Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity and Building Talent from Within, Fourth Edition

CHAPTER 2

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Trends Influencing Succession

Planning and Management

Succession planning and management (SP&M) must be carried out against the back-

drop of increasingly dynamic organizations.

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Those organizations are responding, ei-

ther proactively or reactively, to changes occurring in their external environments. As

Leibman explains, ‘‘today’s dynamic environment filled with global competition and

business discontinuities defines the arena in which succession planning must flourish.

To do so, a much more active orientation is required, one that is better characterized

by succession management and its emphasis on ongoing and integrated processes.’’

2

For Leibman, succession management is more active than succession planning and

must be carried out in a way that is tied to organizational strategy and is responsive

enough to deal with rapidly changing organizational settings. That is an accurate view.

To be effective, SP&M programs must anticipate—and not just react to—the changes

wrought by an increasingly dynamic business environment. It should be applied daily

by managers, who are charged with and held accountable for developing the organiza-

tion’s bench strength for the future.

Conducting studies of trends is a popular pursuit. Some organizations specialize

in trends.

3

And some futurists have predicted the future for human resources (HR).

Among the predictions: (1) People-centric ISO certifications will require HR prac-

titioners to partner more with operating managers; (2) interest is growing in experi-

menting with alternative organizational designs, which will mean that HR

practitioners must contribute to finding new ways to support organizational struc-

tures that are not as familiar as many in the past; and (3) HR is being completely

outsourced, which challenges in-house HR practitioners to demonstrate real value-

added efforts if internal HR departments are to survive.

4

Many trends drive the future workplace and workforce. Among them are:

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1. Changing technology.

2. Increasing globalization.

American Management Association

www.amanet.org

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