
Succession Planning: Who is Responsible for it’s Success?
By Ron Ries
Although some fast-growing companies may feel immune from
needing a succession plan, the topic is broad in scope and has
several implications for the workplace. A properly executed plan
can help delegate responsibilities and allow new roles to be
created.
Why is succession planning so essential? Succession planning
focuses on individuals and their potential to fill key leadership
roles. It would be a mistake not to address the issue of succession
planning because ignoring it can allow a crisis to to develop.
What happens in our domestic and work lives can have an
impact around the world due to more economic, cultural, and
lifestyle integration than ever before.
Let’s examine who should be responsible for developing an
appropriate succession plan for an organization. The workplace
is currently comprised of five generational groups based on year
of birth, as follows:
1925-1945 Silent Generation
1946-1964 Baby Boomers
1965-1979 Generation X
1980-2000 Millennials or Generation Y
2001-present Generation Z (the new silent generation – too
young to make much noise yet)
Keep in mind, millennials make up a majority of today’s workforce.
In getting back to our initial question of responsibility,
each generation must take on their share for generational succession
planning to work. Let’s take a closer look at each group.
For the most part, the Silent Generation has done their part
in transferring leadership and responsibility to its successor
generation. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll let them off
the hook. Next are the baby boomers. This generation, known
as “the post-World War II” group, took the reins of power and
responsibility through revitalization, consisting mostly of expansion,
economic success, and profitability. Now, they have the
responsibility of passing the torch to the next generation.
Baby boomers have achieved wealth, prosperity, and sustainability,
and in general, can be viewed as successful. Now comes
the critical phase of transferring not only economic wealth but
leadership as well. Some [who? Experts?]have insinuated that
the baby boomer generation neglected this responsibility, taking
in their economic success and beginning retirement instead of
providing guidance to the next generation.
What, then, is meant by transferring values? We are talking
about the transfer of experience, knowledge, and positive
momentum which all stem from the natural maturing or aging
process.
Professionals in today’s workforce are bound to have watched
many baby boomers retire. Generally, it seems that rather than
possess the desire to ensure their developments are sustained
by the next generation, outgoing boomers fail to transfer their
values to the next generation and leave others to blindly take
the reins. It is essential that future retirees impart the tools
and methodology which shaped their success to the future
generations. Inadequately developing the transferability of their
values is is one of the reasons most companies seek the support
of alliances such as mergers or acquisitions.. This problem has
led to a professional failure [for the companies in question?]
which has incidentally been overshadowed by economic
success.
Let’s focus our attention on future generations. For the sake
of this article Generation X and millennials will be grouped
together. As the beneficiaries of the baby boomers, these
generations have the joint responsibility of asking for leadership
roles because they are the successors. It is up to them to
convince baby boomers that they have the dedication, courage,
knowledge, and emotional qualities to take on the responsibility
of leadership. They must also accept the training and learning
necessary to gain the necessarily momentum to succeed. To
this point, baby boomers need to share and embrace these
qualities of the younger generations in every way possible to
make this transition meaningful. One reason companies seek
alliances with others instead of utilzing an individual succession
plan is because they do not see the talent that exists within
their employee base. They are hungry for growth, so they try
to secure their success by selling out to others. This misstep is
rapidly becoming the norm within our economic culture and
stifles new thinking, leadership, and entrepreneurship.
In turn, Generation X and millennials need to learn to
respect the values of their predecessors. Certainly, they can
learn to develop new methodologies and practices through
proactive planning and analysis of best practices. They should
also promote a culture which invests in their future rather
thanexpecting to reap the rewards of others without developing
further opportunities for themselves and generations to
follow. This partnership between the generations is essential
establishing a continuum of progress and success by working to
overcome perceived cultural and generational differences. These
differences are factors of inaction that can be transformed into
positive, productive action steps.
Bridging the generational gap may seem like the most obvious
solution in achieving forward progress, but it solution in
achieving forward progress, but it does little to mitigate gender
and ethnic concerns in our culture. We have witnessed many
success stories over the past years regarding gender advances,
partially due to an acceptance based need in the workplace
and a change the role of women both professionally and
domestically. Let’s not forget that women now possess a greater
share of the workplace than ever before.
More and more women offer the necessary education and
skillsets to enter the workplace and provide economic resources
for themselves and their families. This inadvertently works to
level the playing field and promote equality. The role of women
throughout our culture is evolving; we see this not only in
domestic life, but in the corporate world, the political arena, and
even in the military. We continue to see progress being made
in this aspect of diversity and inclusion. This momentum must
build and develop as the generation gap grows in tandem with
advances made in relation to gender issuescreating new role
models within the workplace to help set the tone for upcoming
generation Z.
The most complicated succession planning initiative appears
to be race equality. This issue has deep historical roots and is
continuously affected by existing cultural divides. It must be
dealt with aggressively, proactively, and with the tools necessary
to implement change. Many companies have developed
diversity officers within their human resource functions to help
address the issue. Their role is to integrate the workforce. These
efforts require a sufficient amount of attention to be successfully
achieved. An organization’s culture is greatly influenced and
judged by the success of these efforts. This initiative should
include acceptance, education and motivation to achieve fiscal,
economic and emotional success. Race equality is the most
critical issue facing diversification efforts.
How can all generations bring diversity initiatives into our
professional and personal lives? Success is a pivotal point in this
process. It signifies accomplishment and prosperity. Successful
businesses, families and societies have been instrumental in
showing us that, in its optimal form, diversity ignores biases
based on generational, gender and ethnic issues. These
stories serve as lessons to empower others facing similar
challenges. Embedded in this success are several key factors
such as the transfer of thought leadership, continued support
of independent thinking, inclusion during decision-making
situations, collaboration at all levels of management, effective
communication, and broadening conformity and acceptance
of others’ ideas and recommendations. This evolving process
incorporates the realities of each person’s experiences, lifestyles,
and goals. Now is the time to tackle these challenges which
ultimately will lead to increased opportunity and favorable
results.
Succession planning in all its forms and methodology should be
a positive experience and is a necessary to achieve sustainability
and maintaining a unique culture, style, and successful practice
or operation. It is up to each of us to promote and improve
equality and inclusion within the workplace.
Need help to develop a game plan of your own? WeiserMazars
can assist you in creating a succession plan tailored to your
specific needs and will guide you every step of the way.
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