Succession: Mastering the Make-or-Break Process of Leadership Transition

by Noel M. Tichy

Noel Tichy has been the trusted adviser on management succession to companies including Royal Dutch Shell, Nokia, Intel, Ford, and Mercedes Benz. Succession distills his decades of experience and provides a practical framework for building effective transition pipelines - for multi-billion dollar conglomerates, family businesses or anything in between. Through revealing case studies - like Hewlett Packard, IBM, Yahoo and P&G - Tichy examines why some companies fail and others succeed in training and sustaining the next generation of senior leaders. He highlights the all too common mistakes that can generate embarrassing headlines and threaten survival. And he puts leadership development and succession where they belong: at the top of every leader's agenda.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

448 pages, Hardcover

First published June 12, 2014

About the author

Noel M. Tichy is an American management consultant, author and educator. He has co-authored, edited or contributed to over 30 books.

Reviews

[Sam Nadarajan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My boss recommended this book to me (he had it in his library). I'm not a fan of large books with fine print, but I felt obligated to read this. It was a rough start, as I was only a year or so out of college so the thought of succession was distant from me.

While it's been 5 years since I've read this book, I think the biggest takeaway I still remember from this book is that succession planning must be intentional, and it must begin from day 1. Otherwise, circumstances will change beyond your control and the company may not be successful in the long term.

The other big takeaway I remember from here is that the best successors do not necessarily have to come from within a company. I previously held on to the notion that the best leaders are ones that worked through the ranks from within, and that was partly influenced by previous readings with Jim Collins. However, sometimes someone from outside can inject new energy into a company that has gone stagnant (see Alan Mulally at Ford).

Tichy is well researched, and I would definitely get this book to keep in my library. This is definitely a book to reference in the future

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to this one via an audiobook, but should have gone hardcopy - so many great ideas! The author clearly emphasizes that a CEOs two key tasks are to grow the company’s assets/business and develop the company's internal leadership pipeline. Additionally, one of the board's primary roles is to prepare for leadership transition. One concept as part of internal succession planning is to have each potential CEO candidate gaining board exposure long before any hiring action begins; have them brief the board before the actual selection process starts; encourage social events where all the board can meet each future candidate, etc.

I've heard this one from my current boss, but the way to know a CEOs concern for leadership development is to look at his/her calendar. In other words, do they spend only enough "check the block" time with leadership classes/programs, or are they highly involved and spend the appropriate amount of time developing the organizations future leaders.

Overall a great read that I may pick up again!

[Ken Guenther · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author spends too much time talking about his own accomplishments and connections. But the book is very helpful in understanding the process of planning a leadership succession, particularly at the highest level of the organization. Succession planning is really about leadership development throughout the organization, and can be a powerful change agent as well. The CEO, the CHRO and the board must all be deeply involved in the process. The nine-cell grid for evaluating possible candidates is helpful. The appendix is probably as valuable to me as anything in the book because it provides a handbook for managing the more technical parts of the succession planning.

[Rick Dugan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I anticipated this would be a book with a limited application to leadership transition. However, Tichy's thesis is much more profound. Companies that develop leaders are more successful than those that don't, companies that develop leaders are more adaptable to change, and evidence that a company is developing leaders is when it is able to replace leaders internally. Therefore, every company and organization should have a goal of replacing leaders internally and should have deliberate and strategic plans for developing the next generation of leaders. This is essential in a global context of rapid and unpredictable change. After making the case for multiple leadership pipelines within the organization, Tichy describes the process of organizational transformation (leading through changing markets, technologies, economies, etc.) and developing the next generation of leaders.

Tichy addresses leadership development from a technological (hierarchies, organizational development, training programs), political (who gets to make the decisions, who gets the resources) and cultural (values) persective. Leadership development is perhaps 10% formal training, 20% coaching/mentoring, and 70% on the job training.

This is a very helpful book in recognizing that leadership development should be the priority of every organization and CEO, and it provides good examples and illustrations on how to do this. In cases where a company is faltering and it becomes necessary to look for outside leadership to change the direction, Tichy offers advice on how to do this as well.

"Succession: Mastering the Make-or-Break Process of Leadership Transition" is actually a book on leadership development.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was primarily focused on succession planning in large corporations. Which was good, but I was hoping it would be more about transitioning into SMBs, which it really didn't cover. I would recommend this book to anyone "climbing the ladder" in a large corporation, or those that advise executives in a human capital capacity. A few points that surprised me was how much time a successful CEO spends on the leadership development of junior practitioers, as well as how much higher the success rate of a transition is for an insider succession than an outsider one (Jim McNerney and Alan Mulally are oft-cited exceptions).

[Matija · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much general talk and emphasize on Leadership Programmes that author managed to introduce in various companies. And not enough hard skill advice what to do to achieve seamless transition