Companies are led by human beings. These human beings inspire their workforce and deliver results to their shareholders. Many times, changes in leadership positions expose a stark degree of weak succession thinking with multiple instances leading to situations wherein individuals fill gaps not out of optimal choices but mere lack of availability of options. Succession is not only a matter for the top one or two positions of a company but a process that reaches beyond in order to map out the evolution of the organisation with the change in leadership. In the local context, these events are somewhat more pronounced due to the strong prevalence of family-owned businesses each with their peculiar circumstances and internal family politics, which encroaches on the business operations itself.
Having lived through multiple successions, we consider succession planning for the next generation of leadership to be a principal shareholder responsibility due to its long-term ramifications on the future of the company. Succession planning goes hand-in-hand with our vertical specialisation in talent management: the critical success factor of succession is the constant management of talent pipeline, offering a range of options for future leadership and transition in management. Our strategic mindset enables us to help our companies in transforming a succession process into an opportunity for growth consolidation and an injection of reinvention.
Whilst adopting each succession process on the basis of our structured methodology, we do not apply a template approach to delivering our services. We immerse ourselves into the pragmatic reality of the business to grasp the internal politics, the relationship issues and the family dynamics. We adopt an iterative process aimed at building succession options and constant talent pipeline, across the management levels of the companies we assist. We blend internal legacy and knowledge with external expertise and freshness seeking the balance that can deliver a harmonious direction focused on growth. We are driven by the goal of creating value and avoiding erosion of knowledge and collective organisational capability.
In delivering this we start from the alignment of the succession plan to the business strategy, setting the right degree of expectations and building the process into a clear time lined plan of action covering talent review, talent development, leveraging internal capabilities, sourcing external talent, building convergence efforts, developing organisational structural changes, formulating governance models, refining exit programmes and reflecting all in the proper legal instruments, including the establishment of family trusts.
In companies with increased complexity and long-term ramifications of leadership options, we also adopt interim leadership roles ensuring that the transition process is planned in a more streamlined fashion, allowing for a wider pool of both internal and external talent to be sourced and assessed to attain the most optimal of fits.