TTI — Total Talent Intelligence
The framework I use when the problem is a talent intelligence gap.
TTI is one of the ways I work — a sprint-based methodology for closing the specific gap between the talent data organisations already collect and the board-ready intelligence they actually need. Talent management advisory more broadly is scoped to your brief; TTI is what I reach for when data and succession visibility is the problem itself.
The Succession Gap
Most organisations capture more people data than ever. None of it answers the question that matters under pressure.
HRIS records every transaction. Performance systems log every review. Succession slides go to the board each quarter. None of it tells you who is ready, right now, if a critical role becomes vacant.
Average first-time succession risk score
Average for mid-sized enterprise organisations, before any intervention.
Three Broken Systems
Every organisation already runs three people systems. None were designed to answer the board's succession question.
None of them talk to each other. The board asks a succession question; HR opens three different systems, pulls three different outputs, and assembles an answer that was partially out of date the moment it was created.
HRIS REPORTING
Configured for transactions, not decisions.
Your HRIS knows every role, every hire, every salary change. It cannot tell you who is ready for the CEO role if the current one resigns tomorrow. The data is there. The intelligence architecture is not.
HRIS REPORTING
Configured for transactions, not decisions.
Your HRIS knows every role, every hire, every salary change. It cannot tell you who is ready for the CEO role if the current one resigns tomorrow. The data is there. The intelligence architecture is not.
The structural flaw
Role-based, not person-based.
HRIS is structured around jobs, not individuals. It can tell you a role is vacant. It cannot rank who is ready to fill it.
The signals that matter are missing.
Mobility willingness, AI-readiness, leadership potential — none of these live in HRIS by default. They are collected elsewhere, if at all.
No cross-system aggregation.
Succession-relevant insight is spread across HRIS, performance, engagement, and L&D systems. No standard HRIS joins them into an intelligence view.
A scenario
A Chief People Officer is asked by the board: "If our CFO resigned today, who is ready?" They open five systems, spend three days pulling data, and return with a PDF that raises more questions than it answers.
SUCCESSION SLIDES
Updated once a year. Already wrong.
The succession plan is a PowerPoint. It was calibrated in a workshop eight months ago. Three people on it have since left, been promoted, or flagged as flight risks. The board receives it as if it is current.
SUCCESSION SLIDES
Updated once a year. Already wrong.
The succession plan is a PowerPoint. It was calibrated in a workshop eight months ago. Three people on it have since left, been promoted, or flagged as flight risks. The board receives it as if it is current.
The structural flaw
Opinion-based calibration.
"Ready now / ready in two years" is decided in an annual workshop by senior leaders with incomplete information. It is rarely evidence-based, rarely challenged, and rarely revisited.
No shared definition of ready.
"Ready now" means something different to every line manager. Without calibration rigour, the succession plan reflects politics as much as potential.
Boards receive a formatted output, not a live view.
By the time the succession slide reaches the board, it is already a historical document. People have changed roles. New flight risks have emerged. The board sees none of it.
A scenario
A mid-sized enterprise presents its succession plan in a board meeting. Two of the named successors have since given notice. The board does not know. The HR team does not realise the board does not know.
PERFORMANCE CYCLES
Backward-looking by design.
Your performance data tells you who performed well last year. It does not tell you who is ready for the next role, who has the AI-readiness to lead through transition, or who is quietly disengaging. It was never designed to.
PERFORMANCE CYCLES
Backward-looking by design.
Your performance data tells you who performed well last year. It does not tell you who is ready for the next role, who has the AI-readiness to lead through transition, or who is quietly disengaging. It was never designed to.
The structural flaw
Backward-looking by design.
Performance ratings summarise the last 12 months. They do not predict readiness for the next role, resilience in a crisis, or the capacity to lead through AI-driven change.
Manager-scored, not calibrated.
Without cross-functional calibration, performance scores reflect manager style as much as individual performance. The same output earns a 3 in one team and a 5 in another.
Disconnected from succession and mobility.
Performance data sits in its own system. It is rarely integrated with succession data, mobility preferences, or AI-readiness signals — the combination that actually predicts pipeline strength.
A scenario
An organisation believes its leadership pipeline is strong — average performance rating across the top 50 leaders is 4.1 out of 5. Six months later, three critical roles are vacant and the internal pipeline produces zero viable successors.
The Cost of a Succession Blind Spot
£10M+Average annual cost for a 500-person organisation.
Based on 40% of payroll. Actual cost varies by headcount, role criticality, and vacancy rate — most of it comes from people still on the payroll, not the hire that failed.
Failed Succession Hire
Wrong person placed in a critical role. Average 18 months to recover — severance, search fees, and the drag of misaligned leadership.
Korn Ferry / SHRM research
Leadership Vacancy Drag
Role empty or interim-filled. Teams in limbo. Decisions deferred. Every week unfilled, the cost compounds.
Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends
Bench Strength Gap
No identified readiness below the leadership tier. When a vacancy appears, the organisation freezes.
McKinsey Organisational Health Index
Succession Consultant Dependency
Annual spend on external search because the internal pipeline is invisible — the data to find them already exists.
Average retained search cost estimate
Psychological Safety Collapse
Opaque succession creates political behaviour, not collaboration. High-potential leaders optimise for visibility instead.
HBR / Google re:Work
Board Intelligence Deficit
Investors, NEDs and regulators increasingly ask: "Who are your successors for the top five roles?" A slide is no longer enough.
FRC Corporate Governance Code 2024
The Succession Risk Score
Five bands. One clear picture.
The Succession Risk Score (0–100) gives every organisation a single, calibrated view of succession health — comparable across assessments and over time.
Critical
0–24
£5M+
No live succession intelligence. Board questions answered with slides.
High Risk
25–44
£2M–£5M
Succession plan exists but is opinion-based, annual, disconnected from performance data.
Developing
45–64
£500K–£2M
Some succession process in place but not integrated across systems.
Managed
65–84
£100K–£500K
Succession is structured and evidence-informed. Gaps are visible and managed.
Intelligence-Led
85–100
<£100K
Live talent intelligence layer in place. Board sees the picture in real time.
The Frameworks
Four frameworks. One intelligence layer.
Total Talent Intelligence Dashboard
A single board-ready view of succession, bench strength, AI-readiness and mobility — without replacing a single system. Also the name of the app I built once this became a live client need: app.totalia.ai.
Succession Risk Audit
Structured methodology to identify, quantify and prioritise succession risk across critical roles.
TMAP Calibration
Workshop-based calibration of leadership performance and potential — evidence-based, not opinion-based.
AQ Leadership Readiness
Assessment of leaders' readiness for AI-augmented work, integrated directly into succession.
Frequently Asked
The questions boards ask.
What is the Succession Gap? +
The structural space between the talent data organisations already collect — from HRIS, performance systems, and succession slides — and the intelligence their boards actually need to manage succession risk. Most organisations have the data. They lack the architecture to turn it into decisions.
What is the Succession Risk Audit? +
A structured diagnostic for identifying, quantifying and prioritising succession risk across critical roles. It assesses five dimensions: succession visibility, data quality, calibration rigour, board readiness, and cost exposure. The output is a Succession Risk Score (0–100), an estimated annual cost, and a prioritised intervention roadmap.
How is the Succession Risk Score calculated? +
A calibrated composite of five dimensions: succession visibility (do you know who is ready?), data quality (is your people data fit for intelligence?), calibration rigour (are readiness views evidence-based?), board readiness (can you answer the succession question under pressure?), and cost exposure. Scores run from 0 (Critical) to 100 (Intelligence-Led).
Why do annual succession reviews fail? +
Three structural reasons: they are opinion-based rather than evidence-based; they are disconnected from live performance, mobility, and AI-readiness data; and they produce a document rather than a decision-making tool. By the time the slide reaches the board, the information is already partially out of date.
Is TTI the only way you work? +
No. TTI is the framework I reach for when the specific problem is a talent intelligence gap — fragmented data, no board-ready succession view. Talent management advisory more broadly is scoped to your brief, and often runs alongside or instead of a TTI sprint. See Case Studies for the range of what that's looked like in practice.
What does a TTI engagement cost and how long does it take? +
Delivered as a structured consulting engagement — sprint-based: Data Sprint → Succession Intelligence → TMAP Calibration → AQ Leadership Readiness. Most organisations see visible output within 4–8 weeks. Pricing is scoped to organisation size and complexity. Book a diagnostic call to discuss your context.
Recognise the gap?
The diagnostic call is where we find out if TTI is the right fit.
45 minutes. No deck, no pitch. A sharp conversation about your succession and talent data situation.
Book a Diagnostic Call