Chapter 5. Identifying High Potentials

“You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

Selecting the right people for the Acceleration Pool—that is, identifying high-potential individuals—is essential to a successful succession management effort. Identifying those individuals who are most likely to strengthen an organization’s leadership bench—and thus, its future—can be compared to recruiting the best draft choices for a professional football team, building a solid foundation for a home, or choosing the right ingredients for a cake. If the selection process is not accurate, efficient, and fair, the Acceleration Pool system will fail.

The goal is to find people who will yield the highest return on the company’s investment in development resources. ...

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