Your Successor Won't Lead Like You | Full Send Management
Share
I asked an owner who has been running his company for a long time what his successor does better than he does. He went around it. He told me he wants his successor to be better than him, and that he always thought his own father was a better man than he is. I had to ask a second time before I got an answer, and within a breath he was back on the list of little things that still aren't getting done.
If you have a successor or someone you're considering, or better yet, you can't find one because no one "thinks like me," marinate in that for a sec. When was the last time you described anyone coming up behind you for a full minute without the word "but" showing up? There's a lot in that word, "but," and that will be for another newsletter down the road.
Every founder I work with has an "X factor" that built a successful business. His goes back to where his family came from and what they lived through to get here, and every belief he has about how you lead comes out of it. His successor heard about all of it and never lived it. So the successor doesn't lead the way he does, and the owner reads every difference as a gap.
A few days before we talked, one of his longest-tenured people told him the floor is a mess when he's on the road, and that everybody's focused when he's in the building. He told me that as proof his style works. I told him, "I know that works." The people who've been on that floor for 25 years adapted to him a long time ago. My question was who adapts to him as the company grows and fills up with people who never had that time with him.
When he described his successor, most of what he flagged as a problem sounded to me like a gift. The successor connects with people. He looks for what someone does well and builds on it. The owner called that soft, and if you've got someone coming up behind you, you probably have your own word for it. His successor's style is different, and that doesn't mean it's wrong.
The family companies I see make it from one generation to the next have a founder who respects that what got them here isn't going to get the next generation there. Fix what needs fixing and set a minimum level of expectation, because that part is inarguable. After that, quit grading your successor on how close they come to doing it your way. Their gifts and perspective are a big part of what helps the business survive and thrive after you.
Earlier in the call he'd said he'll probably die in that building. I've heard that from a lot of people who built something from nothing. So I asked him to picture the business five or ten years out and tell me where he is in it. "No idea," he said. I asked where his successor is. Leading it, he said, once he gets the little basic things down.
What's your word for the thing your successor does that you don't, and is it a compliment?
