Doris Sims Spies, SPHR is an international Talent Review and Succession consultant, speaker and author. Because Doris is an HRCI and SHRM Approved Provider, all presentations, webinars and workshops are eligible to provide HRCI and SHRM ongoing educational credits.

Presentations can be provided at your location, or in a webinar format. Multiple topics are described below.

(This is a good foundational presentation for a general HR audience)

Description: 
Attend this session to learn the business value of planning a new talent benchstrength strategy or enhancing a current talent strategy. Discover what sports teams and coffee beans can teach us about succession planning. Play the Talent Benchstrength matching game to review the similarities and differences between high performers, high potentials, successors, and key experts. View succession planning as a critical risk management business function, and obtain ideas to identify succession development actions to close competency gaps and to increase successor readiness.

  1. Learn how to help managers to more accurately identify top talent groups, such as successors, high performers, high potentials and key experts.
  2. Learn how to identify Qualified Successors and Future-Gap Successors based on qualification strengths and gaps rather than the “Ready 1-2 Years” approach to increase successor selection validity, readiness and results.
  3. Obtain unique and humorous analogies to help business leaders truly understand what a talent review process and succession planning is all about.

Appropriate for Organizational Development Professionals

Description: 
The role of the organizational development professional is to build the capabilities of the organization and to develop the effectiveness and culture of the organization. How is it possible to achieve these goals without identifying and building the capabilities and behaviors of the organization’s internal successor candidates, who will be responsible for the future effectiveness and the culture of the organization? As talent review meetings and corporate succession planning are becoming increasingly expected and standard procedures in many organizations, this should be a standard knowledge and skill area for the OD practitioner.

Talent Benchstrength Planning (which includes regular talent review meetings, succession planning, talent loss mitigation and development of successor candidates) is crucial to proactively planning for future organizational success. Just as the budgeting process is the proactive process for the future financial success of the organization, the talent review-succession process plans for the future talent success of the organization.

  1. Learn about the business value and the strategic components of a Talent Benchstrength strategy, including talent review meetings and succession planning.
  2. Experience a Talent Review Role Play exercise to view a typical talent-succession discussion and best practices.
  3. Practice calibrating using Doris Spies’ Talent Benchstrength 9-Box Guide and learn from this experiential exercise how successor candidate decisions can either build or defeat organizational capabilities and culture.

(This is a good foundational presentation for a general HR audience)

Description: 
You’ve heard it all – high potential, high performer, blocker, successor, talent pool, talent assessment, talent review, talent pools – but what does it all really mean? Attend this session to discuss all of the concepts and actions involved in a talent benchstrength strategy, and how to align the organization’s talent strategy to the business goals. Learn how to explain “talent management and succession planning” to business leaders in business terms they will relate to. Discuss ideas for increasing the consistent application of your succession planning process to achieve and measure the desired results of your talent management strategy.

  1. We’ll discuss what it all means, i.e. high potential vs. high performer, talent management vs. performance reviews, successor vs. high potential, talent assessment vs. talent meetings, etc.
  2. Learn how to explain the business value of talent benchstrength and succession planning to your business leaders, relating talent management processes to other business procedures.
  3. Increase the consistency of your top talent identification and succession planning, and learn the best ways to measure results.

(This presentation can be provided either to business managers or to HR professionals)

Description: 
Based on the book: The 30-Minute Guide to Talent and Succession Management, in this session author Doris Sims Spies will provide analogies that help explain the business need and return-on-investment potential of talent and succession management. Topics include the easiest ways to measure the value of a talent and succession management program, the importance of a talent strategy balance that focuses on both external and internal talent, and the similarity of succession management to other risk management processes. Definitions for high potentials, successors, high performers, key talent, etc. will be discussed.

  1. Participants will review Talent and Succession Management concepts and learn how to easily explain these strategies and the business value to business leaders using clear definitions, examples and analogies.
  2. Participants will learn about definitions and the difference between high potentials, high performers, successors and key experts in an organization.
  3. Participants will see and learn about metrics and ROI examples pertaining to talent management, and how to address the questions and concerns most frequently asked by business leaders about talent and succession management.

(Based on the August 2014 T&D Magazine article by Doris Sims. This presentation is appropriate for HR audiences – preferably audiences with some talent-succession experience.)

Description: 
Based on the 2014 T&D magazine article and The 30-Minute Guide to Talent and Succession Management authored by Doris Sims, SPHR, in this session author Doris Sims will explain strategic decision topics to plan or to enhance your talent and succession management program. Discuss the most common challenges of succession planning, and gain best practices and ideas to address these challenges and to increase the results of succession planning in your organization.

  1. Learn new talent benchstrength strategic options and succession strategy.
  2. Discuss the challenges of planning and implementing succession initiatives and solutions to overcome (or prevent!) these obstacles.
  3. Learn best practices and new ideas to enhance the business results of your talent review-succession strategy and processes to address the challenges.

(This presentation can be provided either to business managers or to HR professionals)

Description: 
Many organizations are exploring the strategy of identifying high potential employees and providing focused development for these individuals. But as these processes and decisions are explored, many questions arise for the organization to answer. How do I identify top talent in a consistent, valid, and fair manner? How much “open communication” should I use to let employees know this strategy is in place in our company? Should we tell high potentials they have been identified as top talent? What if the performance of a high potential employee changes? This session will focus on practical ideas to address these answers, to help each organization choose the best answers for their business and culture.

  1. Question1: What is the difference between high potentials, high performers, key experts and successors? We will have a small group discussion / exercise on this topic.
  2. Question 2: What criteria should be used to identify high potential talent? We will discuss high potential talent identification criteria, processes and tools.
  3. Question 3: Should high potentials be told they have been identified as top talent, and how can this be done in an effective way? We will discuss the importance of having clear “entrance” criteria and “exit” criteria.

Description: Implementing a talent review process and development program to review your talent and to identify successors, top talent and talent pools is one of the most important risk management processes you can lead for your organization. This session will discuss the leadership talent review process, the high potential identification methods and system, ideas to increase accountability for development action plan follow-through, and the metrics used to evaluate the program.

  1. Discuss best practices used to review and identify successors, high potentials and individual leadership talent needs in the organization.
  2. Learn facilitation tips and ideas for leading Talent Review meetings, to discuss the strengths, development needs, vacancy risk, etc. of your leadership talent
  3. Learn about ways to increase accountability for development actions after the Talent Review meetings, to increase the opportunities for potential “Ready Now” successors in the organization.

Description: 
In this session, facilitated by Doris Sims, the author of Building Tomorrow’s Talent and The 30-Minute Guide to Talent and Succession Management, we’ll discuss five areas of talent and succession management that Human Resource Practitioners most often desire to debate and discuss:

  • How Do We Explain the Business Need for Talent Management to our Executives?
  • Where Does Talent Management Belong in the Organizational Structure?
  • How Do We Differentiate Between High Performers and High Potentials?
  • What are Best Practice Components of a Talent Review Process?
  • Should High Potentials Be Notified?

The session includes practical ideas, best practices, and discussions centered on five topics.