|
Last night both the men's and women's US Olympic relay teams dropped their baton during their transfer! Not one team - both!
It hard to believe! Here are America's finest - in fact, some of the world's finest - track athletes and they dropped the baton! They didn't finish the race.
When talking about ownership succession, I often use the relay race as a metaphor for transitioning leadership within an organization. Leadership transition is essential to the sustainability of every company.
You might have great people in both generations but if you can't 'pass the baton' from one generation to the next, your organization is 'toast.'
And when ownership is involved, its even more essential.
The key to making the transition on the track is 'practice, practice, practice.' I was talking with a client today and he told of his high school track days when "we ran a series of 100 yard dashes and passed the baton, again and again, so that it became second nature. We knew that, no matter how fast we were, we couldn't win unless we passed the baton right – every time."
But in organizations you don't get a chance to practice. The keys are anticipation, preparation and planning - and starting early.
How is your company doing? Are you planning ahead? Do you have a strategic plan that you use to guide your key decisions? Have you begun to identify the potential next generation of leaders? Do you have more than one candidate? Are the retiring, or future retiring, leaders thinking ahead - starting as early as their early 50s? When ownership is involved, do you have the formal buy sell and other legal agreements to formalize the financial transition?
When you think about it, you and your associates are only running one leg of your company's relay race. How well you pass the baton will determine the future of your organization. Just like in the Olympics, you won't get a second chance.
Peter Wendel is President of Peter Wendel Group (Buffalo, New York) an organizational consulting firm dedicated to building high performance organization that are able to prosper and grow in these rapidly changing times by offering succession planning, strategic thinking, team building and leadership development services. He blends a passion for organizations and people with a lifetime of experience both as a business leader/manager and an accomplished consultant.
The Peter Wendel Group specializes in succession planning, building on three elements:
- Building a strong sustainable organization in which people are aligned toward achieving a shared vision and are in positions that build on their personal strengths and aspirations.
- Developing a cadre of people who have the vision, passion, talent and skills to become the ‘next generation’ of leaders.
- Helping the current leaders prepare to make the ‘Grand Transition’ from work into what I call ‘the third phase’ of their lives.
Email: pkwendel@aol.com
Company Profile: Peter Wendel Group
Company URL:
http://www.peterwendelgroup.com
Back to Columns page
| 
