Replacing yourself is your most important job
USAA wasn’t always the household name it is today. During my nine years there in the company’s corporate marketing and corporate communications departments, USAA was just beginning to dabble in mass market advertising.
The man who put USAA on its path to becoming a top 10 property and casualty insurance company (and a top 40 bank) was Robert McDermott, a respected former Air Force Brigadier General. “McD,” as he was affectionately known, was both a first-class management expert as well as a visionary. He knew the vision meant nothing without a plan and the resources necessary to implement it.
Job One
Of all the major challenges he faced in growing USAA from obscurity to prominence, he told the entire company one day that his most important job was to find his own successor. That was the day he announced his own successor, Robert Herres, also a decorated former Air Force General, in the roles of chairman and CEO.
I was in the crowd that day, some 30 years ago, at USAA. McD’s declaration that finding his successor was Job One, and that he had been working on this task for years, struck me with its clarity and wisdom. It’s a big statement for a guy running a company with something like 30,000 employees to make. How many other seemingly massive problems had to take a back seat to the problem of finding the next leader of the company? One can imagine. (By the way, Gen. Herres did a fantastic job and certainly validated that McD had found the right person.)
Reality Check
Gen. McDermott’s focus on thinking far down the road to who would carry the baton forward is a powerful lesson for business leaders today. In my experiences over the years sitting across conference tables with CEOs, presidents and chairs, more often than not they could not tell you who they think should carry the ball when the current boss leaves. The question usually produces an awkward glance toward the ceilng or a conveniently timed “urgent” issue they must address rather than look straight at the reality that they will not be the boss forever.
Besides the discomfort of facing one’s own “mortality” as the top executive, the successor question also is fraught with risk. What if you pick the wrong person? And given how awesome you are, how the heck will you ever find someone as good as you? How will those not chosen react? Will they leave? Will the culture you’ve built one day at a time for years survive the transition or will all that hard work be dismantled? How will your customers, investors and employees feel?
The list goes on. There are no easy answers. The future of the organization you love and the careers of people you care about deeply hang in the balance.
Succession Planning: It’s Not Too Late or Too Soon
All the more reason to begin the journey of finding your successor right now. Whether you are one year or 20 years from retirement, it’s never too soon or too late to begin.
Of course, look at the people already on your team and determine whether your successor is among them. Even if so, look outside as well. You might have someone already on board. But who knows if they will stay long enough to ascend to the throne? Or you might know someone outside the organization who could be even better. You will only know if you do your due diligence.
The process for identifying the right candidates to fill your shoes is another matter. But that succession planning process must begin with one decision — the decision to get started now.
