Succession Planning – A Critical Element of Your Business’ Success

GRBN_News — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 06:46:52 +0000

Owners/executives of market intelligence businesses have many reasons for concern in today’s environment – adapting to disruptive competition, understanding and employing emerging technology, hiring and maintaining the right work force, assuring sufficient cash flow, creating a robust sales pipeline, guaranteeing high quality work to support long-term customer relationships – to name just a few. One topic that is infrequently mentioned, however, is succession planning. Everyone knows it is an imperative, but few have a sense of urgency concerning succession planning. Yet, whether the transition occurs at an executive level or deeper within the organization, the ability to effectively transition leadership is simply good business practice. Broadly defined, succession planning is the methodical nurturing of the next generation of leaders. Great companies are known for their management bench strength. Disrupted customer relationships, lapses in operational excellence, diminished employee enthusiasm or a sputtering sales pipeline are symptoms of transitions not well handled. While strategic guidance and business growth are typically the domain of the executive suite, the battle for revenue to generate sufficient cash flow is often won or lost within the organization. Hence, the need to design and implement strategies for succession planning deeper within the organization as well as the top. Succession planning need not be difficult but must be methodical with multi-year organizational commitment. It is anything but a one-shot deal or a quick fix. As a starter for discussions within your own organization, consider these key tenets of succession planning:

Make certain your company’s strategy is set. Succession planning must support overall strategy. Successfully achieving business outcomes will depend heavily on the organization moving in the same direction and senior leadership having the right skill set to get there. Even a well-orchestrated succession plan will fall short of its goal if there isn’t clarity about strategic initiatives and goals.
Identify key positions where succession planning is crucial. Spend time with your co-leaders to answer some of these initial questions:
- Which positions within the organization must be fail-safe?
- Are there known points of exit for the current senior individuals in the positions identified? The point of exit could be due to planned retirement or the desire of the company to eventually move that individual to other positions.
- Who are the top employees that the organization wishes to keep for the long-term?
- What skills are needed within the organization to succeed in the future? Which employees possess these skills or are the most likely to develop these skills with training?
- Who do the individuals, currently in these key positions, believe might be good seconds or deputies?

These questions sound straight-forward but coming to agreement on the answers, not so. Expect that your senior team will need extended dialog to reach consensus.

Don’t shy away from making hard personnel decisions. Discussing successors for key positions has the potential to result in the identification of individuals who do not fit into the long-term strategy of the firm. It is best to guide these individuals to find opportunities outside your organization. These are difficult decisions but in the absence of being proactive, three consequences will arise. First, these individuals will likely begin to be frustrated as they see others being promoted to positions they desire, potentially leading to sub-optimal performance. Second, resources (financial and human capital) required to groom the next management generation will be diverted to those less promising; ultimately limiting the success the organization can achieve. Finally – and I say this with conviction – if the person isn’t a long-term fit, you are robbing he or she of the opportunity to excel elsewhere. Sometimes this is best for everyone.
Create a roadmap with the selected individuals. Being ‘tapped’ as a next generation leader should be an exhilarating experience. Once identified, a senior leader of the firm, the individual to whom the future leader will serve as a deputy and potentially an additional mentor (someone to whom the individual does not/will not report) should meet with the individual and create a formal roadmap for their progress. The road map should consider long-term as well as short-term goals.
- What skills or competencies does the organization need that individual to further develop or acquire by when?
- What experiences does the individual need to have to fully prepare for the senior role?
- What activities/roles should the individual undertake to ensure they have credibility within the organization?

Once developed, the individual’s goals should be separated into targets and reviewed quarterly. Establishing the ongoing rhythm of setting goals, reviewing performance and setting subsequent goals is an important element of success.

Gradually increase the individual’s visibility within the organization as a member of senior leadership. For some individuals, this may not be necessary as they may already be visible as a senior leader. For others, however, this may be a skill, on its own, that needs mentorship. The organization should not be left guessing – creating measured visibility will be a signal to the organization that the individual is being groomed for a senior role.

The question often arises concerning whether it is simply better to wait until the need occurs and if there are no ‘ready’ internal candidates go to an external choice. This is certainly an option and an external candidate may bring a needed fresh perspective. However, be mindful of the fact that external candidates have, at best, an even shot at being successful. The reason why is a worthy topic for another article. Simplistically, internal candidates have a higher likelihood of success given their history with the organization – the question is whether they are prepared when the need arises. A program, such as outlined in this article, will go a long way to ensuring his or her success. Finally, and perhaps most important, start today. At all costs, avoid a scenario where you need to give someone a crash course on an important role in the organization. His or her success will be directly linked to the amount of time given to prepare for the role and the effort put into his or her preparation by the organization. Jeff Resnick Stakeholder Advisory Services

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Trust, Innovation, Insight: Our Industry’s Reputational Challenge

GRBN_News — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 03:46:34 +0000

By Jeff Resnick, Stakeholder Advisory Services Every industry endures periods of tumultuous change. Ours is no different. How we collectively deal with the challenge of a changing environment will shape our legacy and determine the vibrancy of our future. From my perspective, our industry’s opportunities have never been greater but we must effectively address three key issues – trust, innovation and the delivery of actionable insights. Trust is at the core of our business. If target audiences trust us, they freely provide their opinions, attitudes and allow us to track their web behaviors. Yet, as a GRBN study demonstrated, trust in our industry is in need of improvement. Trust is built through experience, interaction and demonstrating that our commitments to those sharing information with us are consistent with our actual behavior. Protecting the privacy of our respondents’ personally identifiable information (PII), respecting their time by ensuring the questions we ask are on target and visibly self-policing those in our industry who violate our code of ethics are all behaviors that build trust. There are certainly other mechanisms to build trust but getting these three right is essential to our future. Innovation is core to the longevity of any business. Failing to innovate only leads to one outcome – falling behind your competitors at best, and business extinction at worst. Finding ways to build innovation into the culture of our businesses is essential to achieving success. While requiring concerted effort, ongoing innovation is eminently achievable. In my book, Transformation IQ, I profile CEOs who accomplish this task. Continual innovation not only improves our businesses but enables us to provide deeper insights to our clients, leading to their success. Innovation comes in many flavors – technology, methodology, analytics as well as other areas. We must always look to new horizons to ensure we keep ourselves and our clients competitive. Generating insight may well be our most important challenge. The days of the multi-hundred-page PowerPoint deck are long over although some did not attend the funeral. It is no coincidence that the two most sought after skills identified in the Q1/Q2 2016 GRIT survey are ‘finding the story in the data’ and ‘data visualization skills’. Both are essential skills required to move from describing the data to providing the insight that enables action. I’ll also be a bit contentious here. Insight comes from individuals who can take a holistic view of their clients’ business. Elements required to accomplish this include well-developed business acumen on the part of the researcher and a willingness to share the business context and issues on the part of the client. As an industry, we need to ensure we bring professionals with the right skills sets ‘to the table’ and begin to move our clients in the direction of true collaboration where full details about their business issues and context are freely shared. Our reputation, our legacy, will depend on our ability to shape the view others have of our industry. We must own the responsibility to develop an unbreakable trust, continually find ways to bring innovation to our clients and move decidedly away from describing data to providing insights that make a tangible difference to our clients’ business. If we achieve these three goals, we will be well on our way to sustaining our industry as a vibrant career option for generations yet to come. About Jeffrey Resnick Managing Partner, Stakeholder Advisory Services Jeff Resnick is the founder of Stakeholder Advisory Services. He is a thought leader, trusted advisor to clients, business strategist and mentor. He serves his clients within the areas of reputational risk assessment, key account management and issues relating to business transformation and growth. He served as President of Opinion Research Corporation’s US Group where, in addition to his responsibilities for managing top and bottom line growth he initiated and led the CNN|ORC International Poll, recognized as one of the premier polls of American public opinion. He is passionate about the requirement to transform the market research industry and is the author of the Transform blog carried on the Greenbook blog as well as CASRO’s CXO blog. Jeff had the honor of serving as Board Chair for CASRO in 2012.

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Jeff Resnick - Stakeholder Advisory Services Archives - GRBN.ORG

Succession Planning – A Critical Element of Your Business’ Success

Trust, Innovation, Insight: Our Industry’s Reputational Challenge