It is a common practice in Succession Planning to rotate individuals through lateral career changes to gain experience that will equip them for future promotions. This is a very valid procedure. However, as a many employees will tell you, it is also very disruptive to their teams. If your manager is rotated every 12 to 24 months in order to get their job experience dance card punched – ouch. It creates upheaval due to varying decision making styles, in the communication rhythms, etc.

So, why not keep managers in their positions a little longer, but give them practical experience through projects? For example, give your high potential marketing manager purchasing experience by adding them as a business expert on the new purchasing system team. Then, as they need financial experience, place them on a team analyzing the new business plan of a subsidiary.

You can do this without removing managers from their regular post. Team participation, managed well, can lead to expertise gained by the employee and, in turn, the project team gains the knowledge of the business expert. If you avoid the ‘every team member must be in every project meeting’ way of thinking, this practice can be a win-win for everyone. You can’t make the project a full time job and still expect them to maintain their regular duties, but you can certainly integrate managers into key projects.

Cheers,
Lois

Lois Melbourne is CEO and Co-Founder of Aquire, Inc. a provider of visual workforce planning and management solutions based in Irving, Texas.