Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Succession Planning

We provide full service talent management and talent development consulting services. Read our blogs in this category for stories and best practices from real clients and real research on Succession Planning.

  • The Leaders You Need Are Already Here

    The Leaders You Need Are Already Here

    Why Developing Emerging Leaders Matters Now

    The leaders you need may already be in your organization. They may not have a formal leadership title yet. They may be individual contributors, project leads, experienced team members, or newer employees who consistently show initiative, influence, curiosity, and trust. The challenge is not always finding leadership potential. Often, the challenge is recognizing it early and developing it with intention.

    Too often, organizations wait until there is a leadership gap before they start thinking about leadership development. Someone leaves. The business grows. A team needs a new supervisor. A high-performing employee gets promoted because they are great at the work. Then, almost overnight, the job changes. Success is no longer just about technical skill, individual productivity, or personal drive. Now, success depends on the ability to influence people, communicate clearly, coach performance, handle conflict, and make decisions that shape culture.

    That transition can be tough, especially when employees are expected to lead before they have been prepared to do so. Harvard Professional & Executive Development notes that emerging leaders need core management skills to drive organizational goals, foster innovation, build trust, and adapt to change. That is not just professional development. It is a business need.

    At Horizon Point, we believe leadership development starts by looking within. When organizations learn how to identify leadership potential and develop emerging leaders from within, they create continuity, strengthen culture, increase engagement, and prepare for future growth. They also send an important message to employees: we see your potential, and we are willing to invest in it.

    Leadership Development Should Be Customized

    In our work with organizations across industries, we see this over and over again: generic leadership programs rarely create lasting change. Organizations need leadership development that connects to their real business challenges, values, people, and future goals.

    For one organization, leadership development became a key part of succession planning. Horizon Point partnered with senior leaders to identify the competencies needed at different levels, clarify the talent pipeline, and equip current leaders to become more intentional career developers for others. The goal was not simply to “train managers.” The goal was to help leaders become active developers of talent throughout the organization.

    This aligns with guidance from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which describes succession planning as a systematic approach to building leadership pipelines, developing potential successors, and focusing resources on talent development. Leadership development is not separate from workforce planning. It is one of the ways organizations protect continuity, capability, and future performance.

    From Insight to Action

    We have also seen the impact of customized assessment and coaching work. In one engagement, Horizon Point helped design a customized 360 assessment aligned with organizational values and leadership competencies. The assessment data became the foundation for individual development action plans and succession planning decisions. Participants received coaching to understand their results, identify strengths and gaps, and create clear improvement plans.

    That is the power of a well-designed leadership development process. It provides both insight and action. Data without development can feel like a report card. Development without data can feel unclear. Together, they give organizations a practical way to grow people with purpose.

    The Center for Creative Leadership emphasizes that effective leadership development should connect to business strategy, include real-world application, and be reinforced over time. We see this in practice every day. The best programs give leaders space to practice, reflect, receive feedback, and apply what they are learning in real situations.

    What Environment Do You Create?

    One of the most thought-provoking questions we ask emerging leaders is simple: What environment do you create?

    Leaders may not be able to motivate people directly, but they can create the conditions where motivation, ownership, and growth are more likely to happen. They can clarify expectations. Build trust. Connect work to purpose. Give feedback in a way that develops instead of discourages. Manage different personalities, communication styles, and conflict responses. Make people feel seen, challenged, and supported.

    That is why leadership development must begin from within. It starts with self-awareness. Emerging leaders need to understand how their own habits, values, communication patterns, and assumptions affect others. From there, they can build awareness of the people they lead.

    Building Leaders from the Inside Out

    Every organization will face transitions: retirements, growth, restructuring, new markets, changing workforce expectations, and evolving customer needs. The question is not whether leadership gaps will appear. The question is whether the organization is preparing people now to step into them.

    At Horizon Point, we create and customize leadership development programs that help organizations grow leaders from the inside out. Sometimes that means designing a full leadership development or succession planning process. Sometimes it means facilitating existing curriculum locally with excellence and care. Sometimes it means assessment, coaching, train-the-trainer support, or workshops focused on the skills new leaders need most.

    Because when organizations develop emerging leaders with intention, they do more than fill future roles. They build stronger cultures, more capable teams, and workplaces where people and performance can grow together.

    To learn more about developing emerging leaders and building a strong leadership pipeline, explore these related blog posts:

    From Manager to Coach: Coaching Leadership That Builds Teams

    6 Steps for Choosing Leadership Training Content and 7 Recommended Frameworks

    Interested in developing emerging leaders within your organization? Explore our newly revised Leadership Development webpage to learn how Horizon Point helps organizations build leadership capacity, strengthen succession planning, and prepare leaders for future success.

  • Building Career Paths That Keep Your Best People

    Building Career Paths That Keep Your Best People

    During an employment interview, the question, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” is almost always asked. It’s a great question—and an important starting point for building career paths for employee retention—but too often, it’s treated as a one-time conversation instead of an ongoing commitment.

    What would change if organizations didn’t just ask that question—but continued to revisit it after the employee is onboarded? That shift alone can make a significant impact on employee retention. Because the reality is this: employees want to know they have a future—and they want to know someone is invested in helping them get there.

    At Horizon Point, one of our favorite tools to use for this is our Leaders As Career Agents Form.

    Don’t Let the Conversation Stop After Day One

    The hiring process is full of meaningful dialogue about goals, growth, and potential. But once an employee starts, those conversations often fade.

    When that happens, employees are left to figure out their career path on their own.

    Instead, organizations should:

    • Revisit career goals early and often
    • Connect initial aspirations to real opportunities
    • Keep development conversations active—not annual

    When employees see that their long-term goals still matter after they’re hired, engagement increases—and so does retention.

    Make Career Paths Visible and Flexible

    Career paths shouldn’t be rigid ladders—they should be dynamic and adaptable.

    Employees need to see:

    • Multiple ways to grow (not just promotions)
    • Clear skill-building opportunities
    • Real examples of internal movement

    Revisit the “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” question regularly. Goals change, and career paths should adjust accordingly. And, check out 4 Ways to Get Unstuck with Professional Development for more ideas from HPC.

    Here’s an example:

    Maria joined a manufacturing company as a process engineer and shared her goal of leading improvement initiatives. Her leader revisited that goal after onboarding, mapped a clear path, and provided mentorship, project ownership, and regular check-ins. Within two years, Maria was leading key initiatives—and stayed—because she could see her future and felt supported in getting there.

    The Bottom Line

    Building career paths isn’t just about development—it’s about employee retention.

    When organizations:

    • Continue the career conversation beyond the interview
    • Equip leaders to act as career agents
    • Align employee growth with business goals

    They don’t just develop their people—they keep their best people.

  • Baby Boomers are Retiring – How do we fill their shoes?

    Baby Boomers are Retiring – How do we fill their shoes?

    This month, we’ve been talking about What’s Impacting the Labor Force Participation Rate.  Last week, Lorrie shared how the Benefits Cliff impacted the participation in When Working Costs Too Much. Another significant factor in this equation is Baby Boomers exiting the workforce. Let’s dive a little deeper.

    Baby Boomers account for 1 in 4 American workers. As they are exiting in droves, their absence will lead to an even wider workforce gap as companies will need to fill positions made available after the Boomers retire. Check out this article from The Washington Post to learn more: The boomers are retiring. See why that’s bad news for workers.

    Who will fill the gap? Here are 3 possible solutions:

    1. Mentorship –  Baby Boomers have a wealth of knowledge to pass along. One promising option to help with the transition is the creation of a baby boomer knowledge transfer and replacement program that focuses on senior employees transferring their knowledge before they retire.
    2. Remote workers – If given the opportunity, Baby Boomers as well as other generations who are willing to work remotely, possibly part-time, may also be a solution in some industries.
    3. Immigrant workers – Foreign workers are already filling the gap in STEM fields. According to 2018 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. workforce increased to 28.2 million foreign-born workers. There are several other fields where immigrant workers can help fill the gap.

    Stay tuned for more solutions to the Labor Participation Rate issue!

  • 3 Steps to Actually DO Succession Planning

    3 Steps to Actually DO Succession Planning

    With the great resignation still continuing and baby boomers, who many feel delayed retiring, now retired or retiring in large numbers due to the pandemic, succession planning has never been more important. 

    But as we’ve seen through many of our clients (and ourselves!), the need to get something done and getting it done are two different things.  When it comes to succession planning, I think the key challenge is not knowing where to start and the steps to take once started.  Overall, you need to:

    1. Know your current talent state.  This involves several sub-steps of determining: 

    a. What’s your talent funnel? This means mapping how people progress through the organizational hierarchy, determining the number of people needed at each level of hierarchy, realizing how turnover affects each level, and getting a good picture of the number of people needed to fill key vacancies. 

    b. What are your performance standards? This should be mapped out through your mission, vision, and values as an organization and connected to the KSAOS of each position. 

    c. And how do you measure them? A performance evaluation tool should be used, and in the case of succession planning especially, a way to measure performance potential should be deployed. 

    d. How is each person performing towards your company’s performance standards? Your measurement tools give you the way to determine how people are performing towards standards.  In this step, it’s critical that leaders deploying the tools should be trained on how to use them effectively and given the bandwidth to execute this process effectively. 

    e. And what do they want out of your career? Understanding what individuals want and expect out of their career progression is imperative to this process.  If you don’t know what people want, you may plan for progression that ends up being sabotaged because it doesn’t meet people’s needs or expectations.  For more on this, read about our Leaders as Career Agents Process (Taylor is also speaking about this at the Birmingham SHRM meeting in May if you want to learn more!)

    2. Know what you need to fill talent gaps both in terms of the number of people as well as the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOS) needed for each position vacancy.  This should consider not only what is needed to fill key vacancies in the current state, but also what will be needed to facilitate organizational growth.  It also includes an accounting of what training and development are needed to equip people to fill the gaps.  

    3. Execute a talent management and development system and plan to meet the needs found in your gaps.  Again, to execute effectively it is essential that leaders deploying the process are 1) trained to deploy it and 2) are given the bandwidth and support to deploy it well.  In addition, it is critical that there be a calibration process done through collaboration to work across department lines to facilitate effective succession planning. 

    Want to learn more about this process through a real-life case study?  Mary Ila is speaking at ALSHRM 2022 today (May 3, 2022) about this, but you can also catch her at Florida SHRM speaking on the topic in August 2022. 

    How do you successfully execute succession planning for your organization? 

  • Defeating the Kobayashi Maru, the No-Win Situation

    Defeating the Kobayashi Maru, the No-Win Situation

    My 13-year-old came to me last week and said “Mom, we are living through history. In five to ten years, kids will learn about this pandemic in history class and I’ll be able to say ‘yeah, I was there’!” And he’s right. 

    Students will hear about how our world came together to fight COVID-19. They will be amazed by the fact that we quarantined, that so many businesses had to close their doors, but hopefully, they’ll be inspired by the way we innovated to overcome this pandemic and support those in the front lines. 

    I don’t know that we ever could have been fully prepared for what this virus has presented us with, but I do think we could have been more prepared than what we were. In my fifteen years in HR, I’ve only had one client that had the forethought to create a Pandemic Response plan. Even during my time in healthcare, the facility I worked at had a plan for outbreaks, we managed the H1N1 flu with ease, but wouldn’t have been prepared for something of this magnitude. 

    While we as a nation weren’t prepared for the worst-case scenario, and we’ve quickly exhausted our usual resources, we’ve stepped up to the challenge and begun to think outside of the box. So many people and companies have come forward to help, from people around the country sitting at sewing machines making masks for healthcare providers, using 3-D printers to make masks, veterinarians donating their equipment, reconfiguring CPAP machines to function as ventilators, automakers shifting to make ventilator parts, breweries making hand sanitizer, and the list goes on. 

    There’s a saying out there “expect the unexpected, then it becomes the expected.” Imagine how much quicker we could have responded if we had thought outside of the box before a pandemic hit if we had imagined the absolute worst-case scenario instead of just what we were used to. That company I mentioned above that had a Pandemic Response plan in place, together we took that plan and turned it into a full-scale Business Continuity plan. They were prepared for the worst-case scenario, they knew what to do if they had to shut down their facility if their employees all had to work remotely. They went into this pandemic prepared, simply implementing the plan they already had in place. And in speaking with them recently, that implementation went very smoothly. And not only were they prepared for a pandemic, but they’re also prepared to handle other worst-case scenarios such as a natural disaster. 

    How could having a Business Continuity Plan have impacted your organization’s response to this pandemic? 

    1. Assess. Business Continuity plans help organizations consider the Kobayashi Maru, the no-win scenario. What major events could impact your organization’s ability to function? Plans help organizations assess the risk of a pandemic, a natural disaster, a blizzard, a major power outage, data loss, and other “it would never happen here” situations. 
    2. Prepare. Business Continuity plans allow organizations to do just what Kirk did in Star Trek; redefine the problem to create a winning solution. Once you’ve assessed those worst-case scenarios, you can start to determine how your organization would need to react in each case. Who is considered a key employee to help get your organization through the situation, who is responsible for communication, how will you keep your employees working and continue to be able to pay them? What resources might be at risk and how do you acquire alternative resources? How do you implement remote work, do you need to stand up an alternative work site or data center? Is there something your organization can offer others in each scenario to help minimize the impact or provide necessary resources to your community? Once your plan is complete, practice it. Make sure everyone knows their role and responsibilities. And review the plan annually to make sure it is up-to-date. 
    3. Respond. So many companies are struggling right now because they didn’t have a plan in place. Some struggled to figure out alternative work solutions, set up remote access for employees, determine how to manage a remote workforce, who is considered key employees, how to keep from having to furlough or layoff their workforces. By having a plan in place before disaster strikes, when it does strike, your organization is prepared to respond. You’ve already figured out the critical tasks that need to be completed to stay afloat, it’s just a matter of notifying your Disaster Response team that it’s time to act. And your response will be much faster and must smoother than organizations that didn’t plan ahead. 
    4. Recover. While the response is critical, planning for recovery is just as important. A major part of any good Business Continuity Plan is the recovery phase, which must begin almost immediately. Most Business Continuity Plans address the short-term needs of recovery, looking at recovery in three phases- the first 24-hours, the first week, and the second week. During these phases, organizations should be assessing their long-term needs and planning to meet those needs. As the recovery phase continues, some of those needs may change, so you must constantly be assessing and reassessing long-term needs. 

    How could your organization have been more prepared for this Kobayashi Maru? 

    For more information on Business Continuity Planning, check out Preparing for the Worst: Business Continuity Planning.