Managing Succession

We offer two primary succession-related services.

Assessment for Selection

We bring our extensive experience assessing hundreds of senior managers to size up candidates for top jobs. Our approach is at once rigorous and efficient. Caveat: for internal candidates, our assessment is meant to serve only as an input, however authoritative, to management’s own experience and judgment of the candidate. We also have experience helping the outgoing CEO set up the succession process, including his or her own part in that.

1. We help translate the company’s strategic imperatives into the requirements for the position.
2. We conduct a comprehensive assessment of each candidate:
   1. Using sound assessment tools completed by the candidate, we evalutate: (a) the bright and dark sides of personality; (b) motivational drivers; and (c) maturational level.
   2. We conduct a semi-structured interview that takes account of fit with the job and with the company’s culture, elicits the candidate’s unique point of view on how to do the job, and probes for potential derailers.
   3. We take a detailed career history designed to bring out lessons learned and gaps.
   4. When possible, we conduct a 360 survey, usually our own or one we custom-make for the purpose.
3. We rigorously analyze the findings from each source and carefully construct an integrated profile across sources.
4. The result is a highly data-based assessment of the candidate’s assets and liabilities, one that lends itself to comparisons across candidates. Our selection work is based on research described in two books we wrote or co-wrote: Executive Selection: A Look at What We Know and What We Need to Know (Center for Creative Leadership, 1993) and Executive Selection: A Research Report on What Works and What Doesn’t (Center for Creative Leadership, 1998).
5. The assessment forms the basis for an on-boarding plan to leverage strengths and mitigate risk factors as the individual who is chosen enters the new job. The plan can include a feedback session we hold with the individual.

On-Boarding

Getting OnBoard™ helps new executives hit the ground running. The critical onboarding period, when everyone expects a seamless transition and quick results, is often neglected. Many new leaders receive little preparation, support, or ramp-up time. Not surprisingly, almost half of new executive selections fail!  Getting OnBoard™ ups the odds of success. It includes ideas from our book, Filling the Leadership Pipeline (Center for Creative Leadership, 2005).

We bring years of experience consulting to senior managers as they take a bigger role, including the CEO role, and as they work to establish themselves in that role.

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