Succession and Succession Planning Best Practice 3 – Continuing Education

It is simply not enough that individuals holding senior positions be highly experienced. The narrowness of early career positions and the limitations of time necessarily prevents an individual from being deeply experienced across the full range of functions within the organization. Thus, those relying purely on experience often lack an understanding of the broader spectrum of organization functions and opportunities that would help them be more successful in senior positions requiring multidimensional business understanding.[wcm_restrict plans=”40928, 25542, 25653″]

As indicated in StrategyDriven‘s Succession and Succession Planning Best Practice 2 – Rotational Development Plans, career time constraints and the need to develop a pipeline of talent makes it nearly impossible for one individual to hold every subordinate position prior to ascending to a senior role. Subsequently, temporary assignments, projects and initiatives, and continuing education should be used to create an appreciation for and understanding of the various processes, procedures, techniques and philosophies unique to those positions not actually held. Furthermore, education about the operations and support functions of companies from other industries can offer insight to improvement opportunities that would otherwise not be gained through the narrow experience of a single company’s operations. Continuing education, therefore, becomes critically important to creating a more well-rounded candidate for senior leadership positions.

Consider the following three candidates for a senior level position:

• the highly experienced manager
• the highly educated manager and
• the manager with some experience augmented by ongoing education and continuing training

Overall understanding of the business’s functions, human resources, finance, information technology, marketing, sales, and production are represented by a spectrum. The deeper and richer the understanding and experience with an area the brighter the spectrum. Thus, bright lines represent intimate and nuanced knowledge of an area – that which can be only gained through first hand experience, dimmer lines represent knowledge and understanding of the function – that which can be gained through limited experience and formal training, and no color (black) indicates a cursory understanding of the area. (Figure 1, Individual Knowledge and Experience, depicts the completeness of knowledge and experience for each of the three candidates being considered.)

The Highly Experienced Manager (extensive firsthand experience complimented by pertinent job-specific training)

Notice that an individual relying solely on experience has many brightly colored spectral lines across the entire spectrum of knowledge about a business. In the example provided, the production manager clearly understands the area in which he/she is responsible and some aspects of the support organization which impact production functions such as performance evaluations in the area of human resources, use of production’s supporting scheduling tools in the area of information technology, and the impact of the seasonal sales cycles in the area of sales on production operations. However, between these lines are very dark areas where very little to no understanding exists because this manager perceives no reason to learn more about these functions as they do not directly impact the performance of his/her job. This individual, therefore, cannot consider the organizational opportunities for improvement that might exist in these areas because he/she is so unfamiliar with them as to eliminate them from the realm of possibility.

The Highly Educated Manager (little firsthand experience compensated for by a high level of formal education)

The highly educated but inexperienced person is hindered by a different condition. This individual has a broad range of knowledge across most of the organization’s functional areas but lacks a nuanced understanding of the real life circumstances that challenge the implementation of academic principles. Without the richness and depth of understanding brought by experience, this person is less likely to proactively recognize the real world adjustments needed to successfully implement well understood academic theories. Additionally, these individuals may not as readily see the nuanced interrelationships between business functions. Lastly, the lack of hands-on experience diminishes this individual’s credibility with front line personnel. All of these liabilities hinder this manager’s effectiveness identifying and implementing organizational improvements.

The Well-Rounded Manager (some firsthand experience augmented by ongoing education and continuing training)

The well rounded manager possesses a more balanced background; having a number of high quality functional area experiences augmented by continuing education. This individual’s firsthand functional experience provides him/her the insight to understand why the purely academic solutions he/she knows will often not work as intended when confronted by reality. Experience helps this individual conceptualize how these challenges might be overcome and the theoretical solutions adjusted so to be implemented successfully, a critical gap in the highly educated manager’s background. Education provides the well rounded manager with the knowledge to ‘see’ the possibilities, a sight the purely experience manager does not possess. Hence, the truly well rounded individual represents the optimal in-the-middle solution rather than one at the extremes.

Final Thought…

The ultimate candidate is one that is both highly experienced and highly educated. To achieve this requires ongoing education and continuing training. Over time, this ongoing education will culminate in the individual becoming highly educated while continued job performance will provide the experience. Job performance is a given. Continuing education is the best practices that should be pursued.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”40928, 25542, 25653″]

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