Theo And Succession Planning

Succession planning ranks as one of the most difficult components of any talent management program. After all, employees want to know what's being said about them in all those hush-hush meetings informed by mountainous three-ring binders. Like most any task involving the discussion and selection of people, succession planning can be a very political exercise, too. Is it any wonder then that so few organizations do it well, or at all?

The Boston Red Sox are a notable exception. They correctly see succession planning as more than some kind of "nice to do exercise." Rather, GM Theo Epstein and his management team understand succession planning for what it really is - a risk management and business continuity matter as well as an investment in the future. Yes, we are told that all professional sports teams engage in some kind of succession planning process, position by position. After all, the National Football League is one giant depth chart, right? The difference as with most things in life is the degree to which organizations take the task seriously, invest the time needed to produce excellence, use the right tools to gather and weigh the necessary evidence with fairness and relative impartiality, and make reasoned decisions based on those data.

The Red Sox under Epstein understand the need for patient, evidence-based processes that have the potential to improve the organization while keeping it on top. The Red Sox chose to make serious investments in talent development under new owners earlier this decade. Then, they chose to take those investments equally seriously by designing and implementing an effective succession planning program. They have won two World Series championships in the last four seasons and are contending right now for a third. And yet, through all this glory, they have become considerably younger and even better over that same period.

So if you are having difficulty convincing your boss of the need for succession planning, here is one case where a sports metaphor may actually be useful.

p.s. Can it possibly be true as Tom Friedman tell us in his new book Hot, Flat and Crowded that the American pet food industry spends more on research and development than the country’s power companies? I think we're going to the dogs.