William J. Rothwell - Effective Succession Planning (2005)(3-e)(en)

Exhibit 9-9. An Individual Potential Assessment Form

Directions: Individual potential may be assessed through many different approaches. One approach is to ask their immediate organizational superiors to rate employees—particularly those felt to be high-potentials—against various success factors, skills, competencies, values, or abilities that are felt to be correlated with future success at a higher level of responsibility.

Ask key job incumbents to rate their subordinates on each of the following generic success factors. (It is better to use success factors specific to the unique organizational culture.) A separate form should be completed on each high-potential. The completed forms may then be used as one source of information about individual strengths/weaknesses.

Ask the raters to place an x in the appropriate spot in the right column below the scale and opposite the success factor listed in the left column. Then ask raters to send their completed forms to the HR Department or to the organization’s Succession Planning Coordinator. There are no ‘‘right’’ or ‘‘wrong’’ answers in any absolute sense. However, raters may vary in their potential assessments, depending on how they interpret the success factors and the rating scale.

Appraising

Budgeting

Communicating

Controlling

Dealing with Change

Developing Employees

Influencing Others

Making Changes

Making Decisions

Managing Projects

Effectively

Organizing

Planning

Representing the

Organization

Effectively

Staffing the Unit/

Department

tional unit is asked to submit names of individuals who have advancement potential.

This approach is characterized by secrecy. Employees have little or no say in the process; indeed, they are not always aware that it is being carried out. No effort is made to double-check individual potential assessment results with individual career aspirations or plans to ensure that an appropriate match exists. An advantage of this approach is that it can be done quickly. Leaders simply fill out forms and return them to the human resources department, the SP&M coordinator, or a designated executive. Employees do not challenge the results because they are unaware of what they are. The organization thus retains strong control over SP&M and its results.

A disadvantage of this approach, however, is that employees have no stake in outcomes they did not help to shape. If the results are ever used in making succession decisions, employees may refuse promotions or transfers that conflict with their perceptions of their own desired work-life balance or their own career goals.

Participative Individual Potential Assessment

A second approach might be called participative assessment. Both individuals and their immediate organizational superiors enact important roles in the assessment process. Hence, it is participative. Periodically—such as once a year—employees undergo an individual potential assessment. It may be timed at the halfway point of the annual performance appraisal cycle so that potential assessment is not confused with performance appraisal.

Although there are many ways to carry out the process, one approach involves distributing individual assessment appraisal forms to employees and their immediate organizational superiors. Employees and superiors complete the forms, exchange them, and later meet to discuss the individual’s advancement capabilities. As with performance appraisals, the forms for individual potential assessment are usually prepared by the human resources department, distributed from that department, and the results returned to that department for filing in personnel records. (Alternatives to that approach are possible. For instance, completed individual assessment appraisal forms may be retained by the leader of each organizational unit.)

An advantage of this approach is that it allows ‘‘reality testing.’’ Individuals learn of possibilities for the future, which may interest them and motivate them; organizational representatives learn more about individual career goals and aspirations, thereby improving the quality of their succession plans. In this way, the assessment process provides an opportunity for mutual candor and information-sharing.

Key to this process is the individual potential assessment interview. It should be carried out in a quiet, supportive setting that is free of interruptions. The employee’s immediate organizational superior should set the pace, dis-

cussing his or her perceptions about the individual’s strengths and weaknesses for advancement—and the realistic possibilities for that advancement. Having an agenda can make an interview of this kind run smoothly. Another advantage is that employees have a stake in the assessment process. If the organization should have a need to make a succession decision, the likelihood is greater that employees will accept offers of promotions or transfers that match their career goals and organizational needs.

A disadvantage of this approach is that it can rarely be done quickly. Leaders and employees must devote time to it if it is to be valuable. Indeed, to gain the full benefits from it, leaders must be trained on effective interviewing skills. Another disadvantage is that the value of participative assessment is a function of the interpersonal trust existing between leaders and their employees. However, trust is not always present, nor is complete candor.

Several factors affect trust. Among them are past dealings between the organization and individual; the perceived candor of the organization’s representative; and the match between individual career goals and organizational opportunities. To cite two examples, suppose that an employee has personal aspirations that may eventually lead to her departure from the organization. She may be unwilling to share that information for fear of how it might affect her prospects for promotion. Likewise, leaders may be unable to share information about pending changes affecting the organization—such as the sale of a division or the dissolution of a product line—that may also impact career goals or succession plans.

Empowered Individual Potential Assessment

In this third approach, leaders provide guidance and direction but do not determine the outcomes or make final decisions affecting individual potential. Instead, they just share information and offer coaching suggestions. Individuals remain chiefly responsible for their own self-assessment and their own selfdevelopment.

Once a year, employees are encouraged to complete individual potential assessment forms, share them with their immediate organizational superiors, and then schedule meetings to discuss them with their superiors. (Some may even decide to discuss their forms with their mentors.) The form is usually created and supplied by the human resources department. However, it may—or may not—be called an individual potential assessment form. Alternative names might include career planning assessment form or individual development planning form (see Exhibit 9-9). In this approach, the initiative rests entirely with employees. They conduct their own individual assessments; they schedule assessment meetings with their immediate organizational superiors or with mentors in other parts of the organization; they are not required to participate in the assessment process, which remains voluntary. As with other approaches, however, it is usually kept separate from performance appraisals so as not to

confuse present performance and future potential. Individual potential assessment becomes a tool to help individuals understand how to qualify for advancement within the framework of the organization’s needs and their own career goals.

An advantage of this approach is that, like other empowerment efforts, it can be quite motivating to employees. Further, it discourages a philosophy of entitlement in which employees with a long service record feel that promotions are ‘‘owed’’ to them. Instead, the responsibility for advancement rests squarely on their shoulders, and they are expected to take an active role in setting their own career directions and finding the necessary resources to develop in line with those directions.

Another advantage of this approach is that employees are not given the impression, which is possible with other approaches, that they are guaranteed advancement. Management should state the message, loud and clear, that ‘‘we can’t guarantee promotions, but we can guarantee that those who have taken the steps to obtain the necessary qualifications for a higher-level position will be given due consideration.’’

However, the chief disadvantage of this approach is that the organization sacrifices control over employees. Indeed, it may not always be apparent whether replacements exist for each key position. It thus creates a talent pool rather than a position-oriented succession plan. In practical terms, this means that nobody may know at any time if even one person is ‘‘ready’’ to assume important positions in the organization.

Empowered individual potential assessment is likely to remain important, a mainstream approach. One reason is that it matches current thinking about the need to decentralize decision making and give the control to those who deal with customers or consumers daily. A second reason is that this approach can unleash individual initiative rather than stifle it, thereby motivating people to want to qualify for advancement.

The Growing Use of Assessment Centers and Portfolios

Since the previous editions of this book appeared in print, the world has changed. Organizations are now using assessment centers and portfolios to assess individual potential. But what are they?

Assessment Centers

Assessment centers are back as a tool for potential assessment in succession management.21 Of course, an assessment center is a process and should not be confused with a place. The idea is simple enough: create a realistic simulation of the work performed by those at targeted levels—for example, top man-

agement work—and then run individuals through the process to determine how well they perform in a higher-level (or targeted) position.

Assessment centers went out of fashion for a time owing to the hard work and expense involved in setting them up. After all, they must be based on the actual work performed (rather than subjective impressions) or the competencies linked to successful performance. The individual’s progress in the assessment center is rated by trained assessors who must judge the performance of the individuals. There is still concern in some circles about the time and cost involved in establishing and maintaining assessment centers and concern about the possibility of not being able to defend against discrimination complaints. An alternative is to send individuals through outsourced assessment centers, established by universities or by consulting companies. Unfortunately, the latter approach means that individuals may be rated against some other organization’s competency models, which could be a formula for misidentifying the abilities of individuals.

Ten classic errors have been identified in the use of assessment centers, and organizations that set out to use them should do their best to avoid these22:

1.Poor Planning

2.Inadequate Job Analysis

3.Weakly Defined Dimensions

4.Poor Exercises

5.No Pretest Evaluations

6.Unqualified Assessors

7.Inadequate Assessor Training

8.Inadequate Candidate Preparation

9.Sloppy Behavior Documentation and Scoring

10.Misuse of Results

Of course, the value of this approach is that it is thus possible to see individuals in action before they are promoted. That is a significant advantage. Assessment centers also do a good job of identifying actual behaviors—that is, observable actions—that are far more valid and reliable than notoriously weak job interviews.

Work Portfolios

How does an employer assess an individual’s relative readiness for a higherlevel job? One way is to focus on behaviors, which are essentially observable demonstrations. Competencies can be manifested as behaviors. And, of course, full-circle, multirater (that is, 360-degree) assessment is one way to measure

behaviors because raters are usually asked how often or how well they have seen an individual demonstrate behaviors linked to competencies.

Of course, an alternative to measuring behaviors is to focus on the outputs or outcomes of competencies. For instance, if examining the typing behavior of a secretary, a rater can focus on what he or she does while typing. But since that may be pointless, another way to measure the demonstration of competencies is through work samples. A work sample is literally an example of the work output. For a secretary, a work sample may be a typed letter or report. The rater can judge the quality of what the secretary produces.

How does measuring outputs or outcomes relate to succession planning and management? The answer to that question should be apparent. If, for example, a supervisor being groomed for the job of manager would be expected to produce budgets as part of the manager’s job, then he or she could prepare a budget and present it as an example of his or her work. If the supervisor does not do budgeting in his or her present job, then that can become the focus of developmental activities on a competency like ‘‘budgeting skill.’’ Carrying out that skill may be essential to qualify for promotion to manager, for instance.

A work portfolio, sometimes called a dossier, began in the art world. Artists must convince gallery owners to show their work. Since gallery space and time are limited, gallery owners want to know what quality of work the artist produces. To address that concern, artists compile examples of their best works—such as watercolors, charcoal drawings, oil paintings, or photos of sculptures—to show the gallery owner. These are assembled in a portfolio that the artist can carry with him or her. The gallery owner then judges the quality of the work—presumably the best work that the artist has done—and decides whether the artist’s talents warrant an art show.

The same idea can be applied to rating individuals’ abilities. They can be asked to assemble a portfolio that represents their best work—or, alternatively, represents the best work that they could prepare to show what they could do in a job they do not yet hold. For instance, a management consultant who is interviewing for an entry-level job might present examples of marketing materials he or she has prepared, proposals written, deliverables produced, and letters of testimony from satisfied clients. Similarly, a supervisor who is interviewing to become a department manager could provide examples of work outputs that are linked to essential requirements of the department manager’s job.

To create a work portfolio, start with the competency model or with a job description and ask: what are the outcomes, tangible or intangible, of that competency or work activity? The portfolio can then be prepared with the resume at the front, a targeted job description or competency model, and then work samples representing the supervisor’s efforts to demonstrate the real work performed by department managers. Work portfolios may then be compared for quality and the person whose work portfolio is best may be invited to participate in additional steps of the selection process.

The value of work portfolios is that they go to work results. It is not a matter of impressing interviewers alone, though participating in interviews may still be essential to be selected. But work portfolios have the advantage of focusing attention on desired results. Of course, a disadvantage is that raters may not assess the same work in the same ways without training and/or agreedupon guidelines for rating that work. Additionally, job applicants must understand clearly what they are being asked to provide by way of work samples. If they are not, then what can happen may not be good. For example, ‘‘when Optum, Inc., a White Plains, N.Y., software company, asked applicants to submit work samples, ‘we got in personal poetry and song lyrics,’ says Kelly Vizzini, director of corporate marketing.’’23 One time when I asked for a writing sample from a job applicant, he used a dolly to wheel in eleven large three-ring binders full of material he had written. Unfortunately, when that happened, I was away from my desk, and he left before I could return. When I did return, I was amazed to see an enormous stack of material sitting on my desk, which I had no room to store.

But the approach can also work well. Another time I conducted some supervisory training for a large organization. The Operations Manager wanted her thirty-five supervisors to take paper-and-pencil examinations. I dissuaded her of that and, instead, convinced her to have each supervisor assemble a notebook—a work portfolio—of his or her best work. That way, the Operations Manager could see for herself what level of work they performed, and that prompted much discussion as she reviewed what they regarded as good work samples. She was then able to use those work samples as a focal point for developing the supervisory group—and assess individuals for their potential for future advancement.

Summary

As this chapter has shown, information about future work requirements and individual potential is essential to an effective succession planning and management program. When paired with information about present work requirements and individual job performance, it becomes the basis for preparing individual development plans to narrow the gaps between what individuals already know and do and what they must know and do to qualify for advancement.

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