A lead rock climber carefully climbs up the face of a cliff, grasps narrow handholds, and secures the rope to the next anchor point.

Who is comfortable in this kind of situation? Who is ready to take on this lead climbing role? People who are willing to take risks and climb beyond where they’re secured so others can follow.

Just like lead rock climbers, the best business leaders have certain innate talents. The trick is identifying what those talents are, who in your organization possesses them, and then developing those future leaders now.

Leadership development — preparing the next generation of leaders — is crucial to ensuring organizational success. You need to ask who has the natural talent to lead. And who is ready.

Why Develop New Leaders Now

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 73 million baby boomers will hit retirement age by 2030. That equates to 10,000 people retiring per day.

This large group of retirees presents a challenge and over the last five years, organizations have experienced record-high executive-level turnover, including CEOs. Yet only 21% of companies have a formal succession plan in place. 

This needs to change. To adapt to changing workforce trends, organizations need to plan now to develop today’s talent into tomorrow’s leaders. Fortunately, we have a solution to help with just that: Talent+Ready^SM.

Benefits of Talent+Ready, According to Our Clients

One of our client partners in the healthcare industry shared their enthusiasm for Talent+Ready at our recent Talent Plus Summit in Washington, D.C. Here’s how Talent+Ready can benefit you, according to our client partner.

Prepare for Future Openings

Most organizations view succession planning as a preparatory exercise. Boards or executive committees often do this with senior leaders, vice presidents, directors and above. Talent+Ready gives you the information you need to prepare for these openings from within, rather than looking only externally. 

This works in a similar way as a hiring assessment, enriched with more data and tailored to your existing team. Talent+Ready presents, in grid format, who on your team is ready to step into a leadership role, who is an emerging leader, and who is possibly not ready yet.

“We thought, since we’re using this for folks that we’re hiring, we should be using this for folks that are already here,” recounted our client. “We realized we had an opportunity for development for our executives, and an opportunity for feedback.”

Combine Readiness With Engagement

You can combine these leadership discussions with 360 evaluations and engagement scores to fully develop individuals who you have in mind to become future leaders.

Succession planning is much bigger than just an exercise of naming folks.

– Vice President of HR, Hospital

“Succession planning is much bigger than just an exercise of naming folks,” our client said. “[If] Amy has these five strengths and her next level readiness is high, but her engagement scores are lower, [we can] look at her 360 and her engagement scores and [see if there’s] a correlation. Where are her opportunities that we need to help her to build out an IDP plan? That’s really the ultimate goal behind this as we round out the succession plan.” 

Develop & Retain Future Leaders

Using Talent+Ready is also an incredible development and retention tool. Hold conversations with the people you have in mind to step into leadership roles, based on their readiness score. This is an exciting conversation to have with team members because it helps them to imagine their future roles and potential. Give them feedback on what they do well, as well as what they need to learn for their next step.

“Everybody wants to be a director, and then they want to be a VP, and then they want the next job,” said our client. “You probably have folks on your team who are constantly striving for that next step. And this really grounds you. [Tell them] ‘You are going to be here for two years. You’re ready soon. That’s great news, and I need you to learn this and this.’”

Identify Hidden Talent

When it comes to planning who will take the reins, many leaders are subject to unconscious bias. If you have two direct reports, you imagine those two people could be your successors. They may have some of the knowledge and abilities to be the next leader, but what about their behaviors? What if the ideal successor is a few positions away?

Talent+Ready enables you to drill down into different levels and teams to identify anyone who has the talent and is ready to become a leader. This naturally diversifies your leadership roles.

[Talent+Ready] just gives us so many opportunities to look at what we have so that we know what we need to develop and we know what we need to recruit for.

“We can see this across different groups,” advised our client. “Maybe it’s just the CEO’s direct reports, or maybe we’re looking at just the vice presidents and above who are in nonclinical areas. Maybe we want to look at just the clinical areas or maybe we just want to look at physician leaders and where is our bench strength in physician leaders? It just gives us so many opportunities to look at what we have so that we know what we need to develop and we know what we need to recruit for.”

Embrace Your Future Climbers

As the business landscape evolves, so must our strategies for leadership development and succession planning. Talent+Ready stands ready to guide you on this transformative journey by helping you prepare for future leadership openings now. It will equip you to engage with, develop and retain future leaders, as well as identify hidden talent within your organization.

Discover the power to shape your organization’s future — explore Talent+Ready today.