| Course | GB542 Strategic Talent Development and Organizational Learning |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 8 |
| Paper type | Succession bench review |
| Length | About 1,150 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GB542 Unit 8
Five Critical Roles With Nobody Behind Them: A Unit 8 Succession Bench Review for an Adhesives Maker
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GB542: Strategic Talent Development and Organizational Learning
Unit 8 Succession Bench Review
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The company, its roles and every candidate are composite and illustrative; the assessment frameworks and the sources cited are real.
Headline Counts
Of 16 critical roles, 4 have a successor ready now, 5 have a successor ready in one to two years, 2 have candidates only three or more years from readiness, and 5 have nobody. Readiness is defined as follows. Ready now means the candidate could take the role within three months with normal onboarding. Ready in one to two years means the candidate needs specific, planned development that can be completed in that time. Ready in three or more years means the candidate has the potential but lacks major experience. Nobody means no internal candidate was nominated or none met the threshold in calibration.
The Five Roles With Nobody
Four of the five empty roles are new or newly transformed by the strategy, which explains why no one inside is prepared for them.
Continuous-line operations manager. The role will run the continuous mixing line from its start in year two. No one at Corvane has managed a continuous process, and the batch production managers, while strong, have never run a line where a slow decision affects hours of output.
IATF quality manager. Automotive certification at two plants requires a manager who has led an IATF 16949 system through audits. The current quality managers know general quality systems but not the automotive core tools at that level.
Director of application engineering. The role will lead a team growing from 6 to 14 engineers on customer lines. The company's three proficient application engineers are early in their careers and none has managed people.
Process safety lead. The continuous line's hazard analysis and management of change program need a leader with experience at scale. The two current process safety engineers are capable but junior.
Ohio plant manager. The Ohio plant manager plans to retire within eighteen months, and the plant's two senior managers both scored low on aspiration for the role in calibration; both told calibration they would rather keep leading their own departments.
Four of the five empty roles did not exist in their current form two years ago, so the gap is a product of the strategy, not a failure of past succession planning.
How Candidates Were Placed
Leaders nominated 48 employees as possible successors for the 16 roles. Each was placed on a nine-box grid, with current performance on one axis and potential on the other, each in low, moderate and high bands. Performance came from the past two years of reviews. Potential was assessed on three criteria drawn from the research on identifying potential: learning agility, aspiration to take on larger roles and the ability to lead at the next level (Silzer & Church, 2009). Each nominating manager rated the candidate on the three criteria with examples, and a calibration session of plant, functional and HR leaders reviewed every placement, moving 11 of the 48 after discussion, most often downward on potential when examples were thin.
The grid is treated as a structured basis for discussion, not as a measurement. Byham et al. (2002) recommend focusing development on a pool of high-potential people rather than tying each to a single job, and the review follows that advice by naming candidates for roles while also tracking the overall pool.
Distribution. Of the 48, 7 were placed in the high performance and high potential box, 12 in boxes combining high performance with moderate potential or the reverse, and the remaining 29 in the other boxes. Named successors for the eleven covered roles come mainly from the first two groups.
The Bench Behind the Other Eleven Roles
Ready now (4). The chief operating officer role has the vice president of manufacturing ready now. The Indiana plant manager has the Indiana operations manager ready now. The director of research and development has a senior research manager ready now. The corporate quality director has the Indiana quality manager ready now.
Five roles with a successor one to two years out. The vice president of automotive sales has a regional sales director who needs experience negotiating original equipment manufacturer supply agreements. The supply chain director has the purchasing manager, who needs a year leading logistics as well as purchasing. The senior formulation chemist has the successor named in the Unit 7 transfer plan, who will need the full fourteen months of that plan. The environmental, health and safety director has the Indiana safety manager, who needs corporate-level experience. The key account manager for the largest battery-pack customer has an account manager who needs a full program launch.
Ready in three or more years (2). The plant engineering manager and the finance director each have one candidate with high potential but limited experience.
Development Actions for Ready-Soon Candidates
Sales director. Join the next two supply agreement negotiations as second lead, with the vice president as coach.
Purchasing manager. Take over logistics for twelve months while keeping purchasing, with a quarterly review against the supply chain director's responsibilities.
Formulation successor. Complete the Unit 7 plan, with the primary measure of independent lot adjustments by month twelve.
Safety manager. Lead the corporate safety audit cycle at both plants for a year.
Account manager. Lead the launch of the next battery-pack program from quotation to production approval, with the key account manager in support.
Three-year candidates. Each receives a rotation planned with the role holder and a review each year, without a promise of the role.
Rothwell (2016) emphasizes that succession plans fail most often when development actions are named but not assigned or tracked. Each action above has an owner, the current role holder, and is reviewed quarterly by HR.
Recommendation for the Five Empty Roles
Begin external searches now for the continuous-line operations manager, the IATF quality manager, the director of application engineering and the process safety lead, timed so that every new leader has half a year in the company before the milestone the role supports. For the Ohio plant manager, begin an external search within six months and, in parallel, offer the Indiana operations manager, who is ready now for the Indiana role, a development assignment in Ohio, since the review should not assume the two senior managers in Ohio will change their minds. Each external hire should also be asked to identify and develop an internal successor within three years, so the next review does not find the same five gaps.
Appendix: Candidate Profiles
Profiles for the eleven named successors give the current role, performance and potential placement, the evidence for each potential criterion, readiness and the development action, and are held by HR for leadership review.
References
Byham, W. C., Smith, A. B., & Paese, M. J. (2002). Grow your own leaders: How to identify, develop, and retain leadership talent. Prentice Hall.
Rothwell, W. J. (2016). Effective succession planning: Ensuring leadership continuity and building talent from within (5th ed.). AMACOM.
Silzer, R., & Church, A. H. (2009). The pearls and perils of identifying potential. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2(4), 377-412. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2009.01163.x
Reading the GB 542 Unit 8 instructions
In GB542 Unit 8 you review the succession bench for an organization's critical roles. Open with headline counts by readiness category, defining each category. Report the roles with no internal candidate and explain why each is empty. Describe how candidates were assessed, including how potential was judged and how placements were calibrated. Set out the bench behind each covered role. Give a specific development action, with an owner, for every candidate who is not yet ready. Recommend what to do about the empty roles, including how to avoid the same gap next time. Expect about six pages plus an appendix of candidate profiles, citing sources on potential and succession in APA 7.
How the GB 542 Unit 8 example is put together
The headline counts open the review with readiness defined, from within three months for ready now to no qualifying candidate. The five empty roles follow, from the continuous-line operations manager to the Ohio plant manager, whose two senior managers declined interest, and the highlighted sentence ties four gaps to the strategy itself. Silzer and Church's criteria judge potential, calibration moves 11 of 48 placements, and Byham and colleagues support developing a pool. The bench lists four ready-now successors and five one to two years out, each with an action, and Rothwell's point about tracked actions sets quarterly review. External searches are recommended for the five empty roles, with each hire asked to build a successor.
GB542 Unit 8 rubric: what earns full points
A strong GB542 bench review is graded on whether its readiness counts can be trusted and whether the empty roles are faced directly. Defining each readiness category earns points because it makes benches comparable. Reporting roles with no candidate first shows candor. Explaining why each role is empty shows analysis. Describing how potential was judged and how calibration changed placements shows rigor. Development actions that name a specific gap and an owner show the review leads to action. Recommendations that also ask external hires to build successors show long-term thinking. Silzer and Church on potential, Byham and colleagues on leadership pools and Rothwell on succession planning are cited in APA 7.
GB542 Unit 8 help: mistakes that cost points
Many GB542 Unit 8 reviews present every critical role as covered, which few readers believe and which hides where action is needed. Others place people on a nine-box grid without explaining how potential was judged, the most contested part of the method. A frequent gap is development: naming a successor ready in two years means little unless the review says what must happen in those two years and who is responsible. Some writers ignore why roles are empty. Lead with counts, define readiness, report empty roles first with reasons, explain assessment and calibration, list the bench, assign actions and recommend searches. Treat the grid as a structured basis for discussion.
Get a GB542 Unit 8 example written to your instructions
Succession prompts often supply an organization chart or a list of candidates. Attach whatever your Unit 8 scenario provides with the instructions and rubric, and a bench review with every candidate's horizon and every empty role on its first page arrives within 24-48h. The first custom sample is free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GB542 Unit 8 questions, answered
How should the nine-box grid be described?
As a three-by-three grid placing people by current performance on one axis and assessed potential on the other, each in low, moderate and high bands. Say how potential was judged, since that is the contested part, and mention calibration. Present the grid as a structured discussion tool; treating its boxes as precise measurements is the misreading graders notice.
Is it acceptable to report roles with no successor?
It is expected. A bench with every role covered is rarely believable, and the empty roles are where leadership needs to act. This review lists five such roles first and recommends external searches for them. Reporting the gap plainly shows the kind of analysis the course is looking for, and hiding it tends to cost more than admitting it.
What readiness categories should the review use?
Whatever your organization or prompt defines. Ready now, ready in one to two years and ready in three or more years are common, with a fourth category for roles with no candidate. Define each in the review, because a reader cannot compare benches if ready now means different things to different managers.
Where can I find a free GB542 Unit 8 sample paper?
This page carries a full GB542 Unit 8 succession bench review for sixteen critical roles at a composite adhesives maker, with readiness counts, a nine-box method, development actions and APA 7 references.
Why are so many critical roles empty?
Four of the five did not exist in their current form two years ago; the battery-pack strategy created them. The fifth, the Ohio plant manager, is empty because both internal managers told calibration they preferred their own departments.