Leadership Foundation

Why do it?

Is succession something you feel good employers should do, or an opportunity to create serious – and specific – benefits?

What is your focus when thinking about why you want to do it? The institution? The people? Or both?

What reasons for being interested in succession or talent are significant for you, and what do other stakeholders see as important?

Most organisations will have multiple reasons – different stakeholders will come to the discussion with different ideas – so depending on where and how the initiative originated within the organisation, you might see an emphasis on one or another set of reasons. How will you create agreement on which purposes are most relevant to your own institution?

As food for thought, you could take a look at what other organisations expected from their succession strategies.

As a preliminary exercise, we suggest you spend a few minutes working through our 'focus finder' to see what benefits you might expect from a succession scheme and where you should focus your efforts to achieve them. This is an exercise you can do with colleagues and stakeholders, sharing your responses and discussing the differences.