Succession

Those that follow us know that we have written about succession planning several times since this Monday Huddle Up newsletter started over 13 years ago. Given the events of the past week, we felt it was time to chime in on this topic again.

If you follow March Madness you have watched the drama of a head coach firing at a blue blood program (North Carolina). The (retiring, important here) athletic director and agents quickly worked backchannels to find a new coach at UNC, with the primary target the coach at my alma mater, the University of Arizona. In the end, as we write this, UNC has no head coach in place, and their number one choice turned them down to stay in Tucson. While we are ecstatic that our coach Tommy Lloyd will be staying put, the whole process has been under major scrutiny by the mainstream media.

Why did UNC fire their coach without KNOWING who the successor would be?

For a program of that stature, shouldn’t they have had the next coach in the wings before they fired the current one?

Okay, very few of us are DI athletic directors at power five conference schools. So we don’t know what they are going through in this scenario. However, in this past week, we have experienced a very similar “succession plan” type situation…..

Yesterday on Easter Sunday, the leader of our church, Pastor Frank, delivered the best Easter service in our 15 years as part of this congregation. He was funny, hit on the appropriate Bible elements, and all in all was better than his normal awesomeness. The house was packed, standing room only in the back of our relatively small church. He even touched upon his pending sabbatical, as he is standing down in a semi-retirement to take a lessened role at the church effective this May.

Pastor Frank has led, no BUILT, our church from the ground up for 13-plus years. What was once a struggling little group of church goers to where we are today has been remarkable.

We have planted more than 10 churches from Hollywood to Tallahassee as well as several here in Arizona. Every time we send out a group of leaders to begin anew along with the families that go with them, 3x more people and families fill their seats. We have gone from renting space at a defunct old building to owning our own sanctuary and raising significant funds to buy and renovate the facility.

I can go on and on about Pastor Frank (he baptized me and our son Brock among other awesome things he has done for our family). This past Easter Sunday, he baptized three more people as part of the service we attend (tone of four services all together on Easter Sunday, complete with coffee, bagels, donuts, and baptisms at each).

As the music worship portion of the service we attended was taking place, I looked back over my shoulder to see a packed house, and a standing room only lobby behind that. As humble as he is, he wouldn’t take credit for it, but this is obviously the house that Pastor Frank built. So as he steps back to let the younger pastors lead us into the future, there has to be some serious discussion among the current members of the church. Things like……

The new guy won’t be Frank.

Do we think the direction of the church will change?

I’m uncertain about the new leader, should I stay or should I go? (No pun intended on the great song from the Clash here).

Watching what Frank has built over the past decade, having witnessed the recent coaching carousel in college basketball, and working with our Huddle Up Group partners on what human capital issues they have, the themes are easy to see…..

As a leader in whatever industry you are in (sports or otherwise), do you have a succession plan?

A plan for each member of your team.

A plan for your volunteer/board leadership.

And most importantly…..

Do you have a plan to replace yourself?

If you said “no” to any of these, block time to address these issues. Reach out to your contemporaries that have been down this path before. Engage your key stakeholders, ask them what they think, and listen to their thoughts.

As I said in my brief speech when taking on the Chairman’s role at SportsETA in 2009 (paraphrasing), “No matter what challenge you are facing, someone in this room has been down that path. Reach out to the person next to you. Engage our community. We are all here to help each other.”

This is as true for the succession process as it is for anything else.

When you see a changeover coming, now or down the road, the worst thing you can do is ignore it. Especially if that change involves you.

Think ahead. Drive the discussion. Lead the change that inevitably lies ahead.

By not doing so, you allow others to decide the fate of you and/or your organization.