The final step of any succession planning is making a will. The process of “will making” brings to you again the same set of insecurities, fears, same logical interpretations and though processes regarding key personnel , next generation you are surrounded with and who would get affected through your succession decisions.
Not making an effective will document of your derived succession plan will lead to further confusion, disputes, separations & in turn hampers the success of the business.
The organisation may be a family-owned, a professional corporate, a medium or small sized business, the succession planning should exists across the length of breadth of the organisation giving due importance to this process while one ascends to higher ranks in the organisation.
Every leader in the organisation’s key goal and deliverable should be to identify his/her successor. Just a HR team involvement & evaluation to choose the successor won’t help the succession plan a leader intends to have for their businesses.
A fear of fallout and that too to a junior person who can do your job equally well or even better than you creeps in the process. Few leaders even believe in their indispensable status.
Statements of leaders that in my absence, sales, functions & plants would fail or go down are not in good health of the organisation. This itself is a failure on the part of the leader in creating his/her legacy. A leader’s prime objective should be to create a legacy.
An exercise to groom the next generation leaders in an organisation would lead to effective implementation of a succession plan. Identification of gaps between the leader and the successor is the primary step. HR needs to conduct processes like grading, career mapping, training needs, analysis, compensation, etc.
A complete mapping process in tandem with the HR & business units is needed. This planning & execution cannot be done in isolation.
This entire process brings opportunities to review their existing roles, the organisation structure, to understand who is doing what and who exists where & what are the gaps.
This entire process needs documentation through analytical interpretation by external experts, HR team, business units & successor. The delegation of the work processes needs to be effected by a will making process. Procedure documents when written in effect lead to smooth transition of the businesses to the next generation.
Leaders understand & analyse risk at every level of their business. They have to be resourceful enough to fill these gaps. Effective succession plan through written documentation helps quickly fill in positions with right candidates at the right job roles. Making a will to enact their succession plan is recommended for every leader.
The benefits are immense for the success of the organisation and the next generation too.
Success and succession sound similar, don’t they? But success in any organisation can be achieved only and only through a logical succession plan which is document in the form of a will.
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