In tough times, the last thing that should be slashed from corporate budgets are the development and training programs needed to turn today’s high potentials into tomorrow’s visionary leaders. Too often, however, they’re the first to go – a clear message that future leaders will not be grown from within, though they may be replicated to replace the leaders you’ve already got.

And what’s wrong with replication? After all, it sure makes the senior team feel good when they look in the mirror!

But enough about them, let’s take a look at the characteristics of replacement planning and succession planning and see which one is better for you.

Here’s how to spot replacement planning.

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A wise man once told me, just because a cat has kittens in the oven doesn’t mean you get muffins. I think he was talking about the current state of succession planning systems in organizations throughout North America. In other words, we shouldn’t be so surprised when our succession management systems fail to turn up the leaders we need. It’s not as if we put the right ingredients into the mix in the first place.

For example, take the wide variety of HRIS (Human Resources Information Systems) tools available to enable the succession planning process. In years past, an incredible amount of time and money was poured into such software systems. The problem is, having the “system” doesn’t mean you have the “plan”; it just means you have the software. So before you go beating the nearest techie with an optical mouse, consider this: it’s not the expensive product that’s at fault, it’s the data you plugged into it that caused your woes. In the jargon of the industry, that’s a condition known as “Garbage In, Garbage Out.”

The same analogy holds for those who claim that they have a succession management system.

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