Succession Planning with Board Participation

 

Case Includes:

360s with Senior Leaders	Variety of Assignments
BoD acts on Concerns

Situation:

The CEO of a regional organization, composed of a headquarters and satellite entities, was frustrated with the difficulty of ineffective, internal promotions as well as the fail rate of external hires for top positions. Their Board was also concerned and stated that some of them would be involved with the turnaround. Among alternatives that he explored, he invited us to present a best practices overview of succession and of assessing and developing leaders that can disrupt silo ascension and involve the interested broad members. He selected us to partner in this challenge.

Action:

The CEO was relieved and intrigued to learn about the best practices and, at his request, we continued, beyond a presentation, to facilitate with his ‘cabinet’ what these new perspectives would look like, if implemented here. This was a tense few hours but they prevailed and eventually began recommending changes to ‘standard operating procedures’ that would likely increase the probability of better top positions promotions/hires. Needless to say, the CEO was pleased and summarized by explaining how he would present these ‘recommendations’ to the BoD.

Following that presentation, which was well received by the Board, the CEO agreed that we would begin the implementation of improved succession practices. In addition, he wanted 360 feedback experiences for a broad brush of current leaders, who automatically expected to be appointed to the highest level positions.

Although the 360 reports would not be given to the senior leadership, they looked forward to the step of the leaders meeting with them, to review highlights of their feedback and draft development plan. These eventually became “3-ways” where the senior leader, the “learner” and the external coach all met but the “learner” held the meeting.

The Board members who wanted to participate agreed to be raters in several 360s (those they knew well) and two even asked to be interviewed by the external coaches, to round out ‘feedback’ that they felt wasn’t available to record on the 360. This was a bonus of input that helped the 360 feedback coaches ask better questions and suggest re-thinking about readiness.

Surprises:

The feedback sessions were intense in that several of the leaders could see how far they fell from normative data on what senior leaders should be highly competent in. In fact, in three cases, individuals wisely considered a different position where their strengths would be better utilized. (The courage became contagious.) Such movement opened up an arena for unprecedented succession challenges.

Conclusion to Share:

A top leader can decide to change “the way we have been doing things” upon noticing sub-optimal results and consider best practices that can be adapted to his or her organization.