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The Predictive Survey: succession management and the prediction of long-term organisational success

If achieving business success is tough, then maintaining it for the long run is even tougher. An analysis of the research produced the findings: in "Profit from the Core", only 13% of 1854 companies were able to grow consistently over a 10 year period; in "Creative Destruction", only 160 of 1,008 companies survived from 1962 to 1998; Jim Collins in "Good to Great" examined 1,435 companies over 30 years; only 9% had managed to out-perform the market over a 10 year period.

Michael Raynor in "The Strategy Paradox", summarises the odds: "a 10% probability of succeeding in a quest for sustained growth is, if anything, a generous estimate. Mere survival for a company over a 10 year period is actually a pretty high bar."

This of course is the competitive reality of "creative destruction"; organisations that fail to respond to shifting customer expectations or adapt to new technology fall by the wayside.

What role does proactive succession management play in the dynamic of failure and success?

In 1989-89, we ran a comprehensive survey of talent management and succession planning practice, identifying the range of different strategies and tactics organisations were deploying to build continuity of capable leadership. Ten years later, we dusted down the files to revisit the original grouping of organisations and check who had disappeared from the business landscape, who had survived, who had managed to hang on and who had thrived and succeeded over the decade. The results highlighted the impact of succession management, but the pattern challenged the standard model of much Human Resource practice.

We've now distilled the original survey into the 15 questions that provide the most power in differentiating survival and success rates. The Predictive Survey takes less than 3 minutes to complete, with immediate download of a report, projecting your organisation's destiny in 2020.

To access the free survey, email admin@amazureconsulting.com indicating your interest and we'll send on a link to the survey for you to complete and review the output. The results won't be a definitive forecast of your organisational future. But they will open up an important debate about the opportunities and risks you face in defying the odds, and the role that proactive succession can play.


Article written: 12/05/2010

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