Find a successor who fits the culture

Written by Nick Freedman, Founder of Retire on Purpose. 

On 20 September 2018, Enigma, one of Australia’s largest independent agencies hosted their annual Brand Summit. I was invited to speak at the event and chose to share my experience as a management consultant, helping businesses build great culture. In the talk I explain what culture and it's impact on building a brand. The room was full of 200 marketeers at the iconic Foghorn Brewery in Newcastle. 

Culture is important too in the final stage of your career.

Many people, before they depart their final job, recruit and train a successor, so they can hand down the rich career wisdom they’ve accumulated. This process is often described formally as succession planning, or handing down your legacy and it's something we recommend you consider doing.

As well as helping the company retain it's knowledge before it's most accomplished leaders retire, it can be deeply rewarding for you too. Across the span of your career, you'll have acquired 80,000+ hours work experience. You have built broad networks of clients, suppliers and internal customers. And many of these relationships will be invaluable to the company. You will have found novel ways of solving problems. You will have uncovered methods to be resilient and deal with challenges in the face of adversity. And most of all, you will have some great stories to share. So to pass up on the chance to leave some of this behind seems to be something of a wasted opportunity. 

In our learning program called My Legacy, you gain access to tools that help you work through the  phases of finding, recruiting and mentoring your successor. In one of the lessons, we discuss the importance of recruiting a successor who is a good fit with the organisational culture. If you've ever had someone on your team who's a bad fit, you'll already know how painful it can be for them and everyone around them.  

One of the tools we use is the integral framework (above) which helps you assess how aligned potential candidates are with the business. The best way to ensure your legacy is handed down to the right person is to use these two questions during your shortlist interviews:

1. Do their values align with the culture?    and 

2. Do they have the skills to achieve the strategy? 

If you're in the final stages of your career and like the idea of handing down your professional legacy to a successor, then click here to find out more.