You, Your Team, Your Successor

Recently, my sister shared a draft of a family book, gathering photos and stories focused on the lives and legacies of our late parents. She engaged my brother and I in a theme inspired by Richard Rohr, “I believe that God gives us our soul, our deepest identity, our True Self, our unique blueprint.” Her goal is to capture our
innate, God-given identity coupled with talents developed from our parents.

The conversation caused me to reflect on how innate and developed talents impact succession planning. The setting is identifying and passing the baton to my successor in a startup that had grown from 19 - 600 employees. I was keenly aware of how inborn curiosity to learn and lead well, coupled with entrepreneurial generalist skills learned from being brought up in a family-owned business, were instrumental in creating and sustaining a highly energized culture of “Oh yes, we
can”. The company was ready for a Human Resources Director who could take what we developed and solidify the practices that we barely had time to put in place, given rapid growth.

My successor, coupled with the team, were the ideal combination. She came from a similar-sized manufacturing company with stable growth, enabling a focus on solid Human Resources practices. She, along with the team, possessed the people engagement skills to support an agile environment, while bringing stability to process. I treasured working through circumstances to capture the delicate “both-and” of bringing order while building upon an agile culture.

As you continue through your third turn of leadership, consider successors who will complement and carry forward the unique talents you bring to the team. Carrying forward those unique talents often gets missed. One does not need to look far to see examples of CEOs who may have brought in complementary help, but ignored ensuring their own talents were present to carry forth what was meticulously
created.

--Linda Milanowski-Westdorp

References for further reading:
On His First day back as CEO of Starbucks
Disney Brings Back Bob Iger