Most organizations apply little to no rigor to identifying and cultivating their best players. But what if they had to create a deep bench to draw?

This is what the best championship athletic teams have in common with the best business leadership teams. The New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves baseball teams have competed brilliantly on the strength of the deep bench and the development of exceptional players in the minor leagues. While the occasional champion teams buy their place with newly acquired veteran teams, the mighty winners demonstrate the power of relentless scouting, the growth of the most talented farming teams, and the skillful management of player movement through the system.

Business leaders have similar ambitions. Yet most leadership teams can only dream of perennial top leadership at companies like General Electric. In the current economic downturn, ensuring effective leadership succession in organizations has never been more important.

Two decades of failure in most organizations have taught us some key lessons:

• Don’t confuse strategic planning with forecasting. Effective succession or talent pool management is concerned with building a series of feed pools up and down the entire leadership line. In contrast, replacement planning is narrowly focused on identifying specific backup candidates for particular senior management positions.
• Stop focusing on annual staff reviews. These have become forced administrative tasks. They are events that do not continue processes through which decisions are made and the results are verified. CEOs need to set the talent agenda instead of spending all their time on finances or keeping the board happy.
• Stop developing “clone” executives. While executive involvement in talent development is paramount, they shouldn’t have sole responsibility for their replacements. Executive continuity is often not the right goal. When the pressure to grow or reduce the size of the company produces significant changes in strategy, changes in leadership styles become necessary. Companies that create an effective succession management process quickly anticipate and fill succession gaps. They also identify employees with high management potential and actively plan their careers and development to build “bench strength.” These companies align their human capital strategy with their business strategy.
• Make recruiting and talent development a regular topic at board and executive team meetings, along with finance and marketing.. Best-practice organizations emphasize on-the-job development, not academic or seminar learning. They create progressive assignments, moving leaders through a series of challenging jobs quickly (every 18 to 24 months). These companies also carefully design assignments, providing clearly defined and measurable goals designed for scope and variety. And they individualize development, through experience, coaching, and mentoring. They help potential leaders build strong networks.

One study shows that 40% of all newly promoted executives and managers failed within the first 18 months of promotion because they didn’t build strong teams and network connections. Part of the problem lies in leadership training. Rather than relying on off-the-shelf, standardized training programs, successful organizations develop leaders on the job through a series of challenging and diverse experiences, offering feedback and training to maximize their learning experiences.

The concept and practice of succession planning must be refocused to include a more comprehensive set of assessment and development practices that support the entire flow of talent, from entry-level campus recruiting to general management selection. . Only then can the war for talent really be won.