Day 1: Critical Positions and Leadership Success Profiles

Critical Positions and Risks

• Assess vacancy impact on business continuity
• Separate position importance from replacement difficulty
• Rank critical roles by exposure level
• Review dependency on a single incumbent

Leadership Success Profiles

• Define successful outcomes for each role
• Describe experiences critical for future performance
• Select capabilities distinguishing exceptional role performance
• Avoid copying the current incumbent profile

Future Leadership Capabilities

• Anticipate leadership challenges over coming years
• Identify capabilities increasing in future importance
• Balance technical expertise with leadership capacity
• Connect capabilities to organizational strategic direction

Day 2: Identifying Potential and Designing Development Pathways

Leadership Performance and Potential Evidence

• Separate achievement from future growth capacity
• Gather evidence across roles and situations
• Consider how prior opportunity affected performance
• Avoid single impressions when making nominations

Succession Candidate Readiness

• Assess readiness for each targeted position
• Estimate time required to close gaps
• Document risks associated with each candidate
• Compare candidates against the success profile

Stretch Development Experiences

• Choose assignments exposing a defined capability
• Provide support proportional to assignment challenge
• Assign a sponsor and learning measure
• Review learning after each experience concludes

Day 3: Succession Governance and Talent Committee Simulation

Succession Slates and Coverage

• Build near-term and longer-term successor options
• Review critical role coverage across units
• Include contingencies for unexpected leadership loss
• Prevent succession lists becoming promotion promises

Calibration and Retention Risk

• Compare ratings using shared evidence standards
• Surface bias during talent calibration discussions
• Monitor retention risk among strong candidates
• Document decisions and follow-up ownership

Talent Committee Simulation

• Present critical role case to committee
• Defend nominations using clear supporting evidence
• Revise development plans following calibration discussion
• Reach decisions balancing risk and readiness

• A risk exercise prioritizes business-critical positions
• An evidence lab compares performance potential and readiness
• A development studio builds meaningful stretch experiences
• A committee simulation tests calibration and succession decisions