Succession Planning Best Practices: Withstanding the Turnover-Storm
“…Finally, should I be captured or killed, Staff Sergeant Garcia will lead the attack. Following him is First Squad leader, Sergeant Trippman, then Second Squad leader, Corporal Taylor.”
“Got it? Ok, squad leaders brief your squads within the hour. Let’s execute.”
At the end of every combat order delivered in the U.S. Marine Corps is a succession of command—a list of members of the team that need to be prepared to take up the flag and lead the unit to victory should the commander fall. That means knowing the mission and plan just as well as the commander, and having the judgment and knowledge to be able to make competent decisions in the heat of battle when the radio operator suddenly turns to you and says, “Skipper’s down…you got the fight.”Now it would be a bit over the top and melodramatic to brief a succession plan at your morning roundup (“should I suddenly come down with bird flu, Gwen, you will run my sales presentation.”), but the reality is that employees do turnover, they have babies and go on vacations, they do get promoted, and in the very unfortunate case, they do get sick or die.
Is there an employee in your organization, where if they were to leave, or even be out for a month, it would cripple your operations?
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If you are a leader and you don’t know the answer to that question, I’ll bet you that your ops department could tell you the answer. It’s likely always at the back of their minds.
Point being, as companies become more technically driven and lean in their operations, the tendency is to ask employees to do more with less and grow more specialized. While great for the bottom line, a secondary effect has been the thinning of middle management and loss of organizational depth. In a lean and specialized organization, the succession plan for both leadership and special skills needs defining.
To identify the key areas in your organization where you may be lacking some critical depth, consider the following questions for building some succession planning best practices:
- What is the Center of Gravity? What is the most important function in your organization that directly impacts your goals and mission? What would be your center of gravity, that if impaired or removed, would have catastrophic effects on your ability to service your customers?
- Who are the key players? Who are the key people that can perform these functions, or have a direct impact on its functioning?
- Who can take over? Who would be the best people in the organization to assume those key players’ roles in their absence?
- How have I prepared them? If successors don’t have the ability to immediately step in, how long will it take them to get up to speed, and how can some mentoring/training reduce the shock of employee turnover?
Beyond being the proverbial CYA, succession planning is also key to organizational alignment and talent retention. When it is clear where the organizational center or gravity resides, it empowers leaders and the general population alike to make decisions based on optimizing that key function. Furthermore, employees that can be offered a clear career path within an organization are less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere.
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Finally, we all need a vacation, and a vacation does not constitute the privilege of getting to check emails in the mountains or on the beach. With carefully thought out succession planning and a well-executed cross-training and employee development plan, organizations can rest assured knowing that when the turnover-storm inevitably comes, they’ve built a house on solid rock!
