You’ve probably heard it said that there are only two certain things: death and taxes. The Colonel said, “One thing you can count on, kid, is that none of us are gonna be here forever.”
Although it may initially sound a bit morbid, let’s take a look at this through the lens of small and family-owned businesses. The two industries I work most heavily in are the trades, and the dental world. They are actually very similar in their leadership challenges. Two of the most overwhelming challenges my clients face are developing leaders from within the ranks and the question of succession. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be digging in to these two in a bit of depth because building leaders and securing the business for after you are gone (no, not dead – but you want to retire, don’t you?), these are perhaps the most important things you need to focus on for your business and your practice.
Do you have a structured training program for when you pull excellent contributors out of the field and sit them at a management desk? The skills that got them noticed as an individual contributor are not the skills they need to manage people. Are you setting them up for failure and yourself up for disappointment?
Who are you mentoring to step into your shoes when you want to retire and move to some tropical location or a cabin in the woods? Without a game plan that is well thought out and executed, the business you spent years building could easily crash and burn once you step out the door. And that would not be the fault of your successor, but yours.
While I know how challenging it is to just keep the business humming along and growing right now and you don’t have time to think about all of this, as a business owner, a practice owner, it is essential that you do. Create a robust framework for nurturing talent, developing leaders and ensuring a smooth transition for leadership roles within the organization so it is strong enough to continue after your retirement.
Read Lauren’s Whitepaper on The Nine Essentials of Significant Leadership.
