Are you making succession planning a priority? Ask yourself this: Where would you be if one of your key team members left? Would you pass an audit if your head of compliance found a new job? And how many clients would you lose if your top performing sales professional decided to strike out on their own?
These are things as a leader, a business owner, or a CEO that you need to not only be asking yourself, but you really need the answers to. You not only need the answers, but you also need the answers long before the questions become a reality.
Today we are going to dive into some easy succession planning strategies you can use to future-proof your business. But first, let's talk a little more about why this is so critical to your continued success.
Are You Ready For The Silver Tsunami?
The retirement wave is closer than you think. In 2025, approximately 11,200 baby boomers will reach age 65 every single day, and that trend will continue for the next three years. This is now known as the Silver Tsunami, and it is the largest wave of people eligible for retirement in US history.
Think about it. With more than 4.1 million people eligible for retirement, this milestone is expected to have major implications for the labor market and your company.
Take a look around your company, your industry, and take a long look at how many critical team members and leaders are nearing retirement age, and how much experience and skills will walk into retirement with them.
Why Every Company Needs A Succession Plan
But succession planning is not just for retirement, and succession planning is no longer a “nice to have". No, succession planning is so much bigger than that. It needs to be a sustainable growth plan and the strategy you need to future proof your business.
Change is coming in your organization, and you need to be ready. You will have team members leave or move on for more reasons than retirement. Employees have personal challenges that create unexpected departures; then there are career transitions; and the impact of company growth and expansion. And all of those shifts require well-trained and highly skilled leaders that are ready to move into position.
No, succession planning is not just for retirees. It needs to be a much broader strategy that ensures your business is ready for change and growth. Succession planning means preparing now for leadership changes at all levels of your company.
WHO COMES NEXT?
Leadership Succession Planning Made Easy
Whether you are part of a small, family business or a Fortune 500 company, you need to start now by answering the question: WHO COMES NEXT? The book simplifies the process and gives you the tools you need to build and activate your leadership succession.
3 Easy Strategies To Get Your Succession Plan Moving
For far too long, leaders have treated succession planning as a “nice to have”, and the part of their strategic plan that rarely gets implemented. Now for companies looking to gain competitive advantage, succession planning needs to become priority one.
Here’s three strategies to get you going:
1
Start Small
The most important thing is to just get started, get your plan going. Get it going not in three months, not in the next year, but get it going in the next 30-days. To do that, you need to start small. Look around your organization and choose two to three critical positions and create succession for those positions. That means getting those currently in those positions need to buy-in, they need to identify their successor, if there isn’t one the search needs to start, and then the development plan needs to be executed.
Just getting started is the hardest part of creating a succession plan, and starting small makes it easier and more effective to get your plan moving.
2
Create A Succession Culture
If you want succession planning to work, you need to “bake it” into your culture. As the leader, you need to talk about it all the time, talk about why you want it, and talk about why it is important, and show examples of how it shows up in your company. Also, lead by example and ensure your success is in place.
Lastly, ensure that everyone in your company knows that there is opportunity, and future leaders are wanted and needed. Show them how they can put themselves in line for succession.
3
Require Succession
And to make succession “stick” then require succession before promotion. Before any leader can move into a new position, turn around and require them to find and train their replacement.
If you make succession a requirement, then you will create a deep bench of future leaders for your organization.
A succession plan, a succession culture, ensures you can always answer the most important question in leadership today – Who Comes Next?
