[Excerpt] As baby boomers are leaving the workforce and competition for top talent reaches an all time high, succession planning is increasingly important for companies if they want to maintain organizational resilience. However, 57% of organizations do not plan for succession. Of the organizations that do implement a succession plan, there are three top mistakes that are often made: they fail to formally implement a systematic and formalized succession plan, they fail to plan below the CEO role, or they fail to develop transition strategies for the future. These mistakes can prove to be costly to a company; if key leaders leave and there is a delay in replacement - or worse, no replacement - morale drops, productivity suffers, and turnover increases. Therefore, companies need to build a succession plan that addresses these potential mistakes before any damage can affect an organization.