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Nick Stauffer, Organizational Development Manager, MacLean-FoggMost organizations believe they are doing succession planning. They have a spreadsheet. They have a 9-box. They conduct an annual review, name a few successors, file it away and move on. A year later, a critical role opens up and the panic begins.
That was roughly where MacLean-Fogg stood when I took ownership of our talent review and succession planning processes. MacLean-Fogg is a medium-sized, multi-site manufacturing company, and what I found was a system that looked thorough on paper but functioned as a bottleneck. It was time-consuming, disconnected from real development and almost entirely owned by HR and site leaders, with no meaningful involvement from the managers closest to the talent.
What we built in its place is not perfect, but it is working. Here is what changed and why it matters.
The Most Common Mistake in Leadership Pipeline Development
The original process at MacLean-Fogg evaluated employees across roughly a dozen competencies, blending what should have been a talent review with what functioned more like a performance appraisal. The result was a cumbersome annual event that produced a static Excel file no one looked at until the following year.
“The more valuable question is not who can do this job? but what does success in this role actually require and how do we develop someone to those specific competencies?”
The deeper problem is timeline thinking. Most organizations believe real leadership development happens mid-career or later. They wait, and then they scramble. The organizations that build genuine pipeline depth start developing people early, not just for the next role but for the role after that.
How to Structure a Leadership Pipeline: A Four-Level Readiness Framework
We restructured succession planning around four readiness levels:
● Ready Now (0 to 3 months): Fully prepared to assume the target role with minimal transition support.
● Ready Next (12 to 24 months): High-potential talent with a development plan in place and actively being executed.
● On the Radar (3 to 5+ years): Early-career talent showing signs of future leadership potential, not yet close to readiness.
● Temporary Fill-In: Can cover the role short-term during a vacancy, but not a long-term successor.
Before we defined these clearly, "Ready Next" meant five years to one manager and one year to another. Vague readiness levels produce inconsistent calibration and, critically, inconsistent development investment.
We also added a dimension that medium-sized, multi-site organizations often overlook: willingness to relocate. In a company where upward mobility frequently requires moving locations, knowing this early ensures you consider the right people when a role opens, rather than discovering a deal-breaker at the worst possible moment.
What Succession Planning Beyond the Org Chart Actually Means
A common failure mode is treating succession planning as a seat-filling exercise: identify who could sit in each chair if the current occupant left. It feels thorough. It is not.
The more valuable question is not who can do this job? but what does success in this role actually require and how do we develop someone to those specific competencies? Naming a successor without a development plan to close the gap is just putting a name on a spreadsheet.
We also shifted how we think about development trajectories. Early in my career, I planned for an employee's next move. That is too short a horizon. A high-potential entry-level finance employee should have a path mapped not just to manager but toward director, with the progressive developmental activities identified now that make each step achievable.
How to Measure Leadership Pipeline Health: Three Key Metrics
When the same two or three names appear on every succession plan, your pipeline is thin and you are over-relying on a small group. It also surfaces a retention risk you may not have been tracking.
We manage this through Quantum Workplace for all exempt roles and conduct calibration sessions at both the site and executive level. The calibration layer ensures talent visibility is not siloed within a single site or function. We also review throughout the year. Succession planning that happens only once annually does not actually influence decisions. Regular reviews create accountability for the development actions attached to each successor, including stretch assignments, mentorships and leadership program enrollment.
How to Get Managers and Leaders to Actually Engage with Succession Planning
One of the most impactful changes we made was expanding the process to include managers at every level, not just HR and site leaders. Development conversations become more frequent and more substantive when managers are invested in the outcome. They start identifying potential earlier because they are looking for it.
Is Your Succession Planning Program Actually Working?
Building a pipeline that works requires treating succession planning as a continuous process rather than an event, and being willing to invest in people long before the need feels urgent. By the time urgency arrives, you are already behind.
Nick Stauffer is the Organizational Development Manager at MacLean-Fogg, a privately held, medium-sized manufacturing company with operations across the United States. He leads talent management, leadership development, HR systems and organizational design.
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