Succession planning — the road facing an incline

One of the lessons supposed to be learnt to keep corporates ready for battle and ensuring that there is least disturbance when a senior executive retires or leaves the corporate is the Human Resource Department policy of ‘succession planning’.

It was a policy and procedure to be implemented within corporates with the intent of identifying the best possible replacement of any senior position in the organization /corporate.  The intents were:

• Train the immediate subordinates in the higher Role, so that in case of need the role can be easily filled;
• Build up a pipeline of internal managers so that people are made aware that there is a scope for upward movement;
• Corporate belief that nobody is indispensable and by well laid out work practices, positions can easily by filled in from internal resources. There is no need to look outside for HR resource / talent.  There is enough home grown crop to step into the position rendered vacant.

One of the Action Points / Key Result Areas for evaluation of senior executives was their effective participation and progress in intent of identifying their successors and mentoring / grooming them.

However, while the idea looks very neat and well packaged, the after effects have not always been positive.  Often insecurity grips the senior position holder who fears being outshone and work relations deteriorate between the senior and the protege being trained.  Sometimes, this can lead to nasty office politics. 

It could also be that the protege gets fed up of waiting for his turn at the superior position and is picked up by a competitor or starts discreetly looking around giving his RESUME to Headhunters.  In such cases, efforts over several months are wasted and the final result contrary to the original intent.  

As the business environment gets competitive and there are many entities in the same line of business – succession planning is seen to be a failure activity since human nature keeps looking at opportunities and pay scales outside the corporate entity.  The potential and probability of jumping ship increases.

However, the greatest threat to succession planning comes from apex corporate positions to be filled.  The Board Of Directors and Managing Directors are often seized by the idea of bringing fresh blood and fresh thinking in the corporate or a business line of the corporate (heading the corporate or a business of the corporate). 

Heating up competition, will always flatten the upward graph of the corporate / business growth.  The challenges of responding to shareholders who feel there is stagnancy in their value of shareholdings, often forces a look outside the corporate entity.  This kills the idea of succession planning.

If we look at the business landscape today, it is clear that corporates with supposedly effective succession planning programmes are also bringing talent from outside the corporate.  Inhouse talent then starts stagnating.  This is not to say that external talent will always succeed.  There are many issues of corporate culture and culture fit that come in when senior positions get filled from outside and not from within.

Today at very senior level positions filling, it almost seems as if it is mandatory to look outside the company and not within.  This is virtually writing the death warrant of the ‘succession planning’ process.

It is over here that one must a comparison between Business and Politics.  After all both fields of activity will need senior positions to be filled.  In politics one does not hear of ‘succession planning’. 

It is left to the wisdom of those responsible to fill in a position that is vacant with someone who meets the evolving requirements.  The political positioning of the proposed successors is known and the electors of that position have to take a view on who is best suited as replacement.  

One of the biggest criticisms of ‘succession planning’ is that it does not allow fresh thinking in a corporate.  The thinking gets stale and fresh ideas do not incubate. 

The corporate gets set into a pattern of action and supposedly a management thinking shake up is necessary.  When this shake up is felt necessary and talent from outside needs to be brought in –‘succession planning’ fails across corporate businesses and functions.  It almost seems as if all efforts to grow competence from within are actually allowing competitors to grab good, trained executives.

The fact remains that corporates will need competent executives.  Corporates will always need to train and upgrade skills of executives knowing fully well that a large percentage of executives will move out. This reality needs to be faced.  There is no escape.

However, it is no longer possible to believe that you can home grow talent.  Some will move out and some will be brought in. How the corporate uses the talent coming in and how well it assimilates them, will decide corporate business success.

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