Succession Planning Hot Seat for BP
by Lois Melbourne
What has the succession department and teams looked like at BP for the last few months? I am sure they have been busy and they were not proactive, it has been excruciating painful to live in their shoes. It was apparent early on that the public would want to see somebody at BP personally pay for the gulf disaster and as Hayward became a repeat offender of the ‘foot in mouth award’, it became obvious that no matter how well he runs the company, he was going to go.
But besides all the rabbit holes we could go down for that specific topic, let’s talk about the needs for succession planning. Do you think that 6 months ago BP thought they would be discussing the replacement of their CEO this summer? Do you think that there is only one person being replaced at BP? – NOT What about the people that specifically managed the work around regulations to avoid building a relief well? I would bet these less visible positions will be turning over quickly too.
Any given high level position change is likely to target 2 – 6 more moves or hires within the organization. Each person that get moved up, leaves a position that needs to be filled. New people in new positions, whether hired from the outside or promoted from a succession plan is going to consider their new team and evaluate if they want to make changes. This creates another cascade affect. Companies need to be prepared for this dynamic. Staffing changes ALL THE TIME! Critical roles cannot be left unfilled for very long, regardless of the reason they were made empty. What are you doing to either…
1)help prepare your organization deal with the trickle effect of replacing people throughout your company
or
2)make sure you are qualified and willing to step up to new responsibilities in the organization when opportunities arrive.
Look at the steps for succession planning (these are very high level, there is much more to the process, but these will get you started.
Know that when a decision goes wrong, there may be ramifications up and down the chain of command. Succession Planning is not just for the c-suite. Are you watching the trends of your organization to see where the highest turnover is taking place? Could you change those turnover trends by doing a better job of succession planning? Are your people being developed so that when they are needed to fill another position? Are they are trained and familiar with the teams and processes in the department? Are you measuring which leaders are preparing your future executives by promoting them and providing career and project mobility?
These are critical questions to be asking of your organization and putting systems in place to make all of this information visible and the plans executable. What are you doing to make sure you are contributing to the stability and growth of the organization? You think that might be a hot seat today. It is a much cooler seat then it will be when there is a crises for replacements raises its head, so step up.
Cheers,
Lois
You may also like...
Related Blog Post
Critical Roles: The Star Trek TestRelated Blog Post
Never Fear Succession Planning Resources to Ease the Process
Webinar
Safeguard the Future with Succession Planning
