Bench Strength and Succession Planning

The term bench strength may appear abstract and very indirectly placed in your business as most would consider the term (bench-strength) to define one person laying on a bench-press while on the brink of lifting a weighted bar. However, if we conceptualize the components of skills, capabilities, experience, and who contributes those components daily to the front of your business, it would then be apparent that your management team would fit the direct descriptive title of bench-strength.

These highly skilled individuals create a buffer and apply critical thinking around the issues, adjustment, and success amongst your customers, employees, and you, the owner.

Those that have taken the care and initiative of succession planning towards their business will know that succession is not a project, rather a journey towards the next generation of owners and managers.

By confirming your business successor, whether it may be a family member or key manager, you will applaud and affirm their skills and ability, along with feeling some heartburn at the acceptance of the gaps that come with either shortage of critical experience or capability.

The question is, how do you remedy some of that heartburn to every thought that may linger in your mind about your successor’s weaknesses? A strategic succession plan will consider positioning your top performers or performing family members (bench-strength) around your successor to create a sense of robust organizational leverage!

360-degree leverage feels like and looks like qualified managers who will provide support and bridge the gap against your successor’s fundamental business weaknesses. These individuals are considered as “Very Special Key Managers” as they are tough to replace.  They are often “intentionally” retained in your organization through “Golden-Handcuffs” such as a “SERP” and other forms of indirect compensation to provide acknowledgment and reward of their contributions above their positional requirements.

Depending on your organizational size, these individuals may range from department managers within your business all the way up to your CFO, COO, and office manager of your organization.

To conclude, there is one pre-requisite amongst these concepts that will reign true like any other great accidental success story. It will require your time, effort, and care into a very well-thought-out succession plan that strategically considers where you are and where you are going.