Succession Planning: The Ongoing Continuous Process

Note: This is the fifth of 11 blogs featuring practical wisdom from the new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 4: Succession Planning. Free to ECFA members, you can download the resource and video by clicking here.

What committee or task force owns short-term vs. long-term succession planning?

Principle No. 5: Delegate Succession Planning to the Appropriate Committee lists three tips so you’ll keep succession planning on your year-round agenda.

Tip No. 1: There is a substantial difference between executive transition and succession planning. As Nancy Axelrod notes in her very helpful resource, Chief Executive Succession Planning, the first is “an intermittent event that is time-line driven,” while the latter is “an ongoing continuous process that boards (with the help of their chief executive) implement.”

Tip No. 2: Assign succession planning to the committee or task force that fits your board culture. One size doesn’t fit all—but consider what committee will have high competence in discerning your on-going process, but can also spring into action when an executive transition occurs (by design or default).

And this reminder: emergency transitions are a very bad time to begin learning how to spiritually discern God’s voice. Build some spiritual discernment exercises into your board work now—not when the crisis hits.

Tip No. 3: Provide your committee or task force with resource materials on succession planning. Four books are listed in the materials. Order all four and delegate your reading:

• Stewards of a Sacred Trust: CEO Selection, Transition and Development for Boards of Christ-centered Organizations, by David L. McKenna (ECFAPress)
• Chief Executive Succession Planning: Essential Guidance for Boards and CEOs, by Nancy R. Axelrod (BoardSource)
• Boards That Lead: When to Take Charge, When to Partner, and When to Stay Out of the Way, by Ram Charan, Dennis Carey and Michael Useem (Harvard Business Review Press)
• NEXT: Pastoral Succession That Works, by William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird (Baker Books)


Principle No. 5 includes “Five Critical Next Steps” for your board to address, including: “If outside help or counsel is needed (a volunteer, a board coach, or consultant, for example), does the committee have the authority to retain necessary assistance? (What is the budget?) 

Check it out here: 

DOWNLOAD: ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 4: Succession Planning – 11 Principles for Successful Successions: “Every CEO is an Interim CEO.” The toolbox includes 
   • Read-and-Engage Viewing Guide (20 pages) – photocopy for board members
   • Facilitator Guide (10 pages)
   • 4 short videos (4-5 minutes each)
   • Additional resources and succession planning tools

BOARD DISCUSSION: "Are there appropriate board-approved succession policies to guide the work of the Succession Planning Task Force?"

MORE RESOURCES: Follow the “40 Blogs. 40 Wednesdays.” color commentaries on Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom. Click here.