Role Succession.
Stop letting succession happen by accident.
An annual engagement that identifies your real successors, builds twelve-month development plans against named roles, and runs quarterly readiness reviews. By month twelve, you know exactly who's ready for what, who isn't yet, and who never will be. With evidence. Not gut.
Most succession in this industry happens by accident.
Your senior production manager gives notice on a Friday. By Monday morning you're standing in front of the team trying to figure out who can hold the seat. You look around. The foreman who's been there fifteen years is the obvious choice. He's also the wrong choice and you know it. But he's there, the role is open, and the season starts in six weeks.
Ninety days later half the senior team has followed the old manager out the door. The new guy is in over his head, the crew is rudderless, and you've got a $400K problem you didn't see coming. You promise yourself next time will be different. Next time, you'll have somebody ready.
Then five years go by and next time looks exactly like last time. Role Succession is the alternative to accidental succession.
Behavior work for landscape companies usually shows up in one of two forms. Certified consultants who know DISC inside and out but have never run a maintenance route. Or industry peers who've run plenty of routes but are working off gut.
Neither is enough by itself. The Maxwell DISC Method, certified and applied by somebody who's been in green industry for thirty years, is what this offering actually is. Same instrument the Fortune 500 uses. Different operator behind it.
Three deliverables per person. Across the whole year.
Each named successor gets their own development track. The structure stays consistent across the group. The content is calibrated to where each person is now and what role they're being developed for.
The Successor Assessment
Each named successor takes a multi-report battery (Sales Profile, Sales Leader, Student/Career, Benchmark Interview) calibrated to the role they're being developed for. You get a real picture of their wiring against the demands of where you're sending them.
- Multiple Maxwell Leadership reports per person
- Calibrated to the role they're being developed for
- Benchmark Interview for promotion readiness
- Strengths, gaps, and role-fit scoring
The Twelve-Month Plan
A written development plan per person. Specific, time-bound, and tied to a named target role. Not a generic "build leadership skills" document. A real plan with milestones, stretch assignments tied to the gaps the assessment found, and the readiness criteria you'll evaluate against at year-end.
- Target role and timeline, named explicitly
- Quarterly milestones with measurable outcomes
- Stretch assignments tied to specific gaps
- Readiness criteria, written down
Quarterly Readiness Reviews
Every quarter, each successor gets reviewed against their plan. Are they on track? Off track? Ready earlier than expected? Showing they're not actually the right fit for the role they were named for? Honest answers, written down, used to make actual decisions.
- Quarterly review session with you
- Individual debriefs with each successor
- Plan reset when somebody's pointed at the wrong role
- Annual readiness report at year-end
A year in four quarters of work.
Each quarter has its own focus. Together they form a complete arc. Identify the right successors. Build real plans against named roles. Execute the plans against reality. Decide who's ready.
Name the successors
Identify the people you're betting on. Run the assessment battery. Name the target role for each successor. Establish baseline.
Build the development plans
Twelve-month plan per successor. Stretch assignments. Readiness criteria. First quarterly review session.
Mid-year recalibration
Who's tracking. Who's stalled. Who's accelerated. Plans adjusted against what's actually happened, not against what we hoped would happen.
Readiness verdict
Who's ready for promotion. Who isn't yet. Who's pointed at the wrong role. The year's evidence informs the year's decisions.
For owners ready to stop treating succession as a someday problem.
This is the deepest engagement in the funnel. Annual commitment, largest investment, the work that turns DPD from a vendor into an embedded part of how the company runs. Most owners who buy this have done one or two of the smaller offerings first. They've seen what the work actually produces. Now they want it applied to the future of the company.
This is for you if
- You have 3–8 people you think could become more
- You've been promoting on gut and you want to stop
- You've already worked with DPD on a smaller engagement
- You're planning growth that will create real promotion openings
- You're committed to a multi-year horizon, not a quarter
This isn't for
- If this is your first engagement with DPD, start with Role Benchmark or Role Fit Review. Build the relationship before betting the depth on it.
- If you don't have a real leadership team for these people to promote into, there's nowhere for the succession to go. Fix that first.
- If you promise development but won't deliver the stretch assignments, you're going to waste everybody's time. Including yours.
- If you're a quarterly buyer, this isn't that. The work needs the full year to produce real evidence.
- If you're actively contracting headcount, this is the wrong moment. Wait for steady ground.
From kickoff to year-end readiness in twelve disciplined months.
Kickoff and successor identification
Two-hour owner kickoff. We identify the named successors (three to eight high-potential people) and the target role each one is being developed for. Roles get named explicitly. Successors get named explicitly. No "we'll figure it out later."
Assessments and individual debriefs
Each named successor completes their assessment battery. Private debriefs with each one. You see all the reports and the notes.
Twelve-month plans built
A written development plan per successor. Target role, milestones, stretch assignments, readiness criteria. First quarterly review session.
Quarterly readiness cycle
Every quarter: review session with you on the whole group, individual debriefs with each successor, plans adjusted against what's actually happened. When somebody's pointed at the wrong role, the plan gets reset.
Year-end readiness and renewal
Annual readiness report. Promotion verdicts documented. Renewal conversation. Continue, adjust the roster, or step back. The decision is yours and it's made with evidence.
Annual contract. Program fee plus per successor.
Role Succession is structured in three tiers. The annual program fee covers the work that doesn't scale with successor count. The per-successor fee covers the work that does. Year two and beyond runs at a 25% discount on year-one pricing because the kickoff and setup is amortized into year one.
Annual Program Fee
Kickoff, four quarterly review sessions with you, year-end readiness report.
Per Successor
Assessment battery, twelve-month plan, four quarterly individual debriefs.
Year-Two Renewal
Same scope, kickoff removed, relationship established.
Final pricing within each range depends on the depth of the engagement, the seniority of the target roles, and your timing. Book a call to see numbers calibrated to your situation.
Stop guessing who's next.
Pick a time on the calendar. Thirty minutes. Tell me who you think could become more, what roles you're growing toward, and what your timeline looks like. We'll talk about whether Role Succession is the right move (or whether something else fits better). No pitch deck. No homework. Just the conversation.
Prefer email? Reach out at paul@dimensionalpd.com
