A tool to gauge the effectiveness of your succession planning
A tool to gauge the effectiveness of your succession planning
How leaders can ensure their team is ready to take over, years before a leader steps down.
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Post Summary
This post will help you answer the most important question in succession planning: How will you know when your team is ready?
Sabbaticals are a fantastic tool to gauge your team preparedness ahead of your stepping down
A good sabbatical focuses on two areas: tasks for your team and tasks for yourself.
I. Making succession planning work
Look at the golden door below. The sculpture is called La Porta del Paradiso1 (Gates of Paradise) and it was crafted by Lorenzo Ghiberti—and others—between 1425 and 1452. Yes, it took him 27 years to complete the sculpture.
If you visit the Duomo in Florence, you can see a replica right there in the plaza. The original one is back in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, a nearby museum.
Ghiberti’s door is a metaphor for the long term future of your organization. No matter how capable you are, you will one day leave or retire. What happens when you’re gone?
Ghiberti’s door survives thanks to many of individuals who have preserved the sculpture through hundreds of years and multiple wars.
Leaders often think about succession planning in fuzzy terms. They make vague statements such as “I’ll retire in six years” or “I’ll retire when the time is right.” In this post, I want to give you a tool to help you turn the fuzziness into clarity, by answering the most important question in succession planning.2
How will you know when your team is ready?
The last thing you want to do is to step down and watch your organization grind to a halt or move in the wrong direction. Our tool, sabbaticals, will help you minimize future issues, while testing your team multiple times before you step down. Along the way, you may just find yourself next to Ghiberti’s sculpture, enjoying some gelato.
II. Sabbaticals aren't just for burned out professors.
Taking time off is sometimes a foreign concept for some leaders. Even when they go on vacation, they are still responding to emails or even worse, jumping on quick Zoom calls, all before heading out to the pool for some relaxation. 3
I'm not here to argue for work life balance. You choose how and when you work. However, when it comes to succession planning, time off is what you need to ensure that you're making progress.
University professors popularized sabbaticals (from the word Sabbath), which can range from one month to one year. A professor on sabbatical doesn't have active duties at the university and doesn’t have to check email or jump on Zoom calls.
If you take one or two week vacations and still remain connected, you're still leading the organization. You need to see what happens in your absence.
Let's look at the mechanics behind a well planned sabbatical.
III. Planning to jump
The minimum length to consider is one month, but you can go for longer. Imagine taking the entire summer off!
A short time frame of a month is great because you can delegate tangible tasks, instead of talking of abstract concepts such as “leadership,” or “people stepping up.”
Start by choosing the dates of your sabbatical and then spend three months preparing for it. Your preparation will occur across two categories: tasks for your team and tasks for yourself.
The first area, tasks for your team, means ensuring that your team has what they need to handle your absence. You can look at all the tasks that will take place over that one month and then provide training in the form of videos, written documents, or verbal instructions.
All of this is pretty straightforward. This is what leaders are doing when they think about succession planning, but you're going to see how effective your preparation has been with real world tasks instead of hoping that your team is ready,
The second area is the tasks for yourself. I recommend you go away somewhere as staying at home will offer too much temptation to check in on your work. I hear Florence is pleasant this time of the year! Skip the laptop and make it harder for you to cheat.
When you leave work, you may feel a “void” in your time, even if you’re surrounded by gelato and beautiful Renaissance work. This is normal and you should be ready for it. Remember that your team can handle the work because you trained them. 4
When you’re back, you can see what worked and what didn’t. Look at the issues that weren’t solved and figure out what else is needed. It could be more training, a different role or perhaps a different person altogether. The great thing is that you’re dealing with tangible tasks instead of fuzzy far away issues.
I have often written about the need for leaders to let others make their own decisions. You being away for a month provides the perfect opportunity for individuals to take ownership for their decisions and reap the rewards or gain real-world learning from their mistakes.
You may enjoy yourself so much that you make this a recurring exercise. Perhaps you extend the length each time as you get closer to your original deadline. Once you leave forever, your team won’t be surprised by the new responsibilities.
So go ahead, take the summer off. Enjoy some gelato while preparing your team for a future without you.
Ruben
The replica next to the Duomo isn’t as busy as you might imagine. Many people miss it altogether but it is worth spending a few minutes admiring the detail of each section. They contain scenes from the Old Testament.
The lack of clarity means that leaders don’t know if they can retire and end up overstaying longer than they would like. Some leaders appoint a person to replace them but if that person rejects the plan, the leader is stuck once again.
Americans take 11 days off on average while Japanese take 12, and the French take 30. Asking a leader to take a month off in one go is a big ask and that’s what makes it valuable.
Anxiety may also play a significant role here. Many individuals have tied their identity to their work making our sabbatical a form of therapy.