Building the Next Layer

Just concluded India-New-Zealand one day series drew my attention for non-cricketing reasons. Though I didn’t follow the game as such, but one important factor about this series is that India fielded entirely new team and still won by clean sweep. Argument may be that opposition team was not up to the mark; but I can’t take out credibility from the winning team.

It seems, India has successfully built the next layer, meaning we have a strong backup plan ready. There are instances where a set of players retire and that team’s performance goes down. We have cases in Australia, earlier West Indies, Pakistan etc where when a set of star players retired the next layer was not in place and thus these teams struggled to attain the limelight again.

This means, Indian team has worked on a succession planning and has done really well.

Now, draw the similarities into business and there is a need to have this kind of strategic planning for every business or business lines. And more ever it has to be executed with lot of precession.

The reflection of a true leader is to build his own succession such that the operation should run even in his/her absence. And all true leaders have shown this ability and business has grown even after their exit.

Infosys, TCS and ICICI have shown this kind of succession planning where the CEO baton has been transferred to others, without impacting the business operations. Infosys is said to have been grooming next generation leaders with focus on building next executive team from within the company. Similar kind of effort has been in place for Tata Sons group where Ratan Tata’s succession is being currently worked out.

The learning here is, be at an organization or a business line; there has to be a succession planning, which helps you to elevate yourself in to new position, if your operation is taken by someone else. In this way, you can grow within the organization and also establishes you as a leader who plans strategically.