Editorial: Develop a Deep Bench
Who will fill your shoes when you’re gone? Who will fill that person’s?
By Mary Boltz Chapman, Editor-in-Chief -- Chain Leader, 2/1/2006 12:00:00 AM
If I stepped off a curb, got hit by a bus and died tomorrow, Chain Leader would be in trouble. Of course, the rest of the senior editorial staff is more than capable of getting an issue out without me. But get them together, which is difficult enough because they’re in three different cities, and there would still be information gaps. They still wouldn’t know “where all the bodies are buried.”
This is not meant to make me sound important or necessary or anything. And it’s not like I don’t communicate with anyone. It’s just an indication of one of the management skills I need to work on: helping develop other people.
Follow the Leaders
What made me think of this was the recent annoucement that this summer Applebee’s Chairman and CEO Lloyd Hill will leave the CEO responsibilities to an unnamed-as-yet successor (presumably President and COO Dave Groebel). Joe Lee handed over the CEO title at the end of 2004 to Clarence Otis, and effective Dec. 31, the chairman title as well. At Morton’s, Chairman and CEO Allen Bernstein passed the baton to Thomas Baldwin at the end of the year.
A succession plan is important because it gives your best people the hope and expectation for a future with your company and opportunities to grow, improve and make more of a contribution. All of which are likely to keep them there.
A plan in the executive suite is not only a good example for other layers of management, but a strategy that should be encouraged or even mandatory companywide. Throughout the organization, teams would be able to replace experienced workers who leave with those who are ready for new positions. It would allow you to look forward to make sure the organization is grooming a diverse management and executive pool.
And it shows your investors and other shareholders that you’re focusing on the future of the business and not only on short-term gains. And that you’re realistic about your own mortality.
It Don’t Come Easy
Succession planning isn’t easy. It requires you, and all of your managers, to humbly acknowledge that there might be others who could do your job—maybe even better than you. It means you have to know where the company is headed and what skills the people who will take it there will need. You have to honestly evaluate the people you work with now; increase your retention methods, such as creating developmental opportunities for high-potential employees until new jobs open up; and make sure employees have clear development paths and roles. You might need to invest in technology to help you track who you’re trying to fit where. And it never ends; it requires an ongoing commitment.
Get help from your peers in the executive ranks, especially in human resources. Like the strategic vision of your company, succession planning is not a one-man job.
It will be worth it because the best companies use the recruitment and retention of quality leaders as a key to sales, profit and geographic growth.
This week at Reed Business Information we’re wrapping up our 2005 reviews, each evaluating our performance against goals we set this time last year. So it’s a good time for me to refocus my efforts on preparing the magazine and staff for my departure. Though I hope it’s a long way off.
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