Succession Planning: “Wise People Know When to Quit”

Note: This is the seventh 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.

Principle No. 7: Trust God and Discern Direction! Wisdom on Ending Well

Here’s a gut-check: “Does our board regularly practice spiritual discernment for fork-in-the-road decisions, or are our prayer practices more superficial than transformational?”

When your CEO retires, resigns (or if necessary, is terminated)…does your board have a culture and adequate competencies for spiritually discerning God’s voice? A time of crisis is a very bad time to play catch-up on how to hear from God.

Don’t wait until the eleventh hour of a succession planning crisis to get on your knees. Practice spiritual discernment early and often! But note this caution from Ruth Haley Barton in Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry:

“It is also important to involve the right people. One very common leadership mistake is to think that we can take a group of undiscerning individuals and expect them to show up in a leadership setting and all of a sudden become discerning!”

A board with spiritual discernment radar will also have wise counsel for their CEO regarding exit plans. In his book, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward, Dr. Henry Cloud quotes Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.” Cloud, a leadership coach and clinical psychologist, also adds, “Wise people know when to quit.”

When boards help their CEOs end well at the right time and in God-honoring ways, they build a healthy foundation for God’s next leader.

The Facilitator Guide includes a resource from Ruth Haley Barton with ten guidelines for “entering into and maintaining a listening posture.” It’s a powerful list!  

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: Does our board regularly practice spiritual discernment for fork-in-the-road decisions, or are our prayer practices more superficial than transformational?

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

Succession Planning: Does Your CEO Need a Coach?

Note: This is the sixth 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.

Principle No. 6: Invest in Growing Your Leaders (Every Leader Needs a Coach)

Bill Conaty and Ram Charan preach this memorable one-liner in their powerful book, The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers:

“Only one competency lasts.
It is the ability to create a steady,
self-renewing stream of leaders.”

These two business leaders list 12 “Leadership Pitfalls” in The Talent Masters, including “not developing your own succession plan.” Boards should memorize the list and be alert to staff members practicing this pitfall: “’Running for office’—which is totally transparent to everyone else.”

So on your journey towards succession plan readiness—how high is your board setting the bar on these two big ideas?
   1) Grow your CEO.
   2) Inspire your CEO to grow leaders.

I know. I know. The daily to-do list pushes succession preparation way down. Critical budget needs leave inadequate funds for leader development. Stop! Reflect! Pray! Consider this wisdom:

CFO to CEO:
“What happens if we invest in developing our people
and then they leave us?

CEO: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

Or this from Jack Welch, quoted by Jeff McManus in Growing Weeders Into Leaders: Leadership Lessons from the Ground Level: “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

Or this from Paul to Timothy: “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.” (2 Timothy 2:2, NIV)

Principle No. 6 includes four discussion ideas for inspiring your CEO to grow—so when succession happens, your next CEO will take the baton of a healthy, God-honoring organization. 

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: Does your CEO need a coach? According to Soderquist Leadership, “92% of executives who received coaching said they would be willing to be coached again.”

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

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.