Jul 10, 2016 | Succession Planning, Transition & Change
Change – sometimes surprisingly fast change – remains the one constant we can count on. Despite this, many organizations fail to prepare for the most predictable change of all…the departure of their chief executive or other key leaders. Success in leadership transitions is dependent upon readying the organization and its people for change. So, why are executive directors and boards reluctant to talk proactively about succession planning?
First of all, change is hard. In many ways, succession planning is like estate planning. People don’t like doing wills, but they know they’re important, and a real priority. Being proactive and taking advantage of advanced planning puts the executive director and board of directors in the driver’s seat to make plans and decisions in the best interest of the organization and its people, not leaving it to others or to be handled during crisis.
In examining the tendency for avoidance, it’s helpful to look at different perspectives:
Executive Director:
– If the top leader takes the subject of succession planning to the board chair, how will he or she be perceived? Is suggesting that an organization discuss leadership transition a sign of weakness? Will the board think the executive is leaving? Burned out? Less confident? Somehow less capable to effectively lead the organization? Will it plant the thought in the board’s mind that another leader would be better?
– Especially true of founders and long-time executives, there’s a great sense of pride and ownership in leading an organization. Making the decision to retire or move on to another opportunity isn’t an easy decision: “I’ve built this institution. What happens to it if I’m no longer at the helm?” Leaders who helped shape an organization often find it difficult to imagine a next step that is as compelling.
– Many hesitate to bring it up because dealing with the day-to-day work is hard enough to handle, let alone trying to plan for something often considered so future-oriented. There’s an overwhelming inclination to just wait and address the issue when it happens.
Board of Directors:
– If a member or committee of the board broaches the subject of succession planning, will it threaten the current executive director? Will the executive perceive the conversation to suggest a problem with his or her leadership?
– As a board member, one “signs up” for a specific duty. While a member may understand and respect the need for succession planning, he or she may simply not want to take on that task. “Why bring more work on myself?”
Obviously transitions raise a long list of issues that point to the complexity and difficulty of such pivotal moments. While there are no simple solutions, changes in leadership can be addressed positively and proactively and strengthen the organization as a result.
It can be helpful to examine succession planning in the broader context of executive transition management. The range of work can be short- and/or long-term planning, at a minimum ensuring that there’s an emergency plan if an executive director is suddenly unable to perform his or her duties. If an organization is lead by a founder or long-tenured director, it makes sense to have a conversation about continuity and legacy beyond the executive. And unlike a traditional search process, executive transition management helps organizations prepare for leadership succession, months, even years before the actual transition takes place, coupling the search and recruitment process with a more comprehensive range of organizational planning and leadership development services.
Despite anxiety and hesitancy in approaching the topic of succession, the positive outcomes of thoughtful conversation and transition planning far outweigh potential negative affects.
Read these other related blog posts:
Leadership Transition and Organization Preparedness
Challenges to Addressing Leadership Transition
About Jeanie Duncan: Jeanie is President of Raven Consulting Group, a business she founded that focuses on organizational change and leadership development in the nonprofit sector. She is a senior consultant for Raffa, a national firm working with nonprofit clients to lead efforts in sustainability and succession planning, executive transition and search. Additionally, Jeanie serves as adjunct faculty for the Center for Creative Leadership, a top-ranked, global provider of executive leadership education.
Dec 22, 2014 | Intention
January lures me to a place of reflection of the prior year and intention and goal setting for the year ahead. It’s my way of honoring life events, learning from what I’ve experienced, and dreaming of what I most want.
Over time, I’ve developed a some tools that serve me well in this process. Here are a few favorites that I hope you will find of value.
- Take a blank sheet of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle of the page. On the left side at the top, write “Freedom From” (What do I want to STOP doing?). On the right side, write “Freedom Toward” (What do I want to be or START doing?). Then down the far left column, write these words: Career, Family & Friends, Significant other / Romance, Fun & Recreation, Health, Money, Personal Growth, and Physical Environment. Complete each column in terms of ‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom toward’. This exercise will help you create alignment in the direction toward what matters most.
- Another exercise I find valuable is completing Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix, which I have sample-populated below from a business perspective. I like to do this including both work and family elements, sometimes in two different grids. I don’t know about you, but much of my day quickly can be filled with the 3rd quadrant – the seemingly urgent, but less important things. At the end of those days, it’s hard to note anything meaningful that I’ve accomplished. Ideally, I use this tool not only at the beginning of a new year, but also at the beginning of each month and week to keep me focused on what matters most.
- Journaling can be another effective outlet to reflect and draw out thoughts about the past year and help focus and imagine the 12 months ahead. Consider the writing prompts below as you complete this exercise.
Reflecting on the prior year:
- What am I celebrating?
- What were the most significant events of the year past?
- What’s going well? …not so well?
- How am I leveraging my strengths?
- What did I learn? (skills, knowledge, insights, etc.)
- What would I have done differently?
- What did I complete or release? What still feels incomplete to me?
- How am I different this year than last?
- For what am I particularly grateful?
Imagining the year ahead:
- What intentions do I have for the coming year?
- What is the commitment I want to make for: my work, my family, my self?
- How do I want to approach things differently?
- How do I want to spend my time?
- What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail?
- How and with whom do I most want to spend my time?
- How will I honor my core values?
- Imagine that it is 6 months from now, and I’ve acted on my intentions or met my goals. What is like? How does it feel? What resources and support surround me?
A final critical piece to goal setting is to enroll an accountability partner. As you refine your intentions and goals for the year, ask a friend or colleague to help support you and hold you accountable. Set a schedule where s/he will followup and ask you about your progress. They can serve as an important ally in helping you move past barriers as well as celebrate your progress (big and small). Choose someone who will challenge and stretch you and call you out when you’re playing small!
Best wishes to you in this experience and bringing forth your best self in the year ahead!
About Jeanie Duncan: Jeanie is President of Raven Consulting Group, a business she founded that focuses on organizational change and leadership development in the nonprofit sector. She is a senior consultant for Raffa, a national firm working with nonprofit clients to lead efforts in sustainability and succession planning, executive transition and search. Additionally, Jeanie serves as adjunct faculty for the Center for Creative Leadership, a top-ranked, global provider of executive leadership education.
Oct 14, 2014 | Coaching, Intention, Leadership
Some consider visioning to be a fluff exercise rather than an effective personal or business development strategy. After all, in both our personal and business lives, we spend the majority of our time working ‘in it’ rather than ‘on it.’ However, dedicating time to thinking about the future can be a critical investment that reaps big rewards. How do I know? I have proven it for myself and and experienced it with my clients time and time again. In fact, I have found that visioning is 100% smart business practice, helping organizations and individuals who lead them chart the course, set goals, measure progress, and learn from mistakes – all of which directly impact the bottom line.
Five years ago, I gave myself a gift: a 12-month sabbatical. I had recently left a top leadership post as an arts administrator, knowing that I had completed what I set out to do for the organization. But I didn’t quite know what would come next. I needed a little “white space” between completing a very consuming role and beginning my next venture – a little time off to engage in activities that helped me think, discover, and refill my creative well.
One day while reading The Law of Attraction by Esther and Jerry Hicks, I came across a visioning exercise called the “creative workshop.” The concept is to spend about 20 minutes each day giving thought to what you want with great clarity, describing and refining a fulfilling picture of yourself – and the life you want to live. (The idea, of course, is that you attract and create that on which you focus.)
Ultimately, that exercise led me to create a two-year vision of the most full, enriching, and satisfying life I could imagine. I then laid out specific actions I’d take to guide me toward my longer-term vision. After all, what good is a vision without a plan to get there?
What I thought initially was a simple (fluffy) exercise ended up having a profound effect. Who knew?! It was as if I had sprinkled fairy dust or Miracle Gro® on my life. Each day, I’d re-read and think about my vision and action plan. The phone started to ring, emails arrived, and certain people would simply appear in my path – everywhere from the grocery check-out line to the board room. As if I were a magnet, resources steadily came, each of which had a part to play in helping me fulfill my vision.
That was years ago. And recently, I decided to repeat this “workshop” again for myself, and I am having a similar experience – only this time, my vision seems to have expanded. And once again, I can sense the amazing personal growth beginning to happen.
“We should change our perspective from ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ to ‘I’ll see it when I believe it.'” – Chuck Duncan
As individuals, we give so much thought and energy to our work, our co-workers, and to our family and friends that we often forget to invest in ourselves. I observed a sign on a colleague’s desk recently that read, “Me First.” While at first this might seem amusing or even appear egocentric, all of us have to remember that if we don’t first focus on ourselves, we have less to give others.
The same thing happens with organizations – visioning is often put off or lost altogether, with a team’s time and effort immersed in the day-to-day details and priorities. Yet such future-thinking exercises don’t have to be daunting undertakings; they can be incorporated into regular staff or board meetings or be integrated into a periodic planning process. I’ve used a version of this visioning exercise with clients in strategy development, sustainability planning, leadership transitions, and coaching. What I’ve found is that individuals and businesses who roll up their sleeves and take action to do it get great results and rewards.
Visioning, when accompanied by smart planning and consistent focus, can yield true transformation for you and for the organizations you work to improve. Getting started is easier than you think!
- Set aside some uninterrupted time. I suggest an hour, but a few sessions at 20 minutes each also can be effective.
- Pick a point in the future – it can be weeks, months, or years.
- Imagine a life (or business) that is vibrant and fulfilling beyond your greatest expectations.
- Give yourself permission without boundaries to dream and create.
- Describe what you’re imagining in specific, vivid detail.
- Then create an action plan to help you get there.
It may not come easily at first, but with a little time spent – perhaps over a few days/sessions – clarity and details are likely to take shape.
Once the intention is set, give attention to your new vision and plan – and enjoy what begins to manifest itself.
“You get what you think about, whether you want it or not.”
– Jerry Hicks
photo credit: Ross Manges Photography via photopin cc
Jul 29, 2014 | Strategy
I’m struggling with my ability to focus today. As in – ‘there are so many priorities, and they all seem like they’re #1.’ Ever experience this challenge?
When I find myself in this place, the best thing I can do is sort the priorities. If they’re all #1, I find a way to divide them 1A, 1B, 1C. Even when I think they’re the same level of priority and urgency, this helps me differentiate to some degree. This way, I take the 20-headed beast down to 5 heads, focusing now on the top 5 things I must accomplish – in an hour, a day, or a week. Yes, the other 15 things are important too, but they’ll have to take 2nd place for now. Because if there are 20 priorities at once, I know what will happen – I become paralyzed and do nothing, or I fall into a spin and do a little bit with all the items and get little accomplished. In the most busy and pressing times, I do this exercise each day or even twice a day.
This place of ‘everything is a priority’ leads us into the trap of pressing harder, faster, and with greater intensity to try and accomplish everything or achieve a particular unrealistic goal or deadline.
I somehow trick myself into thinking that working harder and doing more is what’s needed to get the job done. Intellectually, I can rationalize the truth in this. But, at a deeper level, I realize that intense effort and pace often depletes my energy, can adversely impact my output, and removes the joy from my work.
To help combat this tendency, I have adopted some practices I find beneficial and that have helped me most:
- Spend the first hour of the day setting priorities and getting organized. It’s easy to launch into the day reacting to the urgent – the rain of emails, interruptions from co-workers, and the barrage of phone calls – rather than advancing the important. I like to get an early start to the day and establish priorities. I begin with the question: “What are the three most important things I need to accomplish today to advance my key goals?” Everything else is a “nice to have.” These three daily priorities all roll up to support my weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals.
- Focus on the important tasks first. Once I frame my day in the first hour, I immediately set out to accomplish the top three priorities before distractions have a chance to pull me away. If I can’t take care of them all, I’ll make an appointment on my calendar to return to it later in the day.
- Single-Task. When I’m doing too much, I’m constantly switching from one task to another, experiencing multiple interruptions and distractions. Despite our culture’s demand to multi-task, resist the temptation, clear away distractions, and give attention to the single matter that is most important.
- Eliminate non-essential commitments. Examine your day or week and ask yourself: “What can I eliminate or delegate? Is that task, meeting, or luncheon something that I absolutely must do? How does it advance my strategic goals?” I try and say no to any request that distracts me from focusing on what’s most important. I think of it as focusing on my highest and best use.
- Step away and take a break. We all have those occasions when work calls for added effort. But more often than not, simply stepping away and taking a break – like going for a run or having lunch in a park – can infuse new energy, bring fresh perspective and new ideas, and actually enhance productivity.
- Ask key questions. Another tactic I find helpful is pausing to ask a few critical questions to help me determine priorities or my approach as I begin a particular project or task. It’s an important skill for anyone focused on improving performance, and it can help filter through all the distractions and get to the one thing that will deliver the result. For example:
- How important is this?
- What do I want?
- Why?
- How will I know when I achieve it?
- What can I do to achieve that outcome?
- What can I learn from others who have gone before me?
- What do I bring from prior experiences that can help inform my present situation?
Challenge yourself this week to do less, focus on what’s most important and will deliver the greatest impact, and discover deeper meaning and success in your work. Notice what happens!
“Don’t mistake activity with achievement.” ~ John Wooden
Jeanie is President of Raven Consulting Group, a business she founded that focuses on organizational change and leadership development in the nonprofit sector. She is a senior consultant for Raffa PC (formerly TransitionGuides), a national firm working with nonprofit clients to lead efforts in sustainability and succession planning, executive transition and search. Additionally, Jeanie serves as adjunct faculty for the Center for Creative Leadership, a top-ranked, global provider of executive leadership education.
photo credit: modenadude via photopin cc
About Jeanie Duncan: Jeanie is President of Raven Consulting Group, a business she founded that focuses on organizational change and leadership development in the nonprofit sector. She is a senior consultant for Raffa, a national firm working with nonprofit clients to lead efforts in sustainability and succession planning, executive transition and search. Additionally, Jeanie serves as adjunct faculty for the Center for Creative Leadership, a top-ranked, global provider of executive leadership education.
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