Although succession planning is often written about in step-by-step terms as a straightforward process, the truth is that any secession is an extraordinarily complex, anxiety-producing, and emotionally intense human process. The stakes are exceptionally high for all parties involved, and that often leads to problematic behavior.
Related Quotes
5.2. Breakpoints
“The same happens in business. But people are not stem cells. Sometimes you’ll work with a specialist who’s thrilled by the idea of focusing on just one element of their job, but for most people narrowing their responsibility doesn’t feel natural and inevitable—it freaks them out. And this process is particularly terrifying in the very beginning, after everyone gets used to doing everything, when there are virtually no management layers and you all just agree on a direction and start sprinting. But it happens later as well—even at big companies. Even at huge ones.
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The Life Cycle of a CEO— Claudius A. Hildebrand & Robert J. Stark
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Introduction
In fact, Dave hadn’t been the first choice for the CEO position, or even the second or third choice. Word was five others had been offered the job before him. What’s more, a couple of years earlier he’d been unceremoniously fired from his position as divisional president at a leading competitor. No one would have suggested from his educational background, either, that he was CEO material. Not only did he not have a degree from an elite school, but it also took him six years to graduate. He hated college and he’d dropped out for a time.
As Dave’s first year in the CEO seat progressed, the sneering assessments of that Florida night prevailed on the Street; the company’s stock slid 40 percent.
When CEOs depart during the Complacency Trap stage of the life cycle, generally from years six to ten, inefficiencies that have crept into the organization and problems that have been festering— such as an underperforming unit or product line— constitute much of the low-hanging fruit their successors immediately go after. This invites the question: If those problems are so apparent to new leaders and boards that appoint them, why haven’t they been more effectively addressed?
8. Succeeding With Succession
One way in which we hope our CEO Life Cycle findings will held bend the curve of success for CEOs is by shedding light on these junctures so that CEOs can anticipate and prepare for them and boards can address these problems. In this chapter, we focus on another way the board relationship is often problematic: when a board is not closely involved with a CEO throughout their tenure, they are missing the opportunity to ensure that a strong bench of talented leaders who could be the next CEO are identified and their abilities are developed.
Chapter Eight: Succeeding with Succession
- Eben Harrell, “Succession Planning: What the Research Says,” Harvard Business Review, December 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/12/succession-planning-what-the-research-says.
- Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, Gregory Nagel, and Carrie Green, “The High Cost of Poor Succession Planning,” Harvard Business Review, May—June 2021, https://hbr.org/2021/05/the-high-cost-of-poor-succession-planning.