Developing a Management Succession Plan
In this article from our Q3 2008 newsletter, Managing Partner Paul Keller explains the first step of management succession planning: taking inventory of your management team’s roles.
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The first step is to thoroughly assess exactly what you do at your company every day. Owners who manage their own businesses do not always realize how involved they are in day-to-day operations, managing relationships with important customers and suppliers, and other crucial tasks. Many say that their day-to-day involvement is minimal, only to reveal after further prodding that they spend ten hours a day at the office and have a hand in everything from customer service to packaging products for shipping on busy days. Some owners do so much that it ultimately takes two or more employees to fill their shoes when they eventually retire.
To evaluate the depth of your involvement in your company’s operations, begin by taking inventory of your own activities. You can do this in whatever format you feel comfortable with – a categorized spreadsheet, word processing document or a notebook. The point is not to record your specific actions in detail, but to get an overarching picture of what types of responsibilities you have, and how much time is dedicated to each category.
Note how you spend your time. For example, at lunch you may record that you have spent two hours speaking with customers and two hours planning a new direct mail marketing program. Add time spent negotiating with suppliers, overseeing staff in a particular department, or paying bills. Do not attempt to alter your managerial role as you undertake this task; the objective is simply to assess your responsibilities realistically so you can formulate an effective plan to delegate them to others.
Once the initial assessment is complete, look back and see how the hours break down. You may enjoy adding up the hours, creating pie charts and doing some analysis on how your time is distributed, but even a simple pen-and-paper journal will prove enlightening. With your task list in front of you in black and white, you can draw conclusions about the rough percentages of the time you spend on each job area. Many owners who undertake this exercise are surprised to discover where their time actually goes.