Christoff Poppe: Succession Planning

Christoff Poppe is an executive coach, Vistage chair, and former airline executive. He believes the most successful outcomes happen when both leaders and their teams feel they matter and when people are the drivers, not just the resources. He is one of our Coaching for Leaders fellows and recently published an article titled Succession Planning: A Key to Outperforming Your Competition.

Every leader in almost every role ultimately grapples with this question: who is going to replace me? In this conversation, Christoff and I detail three critical questions that will help you begin answering that sooner rather than later.

Key Points

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast reports that organizations with strong benches vastly outperform the competition and fill more roles internally.
The natural desire for job security can limit your growth. Often, our success limits our tendency to develop others.
The mini-me mindset limits us in two ways: (1) we fail to consider leaders who bring different skills, and (2) we fail to consider different needs in the season ahead.
Talent development is abstract. Succession planning is personal. It is a leader’s tool for untrapping, one person, one role, one timeline at a time.
People will leave if they are not getting regular development, especially high-potential employees.

Three critical questions to ask when finding the person to replace you:

What are the future needs of the business, the organization, the industry, and your team?
What knowledge do you have that’s critical and needs to live beyond you?
Who?

Resources Mentioned

Succession Planning: A Key to Outperforming Your Competition
Half of Eight (Christoff’s firm)
Christoff Poppe and Dave Stachowiak on LinkedIn

How to Help Team Members Find the Right Work, with Patrick Lencioni (episode 610)
The Way to Notice People Better, with Zach Mercurio (episode 733)
A Simple Start for Succession Planning (Dave’s Journal – plus access required)

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808: Finding the Person to Replace You, with Christoff Poppe

Coaching for Leaders

808: Finding the Person to Replace You, with Christoff Poppe