photo credit: notsogoodphotography
When you have reached the point where you’re moving up in the company or moving to a better position at a different company, it is important who you choose as your successor. Many people wonder if they should choose someone within the company already or if they should look elsewhere. The answer according to Marshall Goldsmith on Harvard Business is that you should definitely always choose someone within the company, and this I would have to greatly agree with.
If you choose someone outside of the company then everyone will be expecting someone who has a long time good track record and has all sorts of awesome new ideas to boost company morale as well as profits and, lets face it, there are not that many of those kind of people out there and the ones that are out there will cost your company a fortune to hire.
CEO’s that are hired from outside the company can often times create disasters for the company to the point where they need to be let go. Then you have a huge disaster that you’re left with, you have had to pay this CEO tons of money on their departure, and low and behold they turn around and create extremely bad publicity for your company in the public eye.
You have a vision for the company. After putting in years to make this vision a reality, you find it important that your vision continue after you leave. By developing an internal successor, you can be assured your vision will be carried out after you depart. You want your successor to bring a fresh perspective, but you don’t want him or her to negate all you did in the past. By carefully developing your successor from inside the company, you can dramatically increase the probability of a positive transition and a successful future.