I've always considered that the primary value of education is to give you the ability to see further, effectively to step up the ladder so that you can see over the horizon.
Interestingly getting a promotion is often defined in much the same way in that the expectations are that your area of responsibility is greater. Yet how many people are given increased responsibility without the education needed to succeed ?
Succession planning is where preparing for success happens and it is one of the most important things that any service orientated business can do. Yet it's also one that is often done badly.
Promoting someone into a position for which they are ill prepared is one sure way to put the brakes on that business. It's hard to reverse a badly judged promotion and the impact on other people from such mistakes can be devastating for the business.
So given that planning for changes in leadership as a business grows is fundamental to long term success why is succession planning so hard to get right ?
The major reason why succession planning is difficult is that it's a highly dynamic process which broadly follows Newton's 3rd Law in that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Applying the laws of human physics to the the problem yields some solutions in that you need to inject some educational energy into the equation to change the outcome.
So how can a business prepare for changes in support of growth or in times of transition of leadership/ownership ?
As with most things data is the first thing to gather. The basic information required to have at hand is as follows :-
what does success look like (strategic plan)?
who has the most potential ?
what are they best at (business development, the tasks they do or process improvement)?
what defines success for them as a individual (what motivates them)?
who will be most affected by the promotion or changes (Newtons action -reaction)?
This information is often assumed to be known by leaders. However people have their own motivations and these may not be aligned with the vision for the company, people know themselves better than anyone else and so it's important to create a means by which they are comfortable sharing their hopes and fears. That is key to alignment and succession planning success.
Thats also why external help is necessary, a safe place for future leaders to talk openly.
Once the data is gathered planning can begin.
In order to create a plan to deploy the data needs to be plotted in a way that can be easily understood by everyone involved and I use two techniques to do this.
1- a Venn diagram that allows people to see themselves and others relative to themselves. A dynamic chart in which yoi plot where you see yourself in same place that the peer group places you where they perceive you and
2- a year by year chart showing cause and effect for all impacted team members as changes are implemented so that the change can be actively managed, adjusted and monitored.
In order to effectively manage leadership change the relative position of all parties at each point in time in this dynamic system needs to be understood. This allows training needs to be identified and enacted while managing the reactionary motivation of others.
This may seem very theoretical so let me give an example.
A company sells design services and the owner wishes to retire in 5 years time, there are 40 staff and the business has an annual revenue of $6M and EBITDA of $500k. The owner holds 50% of the stock. Amongst the leadership there are 4 potential leaders, one is great with customers, two are talented at doing the work and one is good with taking care of money. So how to manage the transition of leadership?
At face value the team covers all the bases, there's business development, skills in the job and someone who cares about business process but what is missing ?
Well what is not know is how the team feels about risk. Ownership involves taking on risk and what does that mean to each of them ?
They are also expected to work as a team but do they really respect each other ? Do they value the different skills each brings ?
Can they move from managers to leaders ? This is key because employees often see work as a safe, secure place in which the company provides protection but ownership can be worrisome and requires action orientated behaviors, can they see over the horizon or do they believe the past is the best guide to the future ?
How will they make decisions ? What happens when they disagree ? How will they handle adversity which is the time when teamwork is really tested ?
What will the next two layers of staff make of changes ? Will they feel their route to the top is now cut off and so will they leave ?
The situation is not at all clear from this example as the dynamics of this change requires much more data.
If I added that the business development leader just bought a new home and recently her husband has lost his job, would that change how you consider adding risk to her life ? What help and support would then be needed to make change successful ?
Alignment is the key to succession planning. Climbing a ladder can be easy to do but the higher you go the less safe you feel.
That's why someone holds the foot of the ladder. Who is doing that for you ?
Steve Burrows CBE PE CEng FASCE FICE MIStructE LEED-AP
stephenburrowscbe@gmail.com
Cell +1 415 302 3120