[00:00:00] Lisa: Succession planning is often a core responsibility for talent leaders so much so that I decided to dedicate an entire episode to the topic from ideas for how to do nine box, right. To whether it's time to move on from the nine box we covered. This episode is your chance to hear two seasoned succession planners discuss very enthusiastically.
What they've learned about succession planning and targeted talent development. Since first encountering it in the nineties. My guest is Melissa law. She's a former talent management. And current leadership coach. This is actually her second visit to the show. I received so much positive feedback about her episode that, well, it was obvious I needed to have her back.
If you haven't already listened to her episode from before I invite you to go back and check out episode number. Melissa is highly accomplished and articulate. And I was so interested in our discussion. I literally forgot we were recording. Please do check out the show notes. There are a ton of resources that both of us discuss in the episode and you won't want to miss them.
Thanks for listening.
Hello, and welcome to the show, Melissa. It's great to have you.
[00:02:56] Melissa: Thank you.
Lisa. I'm excited to be here.
[00:02:59] Lisa: So, yeah, so I'm really, really pleased that you agreed to come back on the show because episode one was a hit, we had lots of listens on that episode, people really enjoyed it. So today we're doing something a little different where we're going to focus in on a really important topic in talent management and one that.
Have significant experience in which is around talent reviews and succession planning. So just to orient the audience a little bit, you know, some of you may already be doing this or have done it for 20 years. Some of you may be thinking about doing it. You might be looking at nine box grids and considering how that might work for you or not in your organization.
Some of you may be saying, oh my God, nine bucks. I got rid of that years ago. Or I'm about to move on to something different. We aren't going to address whether it's, whether it might be time to move on from, from the good old nine bucks. In this episode to start with though, we wanted to really explore if you are using that or, or planning to, how to make it as effective and equitable as you can.
You can always. Evolve these programs over time. Every program has a shelf life. I like to say where you need to kind of take a look at it critically from time to time and see what, what what's working does, what was in place still the right thing to have in place for where the organization is now.
So that said, we'll start with nine box a little bit and then move into, you know, what, what else? What's the. So Melissa, when it comes to succession planning and talent management, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about what you see as the most important things to remember in designing a program.
that makes sense.
[00:04:39] Melissa: certainly for context for you and for the listeners. And I have regularly use the nine box over the past years and what I have found, whether it's the nine box, whether it's the process, whether it's the terminology, one of the most important things that have to be at the or front. Learned to walk before you run.
And by that, I mean, taking the time to really. The specific around what's the terminology. What does it mean? How does it look and feel and how is it applied and spending time with HR business partners, as well as the business leaders to help educate and get them familiar with. What I have also experienced is great.
They start to get familiar and it's consistent. And they're understanding the meaning of it is I think it's really important for talent leaders to not be so rigid that they can't flex and adapt so that the conversations aren't coming up against roadblocks. And I'll give an example. I am working with a large organization in past trying to ensure that we had an accurate and fair assessment of talent represented through the talent review discussions and into succession planning.
I did come across that sometimes C suite leaders would be triggered by particular language. An example might be low potential versus high
potential. And often the default. In a leader's mind will be they associate low potential with no potential. And so one of the things that I found to be critically important throughout my experience has been to be willing to find where's the magic sweet spot on finding the language that conveys the spirit of what you're doing.
And not get stuck in, well, this is what it needs to be. And this is what it is. Be willing to create the language that works for your company and your leadership team and represents what's behind the talent assessment than talent review.
[00:06:47] Lisa: Yeah, language is such a key key piece of the puzzle here. So just to Sort of take a step back for a moment. So on a typical nine box grid, you've got two axes and the horizontal ACCE access accesses around performance, and usually it's developmental effective and exceptional, something like that.
And then going up the vertical axis, it's all around potential. So their likely future contributions. So that's where you have kind of mastery at the bottom, the people to get better, moving up, to get to growth, and then finally promotional. So. If people can kind of picture, those two axes, then you'll be able to map out the nine boxes across the way.
There's lots online too, that you can look up now when it comes to language. You know, certainly I've seen models. We were joking in the, in, in the green room. I was sharing with Melissa that I've seen models where one of the quadrants was called problem children, which is funny. It makes us laugh.
And yet it's dreadful. It's, it's funny. Cause it's so terrible, right. That we would actually think of I don't know. Trying to do their job as problem children. And yet that's an easy thing to do in our heads, right. Is, is to label people that way. So it's trying to figure out what, how, how do you use language to make sure that it's clear that we're clearly clearly having some concerns about a particular person's performance or potential?
How do we keep that focus? On the behaviors and the potential for development and assistance to help them grow versus on characterizing a person.
[00:08:19] Melissa: with leaders having sort of that roadblock of, I don't really want to differentiate because one's good and one is bad. It really is around helping them to understand that. All talent is valuable. They contribute in different ways and they have different needs. And so as it's important to differentiate so that we are.
Engaging with them and the way that's most meaningful to them. And so, you know, labels or titles or block numbers are one of them. You know, one of the pieces that I've done is rather than talking about low potential and high potential, it's more around deep expertise versus broad general management for their tracks.
I have never said, you know, these are the bad ones or the, people to move out. But we have used, descriptors around, you know, solid professional or high professional or consistent star, versatile talent. And so those were much more palatable to our leadership team and also allowed me to help create talent talks for them so that they were reaching out and celebrating. Where they see their talent, regardless of what box they're in.
[00:09:33] Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think there's a lot to that. When you said versatile talent, that's one that I've seen as well and prime talent being that top, upper right one rising talents. The one in the middle is often one where, you know, a lot of you get a lot of people and the people's names in there as the, middle box value talent are solid,
reliable. The other thing that that I think is interest. That's come up as is when it comes to putting people in a box or the label is that leaders often get really hung up on now, they're there and they forget that they can move and that they're meant to move. So when I was rolling out these programs you know, when I think about in, in my corporate life and since really, but it's all around making sure in the education phase that you're helping people understand.
This is just a moment. Yeah. This is really just sort of saying, okay, right now, what is the appropriate development plan and appropriate opportunities that would meet this person where they're at?
[00:10:30] Melissa: Yeah.
And, and that requires talking with your talent knowing what's going on with them professionally and personally. And this is, this is one of the most common roadblocks that's generic that has come up for me, regardless of the organization that I've worked at, when we're, we're trying to lead a struggle with. Because it's not as tangible as performance performance. I can go back to the performance rating. I, you know, I had no something, but potentially you're wanting me to forecast into, you know, next year and beyond. And one of the biggest factors in the potential models that I've created, I like to keep it simple.
I like to work with the theory of three and when educating leaders on. Potential. I use the three A's ambition ability and agility, and where I work very diligently with leaders is if you don't know what their ambition is because you haven't talked with them and you haven't asked the question. Let's not even have the conversation because quite often that's the showstopper of oh yeah.
They can be anything. Do they want to be, oh, I didn't know.
[00:11:42] Lisa: Uh, Just to jump in for a moment. I've, I've always called that part of potential. I use threes as well. Ambition, is the right aspiration. Ambition is yours aspiration and what was amusing to me, but that's surprisingly common in organizations where these, you know, C-suite leaders, have told the board, or these are my two successors that, you know, that I'm eyeing to, to replace me.
Should I win the lottery? And, when I asked the question, okay, how excited are they to, to take that role and how far out do they see it for themselves? They're like, I have no idea. I don't even know if they want it. So that's the first I'd say, okay. So we need to step back before we are listing their name and giving that to the board.
Let's find out if they're even interested. And I will tell you that 50% of people listed were not into that had zero desire to move up to that level.
[00:12:27] Melissa: Yes. Yes. And it's the first thing in my experience that gets overlooked by leaders. When they start down the road of talent assessment.
[00:12:36] Lisa: It's it's tricky. So, so keep walking us through the way that you've defined a defined potential. I think there's some good stuff in there. So, so we've touched on ambition.
[00:12:45] Melissa: Yeah. so. When I'm working with leaders and I am educating them, that's always the first checkpoint when we're trying to assess potential. Look at the ambition is not there to take on increased responsibility and tougher challenges. If they're not wanting to broaden and move around. If they're not willing to commit to some of the sacrifices that can impact them when they take on a new challenge or a more senior role they flat out just don't want to where they're happy, where they are, then that's our first indicator.
So I usually start there with leaders and then when we move into agility, Stay uncomfortable. Because they're like, yeah, they're agile really. So, you know, what's their level of self-awareness and situational awareness and it's not too bad.
Okay. Well, what do they do when they don't know what to do? Well, they call. Okay, well, that's sounding a bit rigid, maybe not as agile as you might want someone who's going to have to step into a brand new role. You know, and how do they leverage insights from learning and other people and, and whatnot.
So agility is again, still a little bit of a struggle. And so they start to understand, but you have those probing questions that help them to get that and disclose, you know, where they might be on that scale. Agility and then ability, of course, they get a little more comfortable with, because we're talking now around you know, do they have a track record of, going through formative experiences and do they have the aptitude and the logic of reasoning are they collaborative?
And I find that I have to spend some time on the formative experiences. to really, yeah, they are, they're great at their job. Okay. Well, let's just kind of go down the list of, and this is of course with bigger companies, but, you know, have they been involved in a startup? Of a division or a team. Do they have any mergers or acquisitions experience?
Have they had to do any closing down or divesting, you know, turnarounds or negotiating on a larger scale? Have they had to deal with, you know, have they inherited a problem or a challenge that they had to step in and figure out what about a new launch or, you know, initiating significant change?
So I try to. Work with leaders to say, you know, There's, ability to do my job at wa at the level and the performance I'm at, but what's the collection of successful formative experiences I've had that I can draw upon and create that ability and agility to move into something.
[00:15:22] Lisa: Yeah. there's there's a lot of, a lot of good stuff in there. When I was, you know, last using this one of the things that, that I built in was agility as well. And I, it's interesting that you've got ability in there because I had engagement, which was slightly different.
We can talk about that. Under agility, Kind of broke it down into two further pieces, one being people agility. So how politically savvy, is this person, are they somebody who's committed to self-improvement do they have a strong EEQ? The other piece being mental agility and that's where the ability kind of piece fell into.
So are they productively, inquisitive? How do they manage complexity? Ambiguity. So it's that ability to recognize. Some folks, you know, might get to the director level, the VP level, and that's great. And they thrive. And yet to get to the next one where there's, it's even more expansive in terms of view and decisiveness and, you know, there's so many shifts, the higher you go where they might no longer be comfortable or agile enough to make that leap.
[00:16:22] Melissa: absolutely. And agility is a big umbrella, right? You mentioned. Mental agility. People agility change a deal. Gelati results, agility, and those different facets of agility will play a greater importance based on the higher you go.
[00:16:39] Lisa: Oh, I like how you described that as facets of agility. Absolutely. Yeah. Really, really important. And I think hopefully this is giving people some food for thought around, you know, It's not important just for us as talent leaders to know this stuff. This is part and parcel of the education process for the HR business partners,
for the, the, leaders themselves, right.
To really, really help them make meaning of, you know, what is potential, what are the different pieces of it? Otherwise, don't do this exercise because it takes a lot of time, a lot of resources and brings me to my next question, which is. You know, you had mentioned to me before Melissa, when we were planning the episode, you know, how important it is to make sure that something happens after this annual process, if it's an annual, for sure.
So maybe you could talk a little bit about that.
[00:17:27] Melissa: Yeah. this is a passion point for me, Lisa, because I'm not much on going through the motions and ticking the box. Ooh, we completed that.
process. Let's put the file away. Save away. We go type of thing. And so the whole talent plan. Should be an integrated living, breathing machine that is always around the surface.
And so talent assessment, talent review, and succession planning. Yes. Those are events that happen. And I typically recommend that they happen twice annually with a big annual one and then a check-in midpoint. And they are part of that. Let's check the talent. Let's make sure we've got a place. Let's get the information for the board, but the big piece to make this worth your time is the action planning and the development that comes after. And I think that's where a lot of companies fail down or start to get annoyed with the process, because if you're not doing that last piece, that it really is just a check, the box exercise that takes up a lot of time for leaders at all levels who are participating either in the assessment piece or the succession planning, coming after the talent review.
And so what I tend to recommend, and I like to pursue with organization. Is that I mentioned earlier, Lisa, that a lot of times leaders are afraid to, or just haven't had the conversations with people. And then they're like, well, I can't go out and say, you're in this box number or, you know, you're versatile talent.
And, and part of me is like, why not? And so one, I think it's really helpful for a center of excellence, a talent leader to create something called along the lines of talent. And this is something we did with Rivera of saying, okay, so you have all these different categorized talent in the organization, create a tool that HR can help the leaders with to go out and have conversations and celebrate them whether high professionals or versatile talent.
And it helps them to understand really what does this mean? What are the types of discussion topics that I might have with this particular type of talent. And then where is the focus? Because great example would be if you've got a high professional, so someone who is on the low end of potential, because there are deep subject matter expert.
Moving them around and taking them out of their comfort zone is going to be disastrous. The focus there really is around how do I engage and reward this type of talent? Because when I know what will be important to them, then I can engage them and reward them appropriately versus versatile talent. On the other side of the scale, you know what, there, the focus there is more on growing.
And so it's providing them examples of whether it's engaged and reward or grow and, and retain, or, or teach and onboard because there's someone new it's providing them the tools on what are some things that I might consider for the. Engagement development and reward. And what are the topics that I'm going to go out there with them, the questions I'm going to ask them for.
And so I find that in itself is the most basic step that we can accomplish. As talent professionals is getting business leaders to talk with their different levels of talent in a way that's going to be meaningful and create a sense of belonging for them.
[00:21:01] Lisa: I agree. I, you know, it comes back to what's appropriate. What's the appropriate development, you know, an opportunity for each person, in each category kind of thing. So it's, it's just helpful to, you know, it's really, it's really applying critical thinking. Isn't it? Whether you use a structure like a nine box.
Or not it's, it's trying to figure out okay. If I had a hundred dollars and that's all I've got to spend on people, right? How am I going to distribute that across the team based on what they need.
Right. So it's also matching up what you've got to work with, but there's all sorts of low costs, no costs kind of development opportunities that you can offer, but this helps you start to puzzle through that and you will be more likely to get it right.
[00:21:42] Melissa: And if you do a one size fits all, you're going to lose talent because that's not what they want. And so all the more important to know and understand the talent on your team and to have the conversations that are going to be most engaging.
[00:21:56] Lisa: I agree. You know, I re I remember earlier in my career when I was reading. Working with you know, talent reviews and succession planning and leading those quite often and feeling frustrated that, you know, I think we we've gotten to say the third year, you know, maybe it was four and the leaders were feeling little weary and, you know, at some people saying, oh, like, why are we going through all this and a full day?
And you know, when really we don't see much movement on the, on the. and so time consuming in some people, they just are, they're just, they're just steady at ease and they're going to stay there and it is what it is. And these were usually the same leaders that really did. Spend any kind of time in between sitting down with people, having the conversation, trying to understand what's important to people.
So that's why there's no movement now movement. Isn't always the goal though, either, right? In some cases it's perfectly fine that somebody stays in that middle for instance, right. They're not aspiring to go higher. That they're, that they love what they do, or they could be, you know, have a retirement horizon or a maternity leave coming up or whatever it is, you know, there's different reasons.
Why people might, might decide to just kind of, I'm good. I'm good with what I'm doing. I don't want to really particularly grower or focus on my, my professional growth. But, but at the same time, we need to understand that we need to have be having the conversation. So if there's no effort to meet people where they're at it can be a bit tricky.
So I think. this takes me down the road of, you know, is it time to move on from the nine box? I mean, what if we actually got rid of the, the big, long day long, two day long meetings to review people instead, you know, allocated. H R O D support to leaders. You know, having them spend less time in a big meeting and talent leaders spending less time planning and facilitating, but really spending more one-on-one time with people, helping them figure out like really actionable, realistic, relevant, you know, development plans that are actually going to be something that they will put in place.
What do you think about that?
[00:23:59] Melissa: So I'll admit, like the nine box and I find it has worked for me and the leadership teams and the companies that I have worked with over the past. But I think that's because of all the front end work and the backend work that?
went in to make it not just a.
I do think there's probably opportunity and potential to simplify it.
Maybe it's not a nine bucks, maybe it's a four bucks. where I see the helpfulness of the nine box is to help people differentiate their. And that is so critical. That is a strategy in itself to differentiate talent in an organization as a strategy that you can build on. And you have to do that to have the big.
Bang for your buck and know, where am I putting the investment and how much investment like you alluded to earlier. So there's some that the investment is very different for, and I'll give you an example leveraging. Uh, Grid, whether it's nine bucks or a four, a four box or something to that impact, what it has allowed us to do in past lives is to be able to create you get your, your slate, you do your succession planning and get your slate. So what, okay, well, when you align your talent, review up with your succession, then if they're in those top boxes, then they should be on your succession plan. If you're not, then I'm going to challenge how you have assessed your talent.
But then more importantly, once you get the differentiated talent, talent, and you know who that. That group along the top line is, one of the practices that I have leveraged over the past is the creation of acceleration. And this is really around, okay. All talent is valuable, but we've got a select group of people who are identified as high potential or high professional that we know they can go into either more senior roles in their, their area of expertise or into broader general management.
And this group becomes. There are considered corporate talent and they receive accelerated development through increased investment. And so this is something that I has, I have found works well. It has a few moving parts to it and certainly involves the creation of an executive development board. So engaging not just the CEO and the CHR, but a couple of other leaders from the business to really focus in on this group of industries.
And that's where I find the talent assessment and having something that's clear and having a grid to that aspect is helpful in getting very clear on who are the individuals that I will confidently place into an acceleration pool and have that increased investment in them. And the, and I'm happy to talk a little bit about what that might look like.
But that's where I find it. It's helpful. Whether it's a nine box, a four box or whatever you want to call it. I think you need some kind of tool to differentiate your talent.
[00:27:09] Lisa: Oh, I, yeah. I agree with you as well. I mean, Yeah. So when you think about giving up the nine box, I mean, some of the, the, you know, the thought leadership I've been reading about the case for, for doing this. I think it's, it's not about giving up structure, it's changing the structure, you know, so that it's not so invested in these huge prep meetings ahead of time, or, you know, whatever yours looks like.
And then, and then these big group kind of sessions where people are debating and, so on where, you know, placement I think it's kind of turning that on its head. Is there a more efficient way to get at the same thing? I would love to hear actually, you know, you were talking about with the acceleration pools and, and executive development board, please do share you know, some more specific examples of what that.
[00:27:54] Melissa: Yeah. Sure. So we have done this in past years and. requires a lot of upfront planning and engaging. an example, I'll use is a creation of an acceleration pool of BPS
VPs who are going to that are on the slate for future senior management positions in the organization.
And so it it's really coming back to say, okay, so this isn't just about, You know, send them to training. But if we don't be said that.
people are either ready now, ready in a year, ready in three years. Okay.
So what are you going to do to get them ready? And especially in larger organizations or medium medium-sized organization, a lot of that is about cross-pollinate. And so, in those acceleration pools and they should be small. Right. the higher you go, the fewer openings and opportunities there are. And, but what we have done with acceleration pools is you come in and it is. You've been nominated. So this is an elite group that only gets to join by nomination and you have to commit and accept that nomination.
And if you don't want to that's okay. That tells us something else we have assessed wrong. And you need to understand that you're signing up for something that's going to last for a period of time, roughly around two years. And so we are going to expect you to do your. And commit to your personal and professional development.
So we
create profiles for them. We share this group and give exposure to the board of directors. One of my favorite things of doing with an acceleration pool is creating fireside chats and having these intimate conversations with six to eight people. Different volunteer board members who come in and talk about topics that are very near and dear and important to the challenges that they might be facing or the experiences that they're looking to gain.
So that group gets the invitations to the accelerator. Fireside chats are there for the board meetings and how do we ensure that they're presenting and not their CC suite leader? One of the things that I have found works really Well, with an acceleration pool as increased investment is pure coaching and in a small group for each, and really being able to put leaders together from different parts of the business, where they suddenly break down some of those silos. and forget about their titles and realize that, Hey, we're all VPs. And we have a lot of the same challenges, whether you work in finance and I work in office. And it helps to build that collaboration, uh, across the different disciplines in the organization as well. And so we've had used a very specific approach in partnership to be able to do peer coaching.
And it's also around mentoring one that they've got an active mentor and two that they are giving. To the next level of talent at the director level. And so that they go through formal training and become mentors themselves. They also are asked to be four runners in leadership training. So you know, that they've completed all the leadership training that they can speak about it and encourage other people.
what I find works well with acceleration pool. If you just create an acceleration pool and all this programming that is obviously driven by the center of excellence leader how do you engage the C-suite and how do you make sure that there's a connection to the business? And so that's where it's important to also have the executive development board that oversees. And gives diverse thoughts and opinions on the progress and what to do. And as I mentioned that executive development board, it has to have the buy-in and the participation leadership of the CEO, the top HR person, and then a few C-suite numbers or SVPs from different parts of the business and basically their role.
Is to steer the accelerated development, to confirm the pool members, to make sure that they're supporting development actions and that they're reviewing progress and next steps. So ultimately the company is able to fill their leadership roles when they need to.
[00:32:07] Lisa: Well, and it also goes to the, the, the whole, you know, the three E's the education experience exposure, right. It's giving exposure, to the right people. Right. Cause cause often that's, that's part of, part of the challenge. Greg is making sure that everybody has a view to who's out there and sometimes it's not.
But somebody working over in, I don't know, marketing might have this incredible background in operations management and you just happen to have, you know, a role that, that needs somebody with kind of the marketing know how to lead that function. So, I think, I think this whole concept of acceleration pools, I've, use it with sort of different language and so on and slightly different take.
I really love this though with the executive board and involvement, you know, another piece that I've seen used and have used myself as having people in. Acceleration pool or hypoxic or whatever, whatever you call them be involved in a year, year plus work project. Right? So it's, it's in addition to their existing role, but they're given real life, challenge that the organization.
Is facing that they're trying to figure out or an innovation opportunity. And they're kind of like a task force assigned to this with you know, figuring out ways to, to engage and mentor the people that report to them, and also to be able to present upwards and get feedback on their thinking. And so it's kind of like a mini real life MBA, if you will.
[00:33:33] Melissa: yeah, Yep. I've done that with I guess it call it a, an acceleration pool at a previous, at another company in past lives where it was directors, high potential directors that were going to be on the slate for VPs. And we created an action learning project. And I will tell you, it was a lot of heavy lifting for me, but it was the most amazing experience to watch These directors go through and work with and connect with senior leaders, sponsors from different parts of the business to work together that they had. No, I, you know, they're from totally different divisions and disciplines and working on these and then having that opportunity in the end, after. They've done this multi-month project work to present their ideas and solutions and action plans for top challenges or opportunities in the organization, and to be able to present and share that with senior leaders and board members what an amazing and rewarding experience for them
to do. I will warn any talent leaders out there that it's a lot of heavy lifting,
but it's definitely.
[00:34:45] Lisa: Yeah, that's that there in lies the rub one, one of the challenges and it's, it's balancing, you know, resource reward kind of thing, always as with any program that you lead, right. It's looking at what's what's overall going to be the benefit to the organization, to the individual talents. And how much do we want to put against that time effort, money?
So, you know, we're getting near the, the end of our time together. I'd love to inquire. If you have any great resources, you'd recommend people check out.
[00:35:19] Melissa: Yeah.
So I'm going to be upfront and transparent that I find the oldies, but goodies. And, so I've used them several times over the years, but what I do is I adapt them. For the organization that I'm working with or, or leading within to make sure that it's not just a cookie cutter fit. And so there there's three Poor things that I would share here.
One I will say that in all the research that I've done across the big companies out there in the space of assessing talent and succession planning one of my favorites has been Korn ferry. I love their seven signposts of leaders. And how they frame the experiences for leaders. And then also that's where I took a lot of the inspiration around our actual talent assessment piece and they have some great assessments to be able to support that.
So, you know, happy if anyone has questions, share a little bit on Korn ferry and their resources around leadership potential. Another resource that is out there that I've leveraged in the past. And I kept some really great research papers and toolkits is the corporate executive.
I love their stuff and it's very pragmatic and practical.
And then there's, there's two books that are go-to for me. And one, I, gosh, I don't even know how old it is now, but the leadership type.
[00:36:43] Lisa: Yes.
[00:36:44] Melissa: Sharon drawed her and I pulled it out actually and brought it with me to, to my desk because it is dog eared and they got sticky notes in it. And I go back to it all the time.
And the, the fourth one that I would share here is also a book Because I think books are awesome for generating ideas. The key is then to adapt. So it's a fit and it's customized for your organization. And so the other one that I would recommend is grow your own. And it's got a few it's by ham Smith and pays.
And that's a great book for getting your head around this whole concept of acceleration pools and executive development board.
And then you take that, that education and go. So that's nice. What will work here? What can I do in my company? And then you take the ideas and you customize.
[00:37:36] Lisa: Beautiful. Those are some great ones. I'll make sure that they're listed in the show notes. Yeah, a couple of others. You mentioned oldies, but goodies, one that I'd like to share is oh, I always go back to it. 99 assignments for development in place and I don't have it in front of me right now. Do you know?
[00:37:50] Melissa: I have it on my shelf, but I have absolutely heard of it. Yes.
[00:37:55] Lisa: Yeah, it's just, it's it's good for helping leaders. To, to figure out like, what are different low or no cost ways that they can develop people if they don't happen to be in an acceleration pool that's well-funded or they don't have much funding to speak of at all. it looks at what's the competency you're trying to develop or the potential.
And then how can you provide some opportunity, you know, it might be like you mentioned earlier doing. Uh, Fix it assignment, right. Taking low-performing department and turning it around that kind of thing. Another one is also making sure this is more of an approach versus a resource, but really, you know, boiling talent review and succession planning down to its essence, which is getting development right.
And spending time on it so that it's appropriate and making sure, you know, I find it really helpful with leaders just to say, just make sure you're not doing. You know, it's the training tickets and send them to training. It's, it's more
multifaceted. So the three E's is really helpful. You know, there might be a bit of education and what some experience we can provide them and some exposure.
And if you do those three things for each person in some degree I think you, you get a lot further to helping people grow in a way that's meaningful for them and the organization.
[00:39:01] Melissa: For sure. And, you know, for talent leaders that are listening that are like, well, I've got strapped budgets and you know, it's hard to get any money. You know, when I talked about those pieces that I've leveraged in the past for acceleration pools 98% of them have No, cost associated with them other than time. In internal time and effort, it does not have to be an expense that is too hefty for a company.
[00:39:27] Lisa: No, does have to be thoughtful, but thoughtful does not equal expensive.
[00:39:32] Melissa: Yeah, exactly. I am the queen of how do you do something on low cost to be that's just the nature of business, right? And so if you've got the skill and the talent internally, or you've got a reasonable contact externally then you can do this without huge expense.
[00:39:52] Lisa: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Well, and another, another resource too, that I want to mention that again, this is, this is more around the design and development of program is, is Derrick. Bye Brittany, because I love her language. She's brought her research to, to bear in the leadership sphere. And I think that there's a lot of wisdom in there in terms of language that you could put, you know, food for thought that you could bring over to how you design whatever your succession planning process looks like.
So that might be one to check out if you're not familiar with it. And finally, I think it's your peers, right? Like Melissa, you were talking just a moment ago about, you know, helping people in these. Pools get peer coaching. And I think that when you. On your own and organizations, you know, talent leaders so often caught in that organizational middle.
I always say that, you know, you forget, you don't have to be alone. You you've got, you know, there's people that you've met that are in similar roles and you can reach out to them and say, what are you doing? Do you have any resources? I know, I, I constantly forgot that, right. It was so easy to get swept up in the meetings, meetings, meetings, and the never ending list of stuff to forget, to ask for help to seek it.
So, I mean, I know I'm biased because I was telling you in the green room about the talent trust, my new program, which is a peer based community that allows people to get that input and feedback and figure stuff out how, how they're going to adapt it to their own organization. But I really think that.
Peer learning and, and leaning on each other, you know, the who are in it too with you is, is important. And it means being a little more deliberate in thinking outside your own country.
[00:41:28] Melissa: And to build on that, Lisa and, and speaking more of on the newer side, you know, you and I, and our oldies, but goodies and, but going forward, there's, there's two pieces that I would really encourage talent leaders to research and, and connect with others on, because I think there are tremendous.
Opportunity to really tackle in a cohort or in a team. One is around
helping leaders to identify what gets in their way and then diminish that. And that falls under the concept of positive intelligence. And there's some great research out there on this piece by shares ad Sherman. My favorite.
[00:42:08] Lisa: Yeah. Did his program.
[00:42:10] Melissa: I love it. And the other piece that I, that fits very nicely with that and someone else I would recommend reading is Dr. Susan David and her book, emotional agility,
the more that we can help leaders, especially those leaders with the ambition and the agility and the, the ability to grow. I think in this world and what we're experiencing and how leadership is changing that. Emotional agility needs to be added to that umbrella of agility and to really help people to, you know, amp up their PQ and sorry, forgetting all acronym version here in talent world. But I think that is an Ackerman that really needs to come into the talent center of excellence.
[00:42:55] Lisa: Yeah, so just, just for the audience. So I'll put again, put these in the show notes, but positive intelligence is a New York times bestseller by Sherzad Shamine and he actually has a free assessment on his website. That helps you identify your saboteurs, your, your, your specific inner critics and ways to manage those really, really useful Susan David's.
So if you're, if you're somebody who's also going, okay. Level the book suggestions guys, but I only have so much time. Susan David actually offers a newsletter it's well done. So I do recommend that.
[00:43:27] Melissa: And she has a fabulous Ted talk. If you want to get the flavor of it
and 16 minutes look her up on Ted.
[00:43:33] Lisa: Yeah. Wow. Oh my goodness. I think you, and I just need to spend a day together just talking about all of these together. Nevermind on a podcast.
[00:43:42] Melissa: can feel it Lisa, like we're starting to geek out here again.
[00:43:46] Lisa: Yeah, I think we're getting leaky. So maybe that's a clue that we should, we should wrap up. Well, thank you so much for, for coming on the show again, it's been a pleasure. I'm sure this won't be our last one either. Just to, to geek out on all things succession planning.
[00:44:00] Melissa: Wonderful. Thanks so much for having release. It's always a pleasure.
