Are you confident with your successor?
March 8th, 2010Have you ever heard about any business successor dilemmas? Such as when John R. Walter, AT&T Corp.’s president and chief operating officer and the successor apparent to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Allen, had resigned after less than one year on the job. In a statement, AT&T said Walter’s resignation followed discussions with the board of directors that made it clear it was not ready to elevate him to the top spot on the schedule the group originally discussed. However, Walter received separation payments totaling about $3.8 million! (source: CNNMoney online, 16 July 1997)
Do you think the situation above potentially happens to any other organisations? Many companies feel confident with someone who has outstanding performance with very good background and decide to promote him/her. But many cases end up with that promoted person cannot deal with challenging responsibilities in the new position.
Due to different environment between current job and the promoted position, new promoted incumbents must be able to cope with unknowns and to respond promptly to new challenges. To consider only their past success stories and current performance including competence may not be enough. They are expected to perform well among many unknown things which former experience can be slightly applied. Matter-of-fact what companies need to concern is to know these people’s potential in order to develop the right potential persons.
From our experience in consulting with many organizations, we found that they had been facing some similar problems when they needed to make decision in successor selection. Those problems are:
- the lack of significant characteristics required by the new position e.g. ability to make decision under time pressure, desired leadership style, push team performance, and willing to discipline or direct subordinates, and strategic communication
- the lack of systematic plan to prepare their successors
- the lack of business strategy linkage. The characteristics of successors should be changed depending on the business needs.
- the lack of considering their successors’ potential which critical for higher positions
Imagine that a Senior Sales Supervisor is expected to be the next Sales Manager because he has more experience and skills in sales than others, performs outstandingly, and achieves sale targets every month. Do you think he deserves to be promoted? Will only considering his present performance make him to succeed in the new position automatically?
Definitely, the two jobs are naturally different. As Sales Manager after he receives his mission and sales policies from top managements, he should not only achieve his own target but also strategically plans, coaches and assists his sales teams in order to ensure team achievement and team spirit, effectively communicate his plan and delegate to the team. Besides, he needs to manage, influence, direct people, sometimes push his subordinates in order to achieve those targets, and also allocate time for coaching his team how to solve problems. In addition, he must be able to make an important decision on his own in time even not enough supporting information.
In this case, making decision on only his success stories might not enough. Selecting the right successor should consider multi dimensional information such as the right potentials to work in the new position, the right working style matching with the new role requirements, strengths and ability to learn new things quickly and the way to develop effectively.
Reliable and valid information is very helpful to avoid bias and mistakes in choosing successors. To ensure that those chosen people have high potential to take more complicated responsibilities and develop leadership in the needed way.
Well succession planning helps companies to reduce business risks in short of manpower in critical positions, build leadership pattern which suited to organization culture, and increase employees morale when organizations intend to look for people inside rather than recruiting from outside.
Thomas International has been specialized in providing objective management systems and assessment tools that help businesses solve their people puzzles for more than 20 years including the tools which support succession planning systematically. These tools help companies to get objective information, identify the right potential who will be able to handle the companies’ challenges and suggest relevant development programs base on people potential and business needs.











