From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
I have a basic understanding of Strata and Time Span. My organization has a central office and several small regional offices consisting of a Director, 1- 2 program staff and an office coordinator. The Director’s role requires a Time Span of 12 months with most responsibilities between 1-3 months. The Director’s staff works in Time Spans of days and weeks.

The limited pool of employees makes it difficult to build bench strength to replace a departing director. I can find staff who comfortably cross Strata I and II, but how do I build bench strength or promote from within when I need a Director with Stratum III capability?

Response:
First, we have to calibrate the Time Span required. While many of the tasks (goals) of the Director are shorter than 12 months, if even one of the goals are 12 months, then that’s the capability that you need.

The second thing we have to consider is the time it takes a person to mature from one Stratum to the next. Most managers think about coaching and mentoring programs in terms of months. In reality, for a person to naturally move one full stratum takes 10-13 years. Yes, we progress, but slowly.

Unless you have the luxury to cycle promotions over a ten year period, you have two viable options. This means your strategy of internal promotion is not likely to be responsive to produce Directors within the time frames required.

The first option is to create a Director acquisition program, an incubator that recruits and holds prospective managers until you need them.

Your second option is to redefine the longest Time Span task assignments so they fall more in line with Stratum II. Understand this will redefine the role of Director, but will allow you a larger candidate pool to find successful Directors.