Comments on Lean Blog: The Value Stream of Succession Planning and Leader...

Well Mike, you've got quite a challenge and I wish...

2008-07-24T17:46:00.000-05:00

Well Mike, you've got quite a challenge and I wish you the best of luck on it. Partially to my point, you're not in the middle of the succession planning, you're at the end of it, because the need is already evident. The beginning and the middle happen long before the need is recognized. We either manage that time period or we don't. It sounds like your firm did not and now you're paying the price for it. It's a tough situation and I hope you get through it as well as possible. Thank you for sharing.

Our company is in the middle of succession plannin...

2008-07-24T12:29:00.000-05:00

Our company is in the middle of succession planning, as a large amount of experience, both in office and manufacturing, is about to retire. In my opinion, we have not done an acceptable job of preparing for the retirements/loss of knowledge. I've been contemplating how to send Jamie's post to the necessary leaders without drawing critism.

I did, however, send it to some leaders in our organization not directly involved...hoping they might see fit to forward it to the necessary people.

Thank you for your comments Tony and Mark. It is m...

2008-07-24T06:34:00.000-05:00

Thank you for your comments Tony and Mark. It is more complex in a larger organizations, but the two advantages you have are volume (you might lose a few people, but if you have 100 to choose from that's still pretty good odds) and the resources to manage and develop the succession value stream where most family-owned businesses do not.

I also do not like "human capital" any more than I like "people are our greatest asset." People are not assets. They are partners. They are not owned, they make a choice to be there. We put assets on the financial books so we know the liquidation value if things go badly. You can't sell your people in a firesale. Assets depreciate. We certainly hope that our people do not (although too many do by their own accord). Enough of that soapbox.

Regarding your question about GE, I do not know if they have mapped their value stream, although I think they probably understand it that way. Many people have built such efforts - they have mapped HR processes, developed scoreboards right down to the first-pass yield of the hiring process. Yes, there are many intangibles but that doesn't mean we still shouldn't understand the process in a concrete and measurable way.

Does anyone have a case study that they would like to share with Tony?

I like the way you are thinking, as every organiza...

2008-07-23T17:02:00.000-05:00

I like the way you are thinking, as every organization certainly should be considering succession planning along with it's business strategy if it wants to survive. However, I am afraid that it is far more difficult to contemplate and design a succession approach in larger organizations than in the family-run and small businesses that you mention. Some larger organizations have started calling this a Human Capital Strategy or words of similar import. I personally don't like the "human capital" sound, but there is a growing industry acceptance of the term and a number of resources can be found to help flesh out such a plan.

I am a novice at lean, and don't know that much about value stream mapping. Do you know whether GE has documented their HR systems and processes in a Lean manner? Or has any other company done so who might be willing to share?

It seems to me that much of HR can NOT be measured, even though we seem to be rushing headlong towards universal pay-for-performance systems and other metrics of learning and development. Most of this is really is intangible and not represented in standard processes. How do value streams represent intangibles?

For further thoughts on intangibles, please take a look at http://valuenetworks.com/public/blog/207585

The book Toyota Culture describes something like a...

2008-07-23T07:04:00.000-05:00

The book Toyota Culture describes something like a people development value stream. It seems that Toyota views it that way.

I would love to hear people's comments on this. Ho...

2008-07-23T06:59:00.000-05:00

I would love to hear people's comments on this. How is succession planning done at your organization? Is it treated like an event or a value stream? Please share your ideas.