Member-only story
I’ve never written about succession planning before, so today seemed to be as good a time as any to get that going. If you’ve never heard the term before, “succession planning” is an element of (buzzword boulevard coming) “talent management strategy” whereby you try to figure out who’s the “next (wo)man up” for a series of leadership slots. Basically, it’s building a pipeline of people. Most companies are really good (or somewhat good) at building funnels and pipelines around products and financials, but most are terrible at anything to do with people. A big example of that? Companies get FOMO, go chase an executive from a rival, and whiff on internal recruitment.
What happens in a situation like that? The new executive takes 9–16 months to get up to speed. If you had used succession planning and promoted internally in a logical way, that internally-promoted executive would be doing a lot more in those 9–16 months. He/she already knows the processes and people. I love the concept of “fresh blood” like anyone, but there’s basic math and logic to this whole deal.
I’ve been opening posts with stories for the last week, so let’s continue that with succession planning.
