May 2025 Volume 7

OPERATIONS & MANAGEMENT

them to suffer in silence and try to figure things out on their own. This isn’t an ideal situation. To help them transition most effectively into their new role, it is often extremely helpful to provide post-promotion coaching. This could be a senior person in the organization, or it could be an executive coach outside of the organization. Either way, providing a coach after they’ve been promoted can go a long way toward helping them succeed as quickly as possible. Step 10: Know Your Employees While the thought of promotion may be exciting for many people and something they aspire to, not everyone wants to promote. Some say they value the work-life balance in their current role. Some don’t want the added responsibility. Some simply don’t want to supervise people. Others don’t want to move away from the technical expertise they enjoy, knowing that the higher up you go, the less likely you’ll directly be involved in the hands-on work. It’s perfectly fine if someone doesn’t want to be promoted, but it can cause lots of problems if the organization doesn’t know that or ignores it. I’ve seen plenty of examples where a valued employee essentially gets forced into a promotion they don’t want, and they end up unhappy. It often doesn’t take long before they’ve moved on to a different organization to get back to what they wanted to do. Round hole-square peg situations aren’t good for anyone, and knowing your employees is a great way to avoid creating unnecessary problems. Conclusion Succession planning isn’t simply a nice-to-have organizational competency. It’s a vital part of your organizational success. It creates clear pathways to skill-building (which generates bench strength). It creates clear pathways to promotion (which keeps employees motivated and growing). It creates multiple promotion opportunities each time an internal candidate is moved up, as opposed to hiring from the outside. Having a robust succession planning process is vital to overall organizational health and success. Dedicating resources to developing your people is a sound investment, and I hope this 10-step process provides a clear pathway to strengthening this part of your organization’s health. It’s a competitive advantage with hiring, training, and retaining your best talent. No more kicking the can down the road – take action today!

References: 1. https://www.talentguard.com/blog/succession-plans-fail 2. https://hbr.org/2021/05/the-high-cost-of-poor-succession-planning Jared Detter, PsyD, MBA Leadership Development Consultant Bartell & Bartell, Ltd. Phone: (814) 861-6606 (office) Email: jared.detter@bartellbartell.com

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