Succession planning vital for business continuity

link is the absence of succession planning during the implementation of product and market development strategies.
In most indigenous businesses, succession planning only becomes important after saturating the market. Succession planning is treated as a peripheral activity.
Failure rate of succession is higher in indigenous businesses than in foreign-owned businesses because indigenous business succession is reactive instead of being proactive.
Business continuity is never considered as a serious issue. Business continuity is, in fact, one of the major business strategies, which should be the number one priority for any entrepreneur or CEO.
In our indigenous business organisations, there is no deliberate agenda to teach our children to love mathematics and science in their daily lives from a young age.
This is in sharp contrast with Asians particularly the Japanese.
Japanese are known to be the best mathematicians throughout the world.
Most of our children are not financially intelligent, because they are mathematically illiterate. Therefore indigenous children find it difficult to fit into the shoes of their parents because of lack of financial intelligence.
An attempt at succession has been met with mixed fortunes for one well-known financial services company in Zimbabwe.
The founder retired to his farm and left his three children to compete in looting the company’s assets in Harare.
It will be folly to choose a successor if no effort is made to groom them to understand the importance of business practices which foster business growth and continuity.
Black businessmen are very secretive to the extent that their spouses and children are never exposed to secrets of the trade. The biggest culprits are musicians with the exception of Oliver Mtukudzi.
Mtukudzi had made a deliberate attempt to mentor his son Sam and daughter Selma.
Though Sam did not live long enough to enjoy the fruits of this mentorship, Selma is showing her mettle in the music industry.
Therefore mentoring successors must not only be restricted to male children only but should extend to the girl child as well.
Over the last year, Zimbabwe has seen the mushrooming of sons of the former music legends who are trying to keep the music of the late fathers alive.
It is worth noting that most of them never shared the stage with their late fathers but were chosen as successors to their father’s musical legacies.
They were thrown into deep waters without basic initiation tutorials. Notable names which come to mind are Sulumani and Tryson Chimbetu, Peter Moyo, Morgan and Tendai Dembo, Biggie Tembo Jnr, to name but a few.
These children found themselves with a heavy burden of navigating an unfamiliar and complex show business industry.
One can imagine the challenges they are going through right now. To make things worse, there is now rampant “snatching” of dancers and guitarists by competitors such that even seasoned musicians such as Macheso are still smarting from the loss of their band members. Most of them were never integrated into their fathers’ business before and the rules governing the game are also changing rapidly.
Most families across culture think of succession in terms of the male child even though the girl child might be more capable.
A classic example is Rudo Boka, who in many respects is the successor, to her father’s legacy and has shown a lot of tenacity and aggression in turning around her father’s empire.
Most entrepreneurs do not think highly of their subordinates because they always think successors must be people who are carbon copies of themselves or their kith and kin.
Given that, it is difficult if not impossible to find two people who are alike, failure to find carbon copies of themselves will be advanced as excuses for lack of succession planning at their companies.
It is recognised that the founder of a company has deeper knowledge and skill to manage his enterprises and it is rare for anybody who comes after them to have the same energy levels and acumen to run the business.
It is not easy to transfer networks and business intricacies to the successor because some of them are personal relationships.
However, there are some that can be transferred like the general running of business which constitutes 80 percent of the work.
The other 20 percent or so is personal relationships and networking which the successor also has to bring to the table using his/her core competencies and personality.
Methods of implementing
succession planning
Candidates who are ideal for succession are the ones who believe on the original cause of the business in a big way.
The trial period for the chosen successor must be during the time of the incumbent.
It is easier to do trial and error when time is still on your side. Churches all over the world are very good at preparing for the future progression of the congregation.
One of the most effective ways is by building vibrant youth guilds, which are also managed by youth pastors. Once the youth wing is vibrant the future of the church is guaranteed.
In our traditional African beliefs, we say “Kugara nhaka huona dzawamwe” (We learn by copying others).
This might be achieved through adopting and tailor-make the best practices to suit our current and future circumstances.
In terms of succession policies Delta Beverages appears to have the seemingly most organised succession plan, which has been proven to work over a long period of time.
In some big companies, policies are put in place for rotational chairing of meetings, rotational conflict resolution activities and many other leadership responsibilities.
During these rotations each acting chairman would be the chief executive at that time.
These rotations give the board and fellow managers the opportunity to evaluate performance and suitability of successor.
One indigenous company, which made an attempt at succession, is Kukura Kurerwa Buses.
The founder of the bus company has successful passed the baton to his son, Ignatius Nyariri, who is now running the show even though the founder is still around. Succession is not only necessary after death.
In another instance, entrepreneur Clever Madzara groomed his young brother Elias Madzara to take over his business.
However, the grooming was so effective that Elias went on to launch Delma Printers which is a well-known brand in the printing industry.
This implies that sometimes groomed people or successors can develop beyond merely waiting for succession to take place.
In the event of the chosen successor outliving the vision, another successor has to be identified for future grooming.
Therefore the chief executive must start planning for his/her successor from the day he/she is appointed.
An entrepreneur should work on identifying a successor the day he/she launches his/her business.
However, identifying a potential successor might be easier but allowing the successor to start exercising some responsibilities is challenging to many. Many parents and many entrepreneurs find it difficult to let go.
The downside of succession
At times the successors are thrown into the deep end without adequate preparation.
In most cases the business goes to the ground because the successor will be ill prepared for the responsibilities.
If this situation occurs during the lifetime of the torchbearer, it is easier to correct this before the business is damaged or run down.
If this happens after the death of the founder, the business might never recover.