Eugene Visser

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09 March 2012

Deliberate Succession Planning in a Community of Faith Definition: Succession planning is a process for identifying and developing internal people with the potential to fill key business leadership positions in the company, both on an ongoing basis as well as for the replacement of existing leaders. Community of faith is a group of believers with a shared common faith. For the purpose of this essay, the assumption is made that a community of faith specifically denotes a Seventh-day Adventist community. Outline: Whenever leadership in a community of faith is discussed, it seems inevitable for the discussion to degenerate into a political debate. In the view of this author this is unacceptable, since by definition a community of faith, certainly a God-based faith, should not be bound by the human constraints of self service. That leadership operates under the auspices of human constraints is not denied but the author simply questions the implementation thereof. It is within this framework that this essay will look at a professional model rather than a personal model. The author refuses to enter into debate with regards to the current leadership structure of the Seventh-day Adventist church, the merits thereof or the readiness of current leadership to pass on the baton. Corporate success is achieved by implementation of successful models, not by meaningless debate. Identification: The first major step in any succession model hinges on the identification of capable people from within the structure of the company. Great leaders of the past acknowledged this, none more so than Margaret Thatcher. When it became clear that she would have to vacate her office, she notoriously said But there was one more duty I had to perform, and that was to ensure that John Major was my successor. I wanted perhaps I needed to believe that he was the man to secure and safeguard my legacy and to take our policies forward (quoted in Blackaby & Blackaby, 2001, p. 279)[1] For the mere sake of continuance, finding leaders from within would be a strong argument, but failure to do so undermines the single most valuable asset of any organization its people. Leaders, especially charismatic and motivational leaders, who have worked with and cultivated relationships with employees, are of incalculable value when it comes to identification of capable people within the organisation. No new leader from outside can ever hope to pick up relationships where the previous leader has left off. Strengths and weaknesses that only manifested themselves after extensive cooperation between leader and follower are crucial in making informed decisions about the next leader. "Replacement planning" for key roles is the heart of succession planning. Effective succession or talent-pool management concerns itself
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with building a series of feeder groups up and down the entire leadership pipeline or progression (Charan, Drotter, Noel, 2001)[2] The replacement planning model is a blatant self-serving one. This is not a negative aspect, since it not only ensures the healthy survival of the company, but it also manages key personnel and provides clear and defined guidelines for promotion. Within the community of faith, the pool of employees are by en large Pastors. This provides an inherent problem in that the leadership structure could require skills not necessarily attributed to pastors. A good pastor is not always a good leader and vice versa. Also, by the mere nature of corporate leadership, good pastors traditionally make poor leaders as most lack corporate experience and their focus would be on evangelism and not on political power-struggles. This author would bravely venture an opinion in saying that great leaders who are also great pastors are a rare breed indeed. This inherent problem would require a community of faith to engage in on-going training and systematic succession planning programs for various reasons. The three most important are: To provide increased opportunities for "high potential" workers. To identify "replacement needs" as a means of targeting necessary training, employee education, and employee development. To increase the talent pool of promotable employees. (Rothwell, 2001, p. 30)[3] Finally, the identification of high potential workers within the community of faith provides its own problems since the idea of promotion should be foreign to a committed pastor. By virtue of the fact that promotion is contemplated, ambition is encouraged and this goes against the Divine Appointment of a genuine calling. However, that is not the purpose of this essay and the topic is abandoned. Implementation: Research indicates many succession-planning initiatives fall short of their intent. "Bench strength," as it is commonly called, remains a stubborn problem in many if not most companies. Studies indicate that companies that report the greatest gains from succession planning feature high ownership by the CEO and high degrees of engagement among the larger leadership team (Kesler, 2002,p.33) [4] The only counter for these failures would be a clear and defined outline of objectives. These objectives or principles can be fairly universal since they must be rooted in human nature. As previously stated, people are the single greatest asset of any institution and hence objectives rooted and focused on the individual need as well as the corporate need have an elevated chance at success.

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The following objectives tend to be core to many or most companies that have wellestablished practices: Identify those with the potential to assume greater responsibility in the organization Provide critical development experiences to those that can move into key roles Engage the leadership in supporting the development of high-potential leaders Build a data base that can be used to make better staffing decisions for key jobs Improve employee commitment and retention Meet the career development expectations of existing employees Counter the increasing difficulty and costs of recruiting employees externally (Kesler, 2002, p. 33-44)[4] The process of succession planning should support and complement the strategic planning and strategic vision of an organization and provide an essential starting point for leadership and employee development programs (Rothwell, 2001, p. xxi, op.cit). Without this strategic focus, organizations will have difficulty maintaining leadership continuity or identifying appropriate leaders when a change in business strategy is necessary (Rothwell, p. xxi, ibid). This is important to remember because the succession process and attendant politics tend to be most visible at the top of the organization (Tichy & Devanna, 1990, p. 104, emphasis supplied).[5] It is for this further reason that this author maintains a paradoxical tension between good pastor and good leader. However, the responsibility for implementation of successful models lies with the existing leadership and not with the followers. Whether or not these models have been or are implemented by the community of faith under discussion is immaterial success lies in the adoption of a successful model, not in meaningless debate! By definition then, the successful implementation of such a model would require an ethical leadership structure. No succession planning could ever succeed if there is not open and honest dialogue within the structure. Any grandstanding or posturing would immediately undermine the sincerity of the process. Here the community of faith should have a distinct advantage over a secular institution since by definition it should be made up of Men of God. If driven by true humility and submission to the will of a Higher Power, it follows that decisions will be made with others in mind rather than self. In terms of the community of faith, other would then mean the greater good or ultimately to the glory of God If a deliberate succession planning model is adopted then with this Higher Power as guiding factor, the advantages over a secular parallel would be immense. There would be no comparison drawn between a secular institution and one governed by God and the implementation of

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strategic and succession strategies would become exiting and uplifting experiences that promotes and ultimately completes Gods work on earth.

Conclusion: Succession planning should be a deliberate process and not a one-time event. The best time to plan is when one can afford the time to properly evaluate alternatives and seek input from professional advisors. Leaders ideally never want to be forced to accelerate succession because of illness, divorce or death. Such decisions are fraught with inherent dangers and are doomed to failure. Similarly, over planning can also spell disaster since it could cultivate unrealistic expectations in employees. The balance between motivational and promissory programmes, and actual implementation should be a carefully managed timeframe and would require exceptional skills on the part of the leader. In the opinion of the author, this is a specialized field and the engagement of a professional in this field would go a long way in de-personalising the whole process. The leading professional affiliation for succession-planning professionals who specialize on the HR aspect is, arguably, The Human Resources Planning Society (publishers of People and Strategy Journal at http://www.hrps.org/), an international association with academic and practitioner membership from around the world. The organization that approaches succession planning from a comprehensive standpoint, in addition to just HR, would be the International Succession Planning Association (www.ispassociation.org.) Having said that, the idea of outside consultants, especially secular ones, would meet with considerable resistance from a community of faith. Large companies who achieve considerable success recognize that skills and programmes needed for success, and which are not available internally, must be outsourced. The benefits of such outsourcing far outweigh any perceived or actual cost. People familiar with the thinking of Chief Executive Samuel J. Palmisano of IBM say he is seeking advice on how to handle the transition[6] If a secular institution like IBM, whose primary focus is on making money, sees the value of seeking advice how much more then should a community of faith, whose primary focus is not making money, seek all the help they can get to further their higher calling? In the absence of dynamic ethical leaders this author would heartily promote outsourcing a deliberate succession planning strategy. However, since no assumption is made regarding the current leadership of the community of faith, the question remains as to whether there has been any progress in the furtherance of the Gospel. In order to answer this question, there has to be one major presupposition which is that God needs the current leadership to successfully promote the Gospel by means of their internal strategies This pre-supposition is fatally flawed in that no effort from man empowers God. It would be presumptuous to
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assume that successful succession planning would enable God to do His work more successfully. What is true though is that failure to implement productive and successful leadership programmes would result in God moving His Gospel into the hands of willing and humble servants from elsewhere! There can be no argument against the need for dynamic and successful leaders. There can also be no argument against the need for a deliberate succession planning model. It is however problematic when that argument becomes a wholly secular one, especially in the framework of a community of faith. The greatest want of the world is the want of menmen who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. [7]

Eugene Visser

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References 1. Blackaby, H., & Blackaby, R. (2001). Spiritual leadership. TN: Broadman and Holman. 2. Charan, R., Drotter, S., and Noel, J. "The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company". San Francisco: Jossey - Bass, 2001 3. Rothwell, W. (2001). Effective succession planning. New York: American Management Association. 4. Kesler, G. Why the Leadership Bench Never Gets Deeper: Ten Insights About Executive Talent Development. People & Strategy, 2002, 25 (1), 32 44 5. Tichy, N. M., & Devanna, M. A. (1990). The transformational leader. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 6. http://www.theoutsourceblog.com/2011/06/ibm-crafts-succession-plan/, accessed 06/03/2012 7. The Ellen G. White Publications; Education, p. 57, c 1903, 1952, Pacific Press Publishing Association