Succession Planning

Situation

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Our client, a global leader in the oil/lubricants and automobile accessories sector, has a history of low turnover across the business, particularly at senior levels. The majority of the senior leadership team have tenure exceeding 20 years and have assumed primary responsibility for the strategic direction and major decisions on a daily basis. This has presented an issue around succession planning as the key Directors need a plan in place to facilitate their eventual exit from the business however did not have clear successors in place with the leadership abilities required to run the business.

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As a first step in addressing this issue the organisation created a new sales leadership role and appointed several team members into this new role with a view to developing them into more senior positions over time. The individuals promoted were considered to be high performers in their previous roles but there were questions around their critical leadership skills and behaviours and ability to take on a more senior role within the business.

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Methodology

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Carrera partnered with the client to undertake a succession planning initiative using our behavioural profiling tool. We initially created a role profile for the newly created sales management role with a particular focus on the leadership behaviours required for success in this position. We then created role profiles for the senior leadership roles in order to understand the gaps between where the team were now versus what was required by the business for them to be promoted further.

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The new sales managers completed an online behavioural assessment that looks at an individual’s behavioural “hardwiring”. The results of the assessments were benchmarked against the profile of their newly created role. We then also compared their results to the senior leadership role profile.

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The results showed that the Sales Managers were a moderate fit for their new role however needed significant leadership development to be considered high performers. Of those assessed, two were deemed to have the potential to move into a more senior role over time with considerable investment in leadership development.

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Based on the results of the assessments we worked with our client to develop a coaching and development plan for each individual to build on their leadership abilities and take on more responsibility for decision making within the business. We gave each team member a strategic assignment to be completed with minimal intervention from the leadership team. The results of the assessments were shared with each individual on a 1-1 basis and three or four of the most critical behavioural attributes for each individual selected as a key focus of learning and development for the coming year. These were then built into their professional development plans with further review slated for later in the year.

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Outcome

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The sales managers each presented their strategic plan back to business leaders and then their own teams and have achieved beyond expectation. They have now been given further responsibility for managing the performance of their teams, taking on a greater role in managing the P&L, strategy and customer relationships. The leadership team are more than satisfied with the way that the new managers have risen to the challenge so far and thus continue to give them opportunities to develop their leadership potential.