Too Important to Fail: Four New Rules for CEO Succession Planning | Spencer Stuart

I have previously posted various reports suggesting that firms will find their CEO and C-suite succession bench at risk once they enter a full recovery from the pandemic (see one of these posts here). Behind this risk is a perception that a segment of C-suite incumbents and potential successors have been “riding out” the crisis at their current organizations. Simultaneously, the new business environment has reset required leader capabilities, rendering pre-pandemic succession plans less relevant in a post-pandemic world. This new article by Spencer Stuart highlights four new succession planning rules that will drive best-in-class CEO succession planning: 1) Take a multidimensional view when scenario planning, 2) Increase succession options, 3) Evaluate and accelerate potential, don’t just rely on proven experience, 4) Think beyond CEO succession to CEO-plus—which focuses on accelerating the development of a broad set of leaders that are critical to the new CEO’s success; stated differently, succession planning should consider the ecosystem of talent that enables the success of the targeted role. While the authors wrote the article with CEO succession in mind, the ideas apply to most forms of succession planning.