Leadership Transitions and Succession: Finding Vitality Amidst Uncertainty

The leader of a prestigious professional school was preparing to retire after 30 years of service. Though he was respected — even loved — by the school community, those who were close to him knew he was exhausted and had "run out of steam." Meanwhile, the board was rife with conflict and the faculty underpaid. Various factions had formed around different visions of the school's future and of the ideal leader for that future. Knowing that the institution would be able to recruit a strong successor only if it approached the search with clarity and unity, the leader needed to bring the factions together around a shared vision. He also needed to find sources of vitality (and of funding) that would excite the community. He also knew that innovative approaches would challenge both tradition and his own achievements.

Transitions Are All About Paradox

"To make an ending is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."

-T.S. Eliot

Transitions are rarely comfortable. Endings involve pain, path-fnding involves confusion, and beginnings involve a few falls before one "finds one's footing." Lack of clarity — about how to achieve one's goals, and more fundamentally, about what the goals should be — is also a distinctive feature of transitions. Yet changes in leadership can also be points of inflection, where even the most traditional organizations can unfreeze, reconfigure and revitalize. They offer an opening, a chance to un-stick seemingly stuck situations, things and people.

The Risks Are Twofold: Those of Action and of Inaction
Tried and true methods rarely work during these times. For competent, decisive people who have a history of setting and meeting ambitious goals, this is particularly unsettling. While many worry about taking the wrong actions, the greater danger is found in inaction. If leaders are overly cautious, they may miss the value that lies within the muck.

Why CFAR?
Leadership transition consulting is a unique specialty, one where CFAR excels. This work requires deep understanding and experience in the disciplines of leadership development, market strategy and organizational change. Many consulting firms work in one or another of these, but few have expertise in all. We have spent many years supporting clients facing transition, know the stages of the process and are adept intervening effectively at each one. As a result we can act as partner and guide, bearing witness to the search for new paths while helping clients to locate unforeseen opportunities.

Our Approach
Ultimately, we believe in using transitions to create value — and to foster continuity, coherence and optimism during what are uncertain times in the life of any organization.

Consulting Services
Although we design each project to meet the client's unique needs, much of our work includes analysis of strategy, opportunity and risk as well of the client's identity and values. In the case cited above, we designed and facilitated a strategic-planning process organized around seven fate-making themes. We then worked with leaders to assemble teams organized around each theme and composed of members of key stakeholders. Not only did the institution emerge from this undertaking with a finely crafted, forward-looking plan, but with one built on collaboration between former adversaries. This enabled the leader to retire with an exemplary achievement, which, incidentally, stimulated unprecedented growth in the school's endowment.