| How do I get out of here? | Create a strong succession plan for your organization (and for your peace of mind). |
In the buzzy TV show Succession, siblings battle bitterly. They fight their father, they form alliances, then they fight each other again. Season after season, the siblings scheme and manipulate as they vie for a prize that only one can win: absolute control over the family company.
On TV, greedy aspirants clamber over each other for the seat of power. This is not the experience for most real-world nonprofits. In the real-world, nonprofit groups often scramble to fill vital seats. Leaders even hang in reluctantly, feeling stuck because no one is waiting in the wings to take on their role.
The nonprofit world offers purpose, but not wealth, fame, or security; this sets the stage for a different kind of drama.
“Succession planning” is a thing we know we are supposed to do. It’s on the list with Strategic Planning and Budgeting and Case for Support and the other greatest hits of nonprofit management.
Nonprofit turnover is rarely convenient, though. It doesn’t sound fun. It’s never funded. So it’s easy to put off. When the organization is humming along, succession planning feels abstract, like something that can wait. When a crisis hits, succession feels like a distraction from more urgent tasks. It rarely feels like the perfect time to start succession planning.
When it comes to organizational sustainability and resilience, succession is key. Roughly 3/4 of nonprofits don’t have a succession plan. Meanwhile, more than half of nonprofit leaders see themselves leaving in the next few years.
Succession isn’t what you see on TV. It’s not a once-in-a-generation, dramatic battle for a single seat of power. It’s not even about the individuals who are coming and going.
Succession is just life.
Turn your gaze to nature, and you see succession everywhere. A bare rock is bare because nothing lives their (yet). It takes a pioneer species like lichen to arrive and take hold. Lichen creates an environment where grasses can take root. Grasses create a foundation for shrubs, which do the same for trees. Every new phase of life attracts insects and birds and animals. Given enough time, succession turns bare rock into a forest.
If you think of turnover like it’s natural — rather than dramatic, unexpected melodrama — you normalize change. You make it less threatening. You build confidence and openness in your organization.
Succession planning should not be just about one person. It shouldn’t be personal at all. Succession planning should look at the organization as a system: how people arrive, how they are integrated, what happens when they are dormant, what happens when they depart, and what happens when the environment itself experiences a rapid change.
When treated like a natural part of life, the process of succession planning will make an organization stronger. Change becomes something to embrace, rather than avoid.
Succession plans are about people — not just one CEO or Executive Director, but the board members, officers, and other key roles in your organization. Every plan starts with a description of your team: Who is on it? What role do they play? What skills and abilities do they contribute? This is all information you need for your strategy, your budget, your HR planning, management, and internal communications anyway.
We don’t like to admit it, but one big reason we avoid succession planning is because we don’t like how these conversations feel. Leaders might find it hard to imagine an organization thriving without them, or they don’t like to picture their life without this cause at the centre. No one likes to imagine getting sick, getting old, or needing to take time off to care for loved ones. Nor do they want to imagine losing trusted colleagues or friends.
Succession planning takes the sting out of change. It reminds you that sometimes leaves are good — vacation time, family leave, sabbaticals, and promotions create vacancies for happy reasons.
And it prepares you for the big changes by walking you through different scenarios when they aren’t yet real, when they don’t sting, and when you’re not caught off guard.
The best plans cover a variety of scenarios: If this happens, then we will do that. But if that happens, then we will do this. They instill confidence in teams by allowing people to visualize what each person will do under any number of circumstances.
It’s a healthy, helpful way to approach any complex projects or decisions. You can’t know what the future will bring, but you can move forward confidently, knowing you can adapt to whatever arises.
People who hold things together — especially in an emergency — are asked to give a lot. Every manager or board chair reading this right now knows that handling departures without a plan or support can be one of the biggest challenges they’ve faced.
A succession plan can’t make the work go away, but it can ensure that people have resources they need. That the lines of responsibility are clear. And that the burden is never shouldered alone. The plan helps to ensure organizations emerge from the transition ready for the next phase of growth.
Succession planning is a mindset: when change comes, we will embrace it. The process can kick-start conversations that support sustainability. It’s also a powerful antidote against burnout.
Good succession planning helps organizations retain leaders by easing some of the most stressful parts of the job. Most leaders don’t leave in a blaze of family warfare. Most leave because they have given all they have to give — and sometimes that means burnout.
When you create a plan to cover gaps and leaves, you create a system capable of letting people be living beings. Of allowing them to rest. Of being whole humans with wanderlust and family needs and educational goals. You create a resilient organization — the best kind of organization to work for.
When people love coming to work — when it feels like a passion rather than an obligation, a choice and not a trap — the spark doesn’t flicker out so quickly.
Ironically, the better your succession plan is, the less likely you are to need one.
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