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Passing the
baton calls for great dexterity
by Margot Cairnes
Sitting listening to Managing
Directors I am struck by the difficulties they face in
succession planning. Having tried to train successors
for myself I have no trouble in relating to the anguish
so often faced by successful entrepreneurs and leaders
as they try to pass the baton.
Let's look for example at the
situation of self-made persons. Perhaps they have built
up franchises, businesses or established themselves as
successful consultants. Now they want to expand their
businesses, move on to other things or prepare for
retirement, so they want to find and train successors.
They seem to share two common
problems. The first is in finding the right successors,
the second is in training them.
People who have built up businesses
and risen to the top in their field are exceptional.
Again and again I hear leaders discuss the difficulty in
finding people who combine intelligence, business
acumen, strategic strength, interpersonal skills and
initiative with requisite experience and industry
knowledge. In fact, it is often through a hit-and-miss
experience of training others that corporate superstars
realise how unusual they themselves are and therefore
how atypical their successors are likely to be. I was
told by a leading professor in management education
that, in his years of graduating literally thousands of
MBA students, he had met five he considered to have that
special something that leads to outstanding success.
However, once a successor has been
selected the next hurdle is getting out of the way long
enough for them to learn on the job. We all learn best
from a mixture of experience and instruction.. I believe
that knowledge comes from success, and wisdom comes from
failure. Successful people got that way by doing some
things very right and by learning from their mistakes.
The problem with training a successor is that you have a
lot to lose from their blunders.
We all have to live with our own
errors. Effective leaders have learnt to grow through
everything that happens to them. However when you have
spent years establishing a reputation and a company, it
is very hard to live with other people's botches,
particularly when those people have not yet earned their
stripes. Training a successor actually takes a radical
leap of faith. Faith that may or may not be founded and
it might be years before you find out whether or not the
gamble has paid off.
It is not uncommon for a chief
executive to sit before me and explain that after years
of investing time and resources in a possible successor
it is clear that their chosen heir has not lived up to
expectation. This represents a heavy personal loss for
leaders as they realise that, despite all their best
efforts, in this case, they too have failed.
When working with clients facing this
issue I always advise them to, wherever possible, get
out of the way of their heir apparent, thus giving them
a chance to prove themselves and learn from experience.
In return for this 'learning space' the successful
leader needs to ensure that he or she is provided with
whatever information and controls they need to feel
secure that their company and reputation will not be
irreparably damaged. This principal was succinctly
described to me by one client who claimed that for him
getting the appropriate information was like knowing
that the dials on the dashboard of his car were both
appropriate and accurate. "That way" he told me "I don't
have to keep getting out and checking the level of the
oil and the petrol".
I have great respect for anyone
training a successor. It is a task of such extreme
strategic importance and so fraught with difficulties. I
watch with admiration as leaders go through a
trial-and-error process that requires as much personal
growth and learning from the leader as from the
successor.
Copyright
ã Margot
Cairnes
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