James Diggines
Appearances
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: The Art of Succession: How to Identify Tomorrow's Leaders Today
I think timing is crucial. The longer the duration you have, the easier it is to start. And I think my advice would be start as soon as you are appointed in role and start thinking about it. It gives you time to assess your team and understand what you've got and then help think about what development they may need. and what your external options are.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: The Art of Succession: How to Identify Tomorrow's Leaders Today
Leaving it too late is a really bad position to be in. We were called to do the CEO succession of a very well-known global financial services company three years ago, and the call came from the chairman to say, hey, we need to do CEO succession. And we said, when? And he said, I need to do it now. We said, what are your internal options? He said, one.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: The Art of Succession: How to Identify Tomorrow's Leaders Today
And so the board at that time meant they only had the choice of who the external candidates that were available at that time and one candidate internally. That's not a place you want to be in.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: The Art of Succession: How to Identify Tomorrow's Leaders Today
The other two things are roles and then alignment. I think if it's a public company, understanding what roles people are playing, and that could be the chairman, the nom co-chair, the CHRO and the CEO. and understanding who's going to take the lead, what the cadence of the communication is going to be, and who's going to drive the process and for which role is really important.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: The Art of Succession: How to Identify Tomorrow's Leaders Today
And then the last is alignment. I think good organizations that do this well have got a really clear picture on what kind of challenges the organization is facing, what kind of opportunities they're facing, and therefore what some of the implications are for leadership.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: The Art of Succession: How to Identify Tomorrow's Leaders Today
One of the things that I think some companies trip up on is they don't prioritize the key roles. If you've got a CEO, they tend to have between eight, nine to 12 direct reports. You can't necessarily allocate same time on succession for all of those key reports. So pick the key roles. If it's the CFO seat, which is now increasingly seen as a CEO succession seat, pick that.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: The Art of Succession: How to Identify Tomorrow's Leaders Today
If it's a business role, some of the key business roles or sales roles, depending on the organization, you may want to prioritize them.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: The Art of Succession: How to Identify Tomorrow's Leaders Today
Thanks, Emma. Appreciate you having me in the lounge.