As a family business owner, you may dream of one day handing your company over to the next generation. But have you considered the role that your management team will play in the transition?
“There can be no successful transition if the success of the business is not maintained,” says Ricci M. Victorio, CSP, managing partner at Mosaic Family Business Center. “A key element is making sure that you have secured the talent that has made your business thrive. It’s not just the family that is vital to an organization’s success. You have to retain your key managers, the talented people who really make your business work.”
Smart Business spoke with Victorio about how to involve your management team in the transition of leadership.
What role should the management team play in a successful transition?
Your management team needs to be able to run your business if you are no longer there, for whatever reason, while the next generation is maturing and learning about the business. You have to consider the gap that exists between the current owners and the next generation.
The first step in the process of passing the business along is to lock in a vision of what you see for the business’s future, then communicate that to the executive managers so that everyone who makes that business successful can be enrolled in the vision. The managers then see that, yes, ownership is thinking about their future and that there is a place for them. This is a significant step toward retaining the key managers that are such an important asset to your business’s success. You don’t want them departing at your retirement, leaving the next generation starting from scratch.
What challenges does senior management face when a leader departs?
Many owners are hierarchical in the way they manage, in which case senior managers learn to respond to the owner telling them what to do. But then what happens when the owner is no longer there? Managers won’t feel comfortable turning to the 30-year-old son, who’s never been in charge of the business, to now make those decisions.
You have to create a learning curve and find ways to develop the management team so that the company won’t be crippled when the owner is to longer there to make those key decisions, and the next generation is not completely ready to take the reigns. With the proper planning, key managers will know their expanded roles and who should be making the decisions once the owner departs, letting everyone feel reassured that the company can keep going.
How can a coach help facilitate the process?
A coach can spend time with the management team while the owner is still there, and alongside the next generation that is being groomed, to teach them to work together as a leadership team. This process also gives everyone the opportunity to clarify the core values of the organization and get comfortable in the kinds of decisions they’ll need to make based on those values.
In many companies, managers have a close working relationship with the owner, but may not have that relationship with one another. A coach can help unbind them so tightly from the owner and get them to start working together as a collaborative team.
The coach also works with the owner and managers to develop a charter. Here, the owner can define the vision of the succession plan, the agenda for regular team meetings and the objectives of what everyone is going to hold each other accountable for during the process. Part of this process involves identifying areas that managers will be taking over, but where they may be struggling. Some examples include communication, problem-solving, mentoring, how to deal with controlling personalities, conflict resolution and how to better conduct employee review sessions to create a dialogue between the manager and direct reports.
By addressing these issues before management takes on new roles and responsibilities, a coach can make a difference in the quality of the business environment, morale and, ultimately, bottom line profitability.
What are the dangers of failing to plan for a transition?
A drop in productivity is inevitable if you haven’t planned for that transition. If the person at the helm isn’t prepared for his or her new role, employees will become confused about who is really in charge. When people aren’t sure about whom to talk to about the important decisions, soon, someone with a higher pay grade will take over to tell them what to do. But employees won’t necessarily trust that person.
In this kind of confusion and unclear leadership structure, it’s inevitable that conflict will ensue and key people will leave the company. To avoid that, you have to identify and prepare new leadership, and get everyone used to the transition before it happens.
By empowering your leadership team as a group, you’re not putting all of your hopes on one person, because that could create resentment throughout the rest of the group, as well as stress for that one person. Instead, you’re enlisting a collaborative team that can check on each other and hold each other accountable. That way, if one person gets sick or leaves the company, the business will not fall apart. And generally, you won’t have to worry as much about people leaving when you enroll them at this level of leadership.
Who doesn’t want to be acknowledged and empowered and really feel that they are making a difference at work? That is really what this process is about.
Ricci M. Victorio, CSP, is managing partner at Mosaic Family Business Center. Reach her at (415) 788-1952.
