|
Companies can't afford to skip this step. Without succession planning, "you're playing the risk game," says Karen Rubenstrunk, senior client partner at Korn/Ferry International, an executive search firm in Los Angeles.
But it rarely works out as planned. For starters, some CIOs simply haven't given much thought to the need for a successor. They may be relatively new to the job, they may be busy or they may believe they're indispensable. The insecure may fear that putting a good successor in place makes it easier for them to lose their job. (For the record, this is rare. Rubenstrunk says she has never seen this happen.)
All told, only 19% of CIOs report that they do succession planning, according to Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing service based in Menlo Park, Calif. That is based on a poll of 1,400 randomly selected CIOs from U.S. companies with more than 100 employees.
Even when a CIO designates a successor, the odds aren't overwhelming that the person will get the job. Mark McDonald, a group vice president who is in charge of executive programs for research firm Gartner Inc., estimates that "probably 80%" of CIOs can point to a potential successor. But, he adds, "If you say, 'What's the probability that the person you named would actually succeed you?' it's under half."
This happens for several reasons: The successor gets tired of waiting and takes another job before his time comes; he isn't ready; he's ready but hasn't won the confidence of the other senior managers; or times have changed.
"It's very frequent that the [successor] who has been groomed is not the right candidate because the business context has changed," McDonald says. For instance, if a company has tried unsuccessfully to grow and the strategy wasn't successful, the company may need a CIO who has experience cutting costs. But that kind of successor might not exist, McDonald says, because "very often, CIOs groom someone like themselves."
Or, as is common at midsized companies, the company may have grown so fast that it needs a higher level of candidate. A company whose revenue ballooned from $100 million to $1 billion under its current CIO may pass over the internal candidate for an outsider who already has experience in larger companies.
All this makes succession planning a dicey proposition for potential successors. But even if they don't move on to become CIO, they benefit from added training.
|
