Succession Planning – Looking under the Plans

The Broad Overview

Anyone who has spent much time in a growing company eventually hears the whispers of succession planning. It might be phrased differently, sponsor, mentor, leadership planning, growing but they all point to the same thing. Somehow, the knowledge that is contained in the company, the key knowledge which resides with people in certain key positions, must be captured and transferred. Let’s say you approach a sampling of companies, many times you will receive a massive plan, with a laser beam focus on a set of positions.

These positions and plans are important. But, companies have been doing this for quite some time and many are proficient planners. Others are coming along with a slower momentum to grasp this, but again – the combination of research and technology is rich and robust. Instead, let’s consider under the plans that are established. By under the plans, I mean literally under. Consider what positions are typically included in succession planning, the upper executive ranks. These positions are key, however they are not the sole knowledge holders within a company. Draw a mental dotted line under those key positions, who resides there? Is it a larger group than the one previously planned?

The questions to ask next, they are a chance to be open and ask the all consuming –Who & Why. Who holds this information? Why is it done this way? Why does this go to this person and not that person? Why does this department look this way? Once you start determining the whys and the whos, you can start determining if this truly makes an efficient process flow. If not, stop here and work on the process. Now, let me take an aside and state that it is easy for me to say stop and change this here. However, this will be an enormous amount of work within most companies. People are often quite reluctant to make changes, so you need to be prepared. But why make these changes at all, why even stop to understand this? Stop and consider the position of an assistant that knows his or her position well. Think about the tasks that you can ask them to do, what they do on a regular basis. If they suddenly were not in that position, for whatever reason, is there someone else who can step in and pick up the pieces? If not, how will this change your work load, the efficiency, the ripple effect into the work of others. This is not your typical succession planning, but is more broad and forward in thinking.