‘Succession Planning Key to Companies’ Growth, Survival’
The Chief Executive Officer, Anabel Group, Dr. Nicky Okoye has said that corporate entities should place high premium on succession planning, stressing that it is the major key to growth and development of an organisation.
Okoye stated this while addressing participants at a forum of resource managers on Succession Planning in Lagos. Many companies have either gone under or are performing poorly due to lack of succession plan or succession crisis, he observed.
But Okoye explained that the most important challenge to business sustainability is leadership succession.
According to him, leadership succession involves preparing the next generation of leaders for unit heads, departmental heads and executive management. He noted that many companies had consistently tied succession to changes at the level of chief executive only.
“It is not proper to overlook succession planning at the level below the executive officers because the middle level staff would ultimately grow to the top level. There should be deliberate efforts to groom the future executives and the role of human resource managers is very strategic in this regard,” Okoye said.
Commenting on the attributes of a good employee, he identified loyalty, passion, competence and positive mental attitude as some important factors to observe in determining the future chief executive officers.
He noted that some quoted companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange with foreign core investors had long stopped appointment of Nigerians as chief executive officers, indicating the need for our indigenous professionals to review what went wrong and the way forward.
The Anable Group boss, also cited some notable Nigerian entrepreneurs whose business empires collapsed after the founders’ death.
“Great Achievers can be identified early in their professional life and so corporations that wish to preserve their growth and guarantee their success will identify these super achievers and place them on the path of leadership”, Okoye added.
He announced the plan by his firm to hold series of Boot Camps from this month till the end of the year where participants would be exposed to the fundamentals of succession planning and case studies of companies that deployed succession planning for enhanced corporate growth and those whose collapse were prompted by lack of succession planning.
Meanwhile, one of the participants at the forum, Mr. Sunny Enebi, stressed the need for executive grooming by human resource managers in order to ensure that only fit and proper staff occupy strategic vacant positions in the event of vacancies in their respective organisations.