The following tactics are guaranteed to result in a lackluster, toothless succession plan:

• Do it because you feel you have to. 
Remember when you were a kid and you ate vegetables because you had to? Remember how long your mom made you sit at that table while you muscled down bite after vile bite of brussel sprouts? You never would have eaten them if not for your mom, no matter how good for you they were, just like you’ll never put your heart into a succession plan you’re doing because you feel you have to. You might have the discipline to keep yourself at the table, but you won’t have the heart to do anything more than go through the motions. 

When you’re dealing with people, going through the motions isn’t enough. Unlike vegetables, people can not only tell when you’re heart’s not in it, they care, too.
• Small business owners: Do it because you can see your retirement on the not-so-distant horizon. 

The upside: your heart will be in it. The downside: by waiting so long, you’ll have lost much (if not most) of your negotiating leverage.
• Do it because the business books say all the great companies do it. 
You can follow the advice of the ivory tower experts, or alternatively, you can wait until someone writes about a company that managed to be successful despite not having a succession plan, and then model yourself after that firm. 

Don’t forget to call yourself a visionary.
• Have HR run it. 

I know many quality people in HR, and if given a succession plan to run, I think they would each have the same question I do. The question goes like this: You don’t want your business leaders to take direct responsibility for grooming their successors because…?
• Keep it a secret. 

Yes, not announcing the succession plan will save you from having a few yucky conversations. And yes, announcing the succession plan may create some kind of class system within your organization. However, if your options are a transparent and flexible class system on the one hand, and an inflexible and secretive caste system on the other, I’m thinking that a few yucky conversations is a small price to pay for future stability, honesty, and free upward mobility of top talent.
• Use the phrase “Succession Plan” to describe the process. 

Remind the boss of his mortality at every opportunity. Describe the plan as what will happen upon “retirement” or when he “gets hit by the proverbial bus.” Never mind that the CEO is probably struggling with encroaching proof of his or her mortality, from the array of vitamins that supplement breakfast to the dinner that resists digestion until well after midnight. 

At the same time, develop in the younger generation a sense of entitlement equal to that of a crown prince.

Getting the succession plan right

On the other hand…If you really want to do succession right, you might want consider a change in lexicon. Forget succession; yours is not the House of Tudor. Just do what you need to do in order to run your business and make sure that it will keep running even if you retire or–heaven forbid–do get hit by the proverbial bus.

Think about developing your people the same way you think about educating your kids. Think in terms of creating future opportunities. 

Make sure key individuals expand themselves to the greatest extent possible. Find opportunities for them to develop their own businesses, help turn around other areas of the enterprise, or take on more responsibility in a corporate role. Get them outside help. Let them come to you with ideas on how and when they’d like to move forward, and if they fly the coop, so be it. If you develop talent, you will have no problem attracting talent. And one day, when you need that talent (for whatever reason), you’ll be glad it’s there. 

And at that point, you may have a conversation like this:

Someone else: “How is it that you were so well prepared for this moment?”

You: “I made sure we had good people who were ready to take over in a situation like this.”

Someone else: “You mean like a succession plan?”

You: “Yeah, I guess you could call it that… but for us, I must admit, it really was just part of what we did every day.”

Posted under Coaching & Consulting, Succession Planning, How to Self-Destruct