• Best-in-class organizations are more likely to have defined competencies at all levels or even for select positions.
• Competencies are solid predictors of both job performance and future potential - both short and long term.
• Competency-based selection exhibits higher levels of validity, reliability and utility.
• Using competencies to increase the rate of promotion from within is a hallmark of high-performing organizations.
• Employee's rated higher on critical competencies are significantly more productive.
• Select leadership competencies are drivers of employee engagement.
• The same set of competencies can be used to describe almost any job, anywhere in the world.

To learn more, check out this white paper on The Elegance of Competencies on my website.

I had a client ask about the benefits of doing succession planning so I did some research to see what I could dig up.  Here are some tidbits from what I found. 

• High performing companies not only do regular succession planning but make sure the talent assessments turn into concrete action plans.
• High performing organizations are 3.5 times more effective at succession management than low performing organizations.
• Doing succession planning just to create back-up lists is not very beneficial.  My own research shows the hit rate on back-up lists is about 15%.
• Organizations with high quality leadership development and formal succession management have much higher return on equity, higher profit margins and operating cash flow to net sales.
• Best in class companies are more likely to promote from within, to focus on developing talent across all levels, and to have a formal process of identifying high-potential.

By the way, I prefer the term Succession Management rather than Succession Planning.  If you'd like to learn how to build a robust Succession Management process, give me a call or read more about it.

Challenge:  A regional human services non-profit was facing new challenges that could threated its long-term viability.

What We Did: Designed and implemented a multi-stage process to improve the capacity and capability of the organization, starting with a revised business strategy and then linking the strategy to a leadership capability assessment and improvement process.