Regardless of the size of your business, you can use succession planning to determine the critical roles within your company, to consider possible successors to those roles, and to provide them with the appropriate skills in order to be successful in those roles.
I was recently reminded that I have a birthday coming up soon; the one day every year where you magically age 365 days overnight. This reminder came in the form of an email from my financial advisor updating me on my 401k, life insurance, and the steps I need to take to plan for my future now that I’m going to be officially older than yesterday. He often tells me that my actions now will set me up for success later in life, what I’ll do after retirement in the distant future and planning for the unforeseen obstacles that might come.
Basically, every one of us with insurance, a retirement account, or cash under the mattress are succession planning in our personal lives. If this has become commonplace in our daily routines, it begs the question, “Are we making succession planning commonplace in our offices?”