Not telling them risks a named successor leaving because nothing was said.
The version that fails is telling some people informally, which creates a rumour with no owner.
Where the decision is not to tell, something is still said to each person about development and about the next two years.
That conversation can be held without naming a role.
Post-Exit Review Of The Plan
A sudden exit tests the plan under real conditions, and the practitioner records the result within 30 days.
Did the named interim holder take the decisions on the first morning
Was the named successor available, and would they have been shortlisted externally
Which relationships and commitments were held only by the departed leader
How long did the permanent appointment take, and did the interim become the appointee by default
The answers go to the executive team as a one-page account, and they change the plan before the next cycle.
After The Appointment
The succession process is usually declared finished when the appointment is made.
Two things belong on the other side of it.
The first is a written handover of the decisions, relationships and commitments the outgoing person held, which takes a day and saves a quarter.
The second is a review at six months against the reasons the person was appointed, which either confirms the judgement or surfaces a problem while it is small.
Functions that do the second build the only reliable evidence about whether their succession process works.
What The Board Should See
Board succession reporting is usually a grid of names, which invites debate about individuals.
Three numbers start a better conversation.
Critical roles with no available successor
Successors whose evidence is over a year old
Appointments made internally in the past two years
The third is the outcome measure, and most organisations do not track it.
A target for how many ready successors each critical role should have at any time turns the first number into something the executive team can act on.
Where The Tools Sit
Trusted Talent Advisor places the slate design in component 07, Talent Review and Succession, and the conversation with an incumbent or a successor in component 02, The Stakeholder Conversation Toolkit.
The template pack includes the critical role definition and the succession slate canvas.
Sources
1. Gotte, A. D. and Wilde, K. D. Talent Building in Motion: More, Better, Sooner, in Bickham, T. (ed.) ATD Talent Management Handbook. ATD Press.
2. Bradt, G. B., Check, J. A. and Pedraza, J. The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan. Wiley.
From the system
Trusted Talent Advisor sets out the full method: seven components, 51 tools, The Talent Template Pack and The Prompt Library.
See the system
Questions this answers
What is an emergency succession plan?
A written arrangement for who holds a role's decisions from the day its holder leaves, under what title and for how long. Below board level it also records the named successor, when their availability was last checked, and who tells the team and clients.
What should HR do when a key leader resigns suddenly?
Within 72 hours, confirm the notice terms, name who holds the role's decisions, agree the announcement wording, tell the team in person and call the clients the role owns. Keep interim cover and the permanent appointment as separate decisions in writing.
How quickly should an interim leader be appointed?
By the end of the first working day, so that every decision has a holder from the next morning. The scope, results expected, end date and what happens at that date follow in writing within the first three days.
Should the named successor automatically step in?
No. Test availability first, meaning whether their current role can be covered, their manager will release them, the move is possible and no external approach is under way, then test the evidence behind the readiness rating.
How do you communicate a sudden leadership departure to the team?
In person, on the first working day, from the executive who chairs the response. State the last day, who holds decisions from tomorrow and when the next update comes, and do not speculate about the permanent appointment.
What goes in an emergency succession plan template?
For each critical role, the named interim holder, the decisions and spending limits that pass to them, the named successor with the date availability was last checked, who tells whom, current handover notes and the date the plan was last tested.
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