More Reasons You Can’t Afford to Ignore Succession PlanningFebruary 26th, 2009 |
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By now, you’ve probably heard about the issues Apple is facing due to CEO Steve Jobs’ health and leave of absence. This, along with other high profile leadership exits such as those in the financial industry, has led to increased media attention on the issue of succession planning in the past couple months.
In these types of scenarios, regardless of the situation, employee and investor confidence is shaken, as they don’t have a clear picture of who’s at the helm. In Apple’s case, shares dropped 7% when Jobs’ health leave was announced. These examples definitely serve as a reminder that a succession plan is a must for any organization to ensure consistency and smooth transitions when an executive leaves, whatever the reason may be.
A best practices approach to talent management also means that succession plans aren’t just for executives either. Clearly, executives are the most obvious and high profile talent pools to ensure are covered. But a forward-thinking organization realizes that most talent in the organization is critical and the cost of finding and training a replacement from outside the organizations is so much greater than effective talent-pool based succession planning. It’s the proactive vs. reactive approach. As these high profile examples reinforce, reaction mode can have major consequences.
If you want to read more about some of these issues, I’d recommend you check out these posts from other writers:
- Michael Specht - Succession Planning a Critical Process
- Edie Goldberg - Critical Leadership: Succession Planning Issues for These Turbulent Times
- Ann All - Smart Execs, Boards Don’t Neglect Succession Planning
Feel free to send me any other related articles and I’ll add them to the list. Also, stay tuned for a related post from Sean Conrad next week on the differences between succession and replacement planning
Tags: succession planning, talent management |
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