The Talent Wave: Why Succession Planning Fails and What to Do About It Book

Foreword
Acknowledgements

Introduction

01 What's wrong with succession planning?
What is succession planning?
Models of succession planning
Key themes in succession planning
How organizations go about succession planning
Effective succession planning
Evaluating the effectiveness of succession planning
A special problem of succession planning in smaller companies
So how do the wrong people get to the top?
Why succession planning doesn't work: a summary
Summary

02 A systemic perspective on succession and talent
Generation F: ambassadors of the complex adaptive system
Challenges for HR

03 What do we mean by leadership?
Post-recessionary leadership
Some critical leadership roles
Leaders versus leadership
Flawed leadership
Summary

04 The critical challenges, what is talent?
What do we mean by talent?
How do definitions of talent affect people's ambitions?
How do we identify talent?
A simpler way of identifying talent
The linear systems approach: competencies and grids
How far can we trust competency frameworks?
The nine-box grid: a reliable assessment or an illusion of rigour?
Is performance really measurable?
Is potential really measurable?
The "other" talent
Summary

05 Aligning careers and business needs
What do organizations and talented employees need to understand about each other?
Developing realistic yet flexible and opportunistic career paths
Creating alignment
Recognizing and using "transition points"
Retaining talent
Creating the environment for alignment

06 The critical challenges: the maturity question
Managing the maturity issue
Managing potentially fatal flaws
Making the maturity dialogue happen

07 Pools, pipelines or waves?
Dropping a rock in the talent pool
The perils of pipelines
Harnessing the power of the Talent Wave
Summary

08 Critical conversations
The importance of good questions
Critical conversations for succession planning
Critical conversation one: internal
Critical conversation two: employee and their stakeholders
Critical conversation three: wider organization and employees
Critical conversation four: between social networks
A strategy for career and succession planning conversations

09 Conversation 1: the inner dialogue
Managing the inner dialogue
Identity and values
Taking responsibility for your own career planning
Capturing the inner conversation
How the organization can help
Helping the employee plan their learning journey
Summary

10 Conversation 2: stakeholder dialogue
Dialogue between the line manager and the employee
Looking for talent
Finding development opportunities for the talent in your team
Harnessing stakeholder goodwill in your career and personal development
Dialogue with colleagues

11 Conversation 3: between the organization and employees
What do organizations need to know about employees' career aspirations?
How to gather and communicate information about likely roles in the future
Using the broader organizational conversation to support the Talent Wave
Making the broad conversations happen

12 Conversation 4: between social networks
Networking theory
Social networking and succession planning
Integrating organizational and employee social networks
Benefits of integrating organizational and individual social networks
Supporting employee-focused social networking
Summary

13 Succession planning for a dynamic world
Working within a complex, adaptive system
Harnessing the energy of the Talent Wave
Ensuring that talent development and succession planning systems enable rather than control
Making sure the four conversations happen
So can we prevent the wrong people getting to the top?
Conclusion

References
Index