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As originally published by David Sable on Linkedin. Subscribe to the newsletter!

Your success as a leader is not only defined by your current actions but is engraved in your legacy. And to me, legacy means the viability and longevity of what you’ve left behind, the ability of the next generation to take the company to new places, to build on what you created and make it even greater—all of which begins with Succession Planning. Your lasting value will be measured not only by what you’ve done today, but by your succession.

Succession planning, in any public company, is a board sized and agonized on issue. But in my view, succession planning, in any business or enterprise no matter the size, is critical. In fact, I’d argue, that the basic premise of succession planning is critical for all relationships—families included (a discussion for another time).

Succession Planning pretty much aims to address the issue of, “what happens if you, our leader, gets hit by a bus?” Not sure that’s necessarily how the issue is framed in Harvard MBA classes, but it does get to the point quickly. Too often the principals involved don’t address or want to address that thorny question, and when the need arises, when the bus hits so to say, many institutions are caught flat footed having to scramble with interim leadership and the chaos that inevitably ensues from such unpreparedness.

I have seen many boards struggle with the issue, reluctant to confront CEOs, and I have seen senior managers ignore requests for such planning, even though their companies were nowhere near prepared to contend with a sudden leadership change.

Worse yet, I have seen instances where succession planning becomes a way for individual executives to ward off internal competition, identifying multiple potential contenders and playing them off each other to keep them focused on each other and not on the current leadership.

The truth is that all of us are replaceable. Some more readily than others, true, but in the end, the engines keep rolling, the work keeps flowing, and hopefully, the enterprise keeps growing. If it doesn’t, my thesis is not that you were the only one who could make it work, but rather, you didn’t do your job, part of which is building a company capable of moving forward and meeting new challenges without you.

Harsh? Not at all! The business graveyards and trash heaps are full of such companies and enterprises. That is, failed or jury out companies that were linked to one person who controlled it in ways that allowed no one else in (see: WeWork), just as the list of successful, ongoing businesses is equally full of the opposite (see: VMLY&R).

For those of you who do not know, VMLY&R is the company I turned over to my successor, John Cook, and I am extremely proud of its continued growth, new ground broken and incredible achievements since I left. I celebrate VMLY&R’s success everyday as both its former CEO and as a shareholder of WPP in general.

So, what are the key lessons in planning for the future of your company as relates to leadership?

• Succession Planning should begin with your first job, even if it’s entry level. Get used to thinking about how you move on by thinking about who takes your place. A rising tide lifts all ships, and if you leave your job, move on and up, and the next person tanks because you haven’t paved the way for them to succeed, you are a failure—not a hero who triumphed while others could not.
• Think about the skills you lack, the expertise you don’t have, or sensibilities that you haven’t developed that may be useful in the future. Choose your successor with those in mind and make sure they have at least one of them already, while helping to train them/get them ready for the rest.
• Include your identified successor in your future thinking. Get their view and buy in. Secure the foundation of your vision for the future by allowing room for theirs.
• Actively think about how you keep your successor or replacement engaged and motivated. Salary and bonus help. So does inclusion.
• If they turn out not to be right, and you feel you chose wrong, part ways quickly and identify a new person. Don’t let them linger.
• Never appoint two people to replace you with shared accountability. You aren’t so important/irreplaceable that it will take two people to do the job you did as one. It’s confusing and can create a power struggle.
• Own your choice and make sure others do, too. No damning with faint praise. Stand behind them and make sure the rest of the team does as well.
• Make it a thoughtful, gradual, and well-communicated plan to achieve a no-drama transition.
• Remember that if your company can’t be great without you, it’s not a great company at all.

When you do finally pull the trigger and put the wheels in motion to leave, get out of the way. It is the hardest part of the process, and it’s where so many fail. But if you’ve done your job right, your replacement will take the company to new places, just as you once did. No one needs two of anything, and no one needs anyone looking over their shoulder or second guessing their plans. Remain a cheerleader—but from the sidelines, not the center field.

My final thought on the matter is an admonition to both planner and successor: if you have both done your jobs well and are aligned on the future, maintain respect for each other and watch the company thrive.

To that end, I share the following thought from Nicholas Copernicus…listen:

“Every light has its shadow, and every shadow hath a succeeding morning.”

 Your light is powerful, as will be theirs. Remember that.

As originally published by David Sable on Linkedin. Subscribe to the newsletter!

Are ideas digital or analog? What about inspiration?

I ask because I recently heard yet another “Digital First” presentation, and I was challenged to find any original idea at all in the very smart and fashionable deck shared with myself and the rest of the audience.

As I have written before, investors should run from marketing companies that speak in DIGIBABBLE (that is, Digital First), because until we humans become digital entities, our choices transcend technology.

And of course, there is the practical side to my argument. One of my frequent mantras is, “digital is everything, but not everything is digital,” meaning that digital technology is at the core of just about everything today, no matter if the final product presents itself as digital or otherwise.

Bottom line, most everything that likes to present itself as “tech” today is simply an application of tech, but in and of itself, has broken no new tech ground.

All of which leads me back to the notion of ideas and inspiration.

A recent article I read about Gen Z freeing the world from e-mail made me wonder who was going to save the world from Zoom and iMessage and more importantly, what did one have to do with the other? Isn’t it the use case that’s important? How you use the product or service? How you leverage it to build ideas and inspire people, as opposed to merely freeing the world from its use?

It reminds me of an assignment I had, years ago, from one of the top global consulting firms. The project entailed interviewing their most important partners, with the goal of helping them better understand their brand and how to leverage it for new business. I’ll never forget when one partner told me, “I am nothing without my computer—we are nothing without our tech.”

I was shocked—seriously. A firm known for its IP, bold thinking, game changing strategies and transformational ideas was reduced to a PC. That notion, needless to say, comprised a large portion of my report and presentation.

Let’s be clear and quiet the Knee Jerkers. Tech is an enabler. It always has been and always will be. A PC can help to accomplish a lot, but it isn’t going to make the difference in a company’s pursuit of clients or solutions—only people and ideas can, relationships and value-added thinking.

I’ve been particularly inspired over the past few weeks because both Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos made it into space on their private spacecrafts. In fact, I watched Richard Branson’s flight, while I flew (earthbound) to a business meeting.

As I quietly cheered him on from my Delta seat, I felt transported back to my younger self…standing on my grade school rooftop playground in Manhattan, with friends crowded around me to listen to John Glenn’s liftoff on my little transistor radio (the height of technology back then).

I was already bit by the space bug, it never left me. Over the years, though, it’s been hard to sustain the awe and wonder of it all—the inspiration to look up and out, not just down and in.

Branson always looked up. His vision for Virgin was always huge and inspiring. My view is that people like him and Bezos and Musk don’t want to be remembered for a fashionable airline, a big store with quick delivery or for creating yet another fast car (electric or autonomous notwithstanding), which is why they’ve all jumped on the space bandwagon.

I know it’s easy to be cynical about it all. Billionaires competing over whose toy will get them to space first, quickest, furthest. But perhaps a more positive way of viewing it, as I choose to do, is that this renewed interest in space travel represents a potential renewal of our human desire to break the bounds of what limits us.

We are in trouble if all we have to inspire the next generation is TikTok, Instagram and the Kardashians. We need more. We need to look up and out.

Richard Branson said on his return:

“The whole thing it was just magical”

I’d like to think he was channeling the legendary author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote the following:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

It’s time to get the magic back. To think about ideas and not just execution. To inspire and not just hype investment. To look up and out and not just down and in.

Because ideas are neither digital or analog—they’re magic.

What do you think?