Strategic Planning and Succession Planning - These Aren’t Mutually Exclusive!

As the year draws to a close (wait, what?!), it’s natural to start turning to focus on the future opportunities of 2024 and talking about planning for the year ahead, in all the various forms this might take for your organization. Whether you’re a large organization or a small business, planning for success is truly the key to making it happen. 

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”
Alan Lakein, author

And when it comes to planning for success, Strategic Planning and Succession Planning are crucial to any business, believe it or not, and planning the company’s future isn’t mutually exclusive to planning individual career paths (including your own) within the company. 

Generally, strategic planning looks at who a company is, where they want to go, and how to set concrete targets or checkpoints to get there. Succession planning, on the other hand, refers to a company’s planning for its people and roles, whether that’s to fill an upcoming vacancy or to provide a roadmap for career growth (hint: this part is key to long-term retention). It’s the plan within the company’s strategic plan to ensure there aren’t any hiccups in service or business operations if and when someone leaves. (Think of adequate and proper coverage for parental leave - you want that transition to be as seamless as possible.) 

Strategic Plans - Your Map Through the Woods

Strategic planning is a crucial process for companies, regardless of size, to set clear priorities, allocate resources, and guide decision-making to achieve long-term goals and objectives.

Strategic planning is important even if you’re happy with the way business is going and don’t have ambitious plans to change your direction. Your strategy could be simply to find ways to be more efficient in what you already do. The planning process also lets your team brainstorm about coming changes that could affect your business and how to be ready for them.

In simple terms, there are generally five steps to mapping out your strategic plan: 

1. Identify your mission and vision

2. Conduct an environmental (SWOT) analysis 

3. Define goals and objectives

4. Plan implementation

5. Monitor & evaluate

Your mission defines your company’s purpose, its reason for existence, and the value it provides. Your vision describes what you want the company to be or achieve.

Your goals are broad, overarching statements that articulate what the company wants to achieve in the long term. Your objectives should be specific, measurable, and time-bound targets that contribute to reaching those goals.

Your strategies are the company’s plans or approaches designed to achieve the goals. Your tactics are the specific actions and steps taken to implement those strategies.

After setting the strategic direction, it’s time to implement your  beautiful plan. To do this, you’ll be developing  an action plan outlining how strategies will be executed and targets achieved. This involves assigning responsibilities and allocating resources effectively. 

Once the plan is in motion, monitor its progress and make adjustments as they’re needed (pivoting in a timely way is key here!). By establishing key performance indicators (KPIs), you can begin to measure progress (and success!) towards reaching your goals.

Succession Planning - But Where Does That Go? 

Succession planning should happen right in the middle of your strategic planning. If people are the heart of any business (or at least should be), it makes perfect sense that a proper succession plan is a big component of any strategic plan. So, how do you go about developing solid, robust succession plans? 

The University of Washington has a great overview of how they opt to tackle this project, but there are many ways you can go about it. This team breaks it down into three specific phases, with achievable, identifiable components. 

• Assessment phase

• Step 1: In tandem with your strategic plan, Identify any significant business challenges in the next 1–5 years.

• Step 2: Identify the must-have positions that will support business continuity.

• Step 3: Identify the competencies, skills, and company knowledge that are deemed to be must-have success factors.

• Evaluation phase

• Step 4: Take a look at your roster and identify your high-potential employees.

• Step 5: Isolate the competencies needed for individuals to be successful in positions and to meet those impending business challenges.

• Development phase

• Step 6: Start your exit surveys! Gather individuals’ knowledge before they depart the company. 

• Step 7: Develop a pool of talent, both internally and externally, to step into those critical positions.

So, Now What? 

We get it - this is some heavy, big-picture, in-depth, future-placed thinking to tackle. You know it’s vital to your company’s success, but it’s totally understandable to not know exactly where to start.  This is where Reimagine Work can help. This is our jam–helping companies see themselves in a future-focused mindframe and break down an   overwhelming project into smaller, easy-to-manage pieces. 

Ready to start thinking about the future and planning for your company’s continued success? Let’s talk. You can always reach us at connect@reimaginework.ca. 

We can’t wait to connect with you.