Succession Planning: A Must-Have Strategy for Retail Leaders

Few things are as important as team development and succession planning as a leader. This is especially true as a retail field leader—your long-term success centers around the strength of your team. If you are a Store Manager, you cannot do everything yourself; you need a strong team around you. If you want to promote to the next level, you need a successor. For multi-unit leaders, the team’s development is even more important since you are not in each of your locations every day. The strength of your team is a multiplier of your success. Having a plan to fill inevitable gaps is essential to maintaining consistency in your overall results. It becomes evident very quickly that having a depth plan for your team is a priority for every (retail) leader.

As I began to think more about this, it was valuable to pull together a more in-depth look at what succession planning is, how it works, and how to begin your strategy around succession planning for your team. Throughout the next several articles, I will share insights into how you can build a world-class succession plan.

One of the best examples of succession planning outside the business world is baseball’s farm teams and the system they have built around it. Typically up and coming baseball players are selected and drafted early and advance through a development league, A, AA, AAA, then professional. This may be on top of or potentially concurrent with continuing High School or College baseball as well. It is a system of experience, exposure, practice, and promotion. As you perform at each level, you move to the next. The ultimate win for these players is ‘making it to the big leagues.’ They all know that there are limited spaces for the coveted positions. This is more evident when you think about specialty positions. A baseball team only needs one player in each position. (Generally speaking, yes, I know teams have back-ups and multiple pitchers on a team. And yes, the American League still has a crazy or brilliant designated hitter position.) So, you not only have to be a great baseball player, you need to be great at your specific position.

I use the baseball analogy because it creates a solid framework for how building a talent bench can work for any business, but in retail, it works especially well. There are limited promotional opportunities within a store or district in retail as well, at least relative to the number of associates or part-time positions. While turnover is much higher in retail than you’d consider in baseball due to its closed system environment, there are still limits to how many people desire to get promoted versus available positions. Then, there is the factor of fit. Who is best suited for the leadership roles available in a retail environment? Being the best worker often does not translate into leading a team well. That requires different skills and behaviors to do so successfully.

I used the farm league’s thought process in this series’s first article. Succession Planning Leads to World Class (and Championship) Outcomes is an article I originally wrote several years ago, but it was the perfect way to illustrate what the desired outcome of succession planning can be. Think of it as beginning with the end in mind. In the articles that follow this one, we will explore the importance of succession planning, what it takes, and how to set up your own system.

I look forward to diving deeper into a meaningful and gratifying part of leading a team. I hope you’ll join me for the journey.

Join other retail leaders in continuing their development journey with Effective Retail Leader.com. SUBSCRIBE today to receive leadership tips directly to your inbox and monthly newsletters that provide many tools to help further develop your leadership skills. JOIN NOW!

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash