Succession

S-U-C-C-E-S-S-I-O-N

The buzz word on everybody’s mouth these days. Infosys just about a month back completed it for the post of its Chairman after long deliberations and discussions. Tatas are in the process of choosing the successor of the great Ratan Tata and the process too is supposed to take a lot of time. A 5 member panel is looking into the intricacies.

Why is succession so important? People at the top cannot keep working for ever and hence change is mandatory. Age, health, opportunities etc can be the various reasons why this change happens. For big organizations, it is all the more important to plan the succession properly, because the market outside is highly competitive. If the organization loses focus even for a while, it can land in trouble, lose its competitive advantage, lose the momentum and fortunes could get reversed in no time.

Thus, it is important to plan the succession, in such a way that the right person is selected for the job. By right person, the person has to have a consistency with the vision of the organization and someone who can take the organization forward with minimal glitches. Other considerations include the period for which he will be in that particular role, whether he will mix with the culture of the organization, whether he has to be external or internal and so on. The incoming person also needs to be given sufficient time to be groomed so that he fits the roles and responsibilities.

Succession planning is not only that. Every organization is like a pyramid and at every level, few people get left back and only the best qualify further. It is also observed in many large organizations, that succession battles are at times fiercely fought. Once a succession happens, there is a tendency for a few others to leave the organization. Keeping that in mind, succession planning should also plan how to fill those vacancies as well, so that morale within the organization doesn’t fall.

Though it is easy to get carried away and believe that some people tend to be indispensible to the team/organization, in reality it isn’t so. No individual is greater than the team. I have seen this personally on more than one occasion. Firstly, when I quit from my first job, I used to single handedly handle a lot of things for the territory I was in charge of and also for the area [Area is a combination of two or more territories. In our case it was four]. I was convinced that even after leaving, I would still receive calls and Emails from my colleagues, the dealers and their staff. But to my surprise, not a single communication came. No call, no Email, No message, nothing at all. Secondly, when my seniors from the team graduated and we were left alone, I was very apprehensive on how the team would run. But it in the end, we did manage a good show. The work, will eventually teach you how to do it. So will people who have taken over from us run the team without any major hiccups over the next year. So I have come to strongly believe that teams and organizations, do not run because of an individual nor do they stop running because an individual leaves it.

Which brings me to another crucial point to conclude. Think about the Indian cricket team – especially in the test arena. At times, I feel that we are solely dependent on the trio of Sachin, Dravid and Laxman to win/save matches for us. But it’s high time we groom others. Eventually the trio has to retire, and most likely they all will within a matter of a year or so. They have been sticking around for quite a long time now and they aren’t getting any younger by the day.We have a fairly decent and young side for the ODIs and the T20s. But the average age of the test side is pretty high. If these people do not retire soon and make way for youngsters, we may be jeopardizing the future of Indian Test cricket, just because a deserving Suresh Raina or a Rohit Sharma or a Virat Kohli doesn’t get enough exposure at the big stage. It has happened in the past, when Javagal Srinath was sidelined, just to ensure Kapil Dev breaks Hadlee’s record, and if we do not learn from our mistakes, its sad.