A mid-sized health care organization recognized that it needed to focus on ensuring leadership continuity and effectiveness at the senior most level, anticipating the retirement of the Chief Operating Officer within the next five years. Given the organization’s strategy of significant growth, the COO incumbent needed to focus a great deal on external affairs, leaving little time to thoughtfully focus on developing internal talent to succeed him. The issue was further exacerbated by the fact that most of the senior people who were potentially viable successors were either also very tenured and/or not an appropriate fit. Leadership Solutions was engaged to help guide the senior leadership team through analysis of the situation and implementation of realistic and practical solutions, both for the short and long term.

The LSI Approach:

• Designed and implemented an executive assessment and development process to ensure a more clear and comprehensive understanding of the skills, talent, and development needs of each of the senior leaders reporting into the COO;
• Conducted individual assessments on each of the senior leaders who were identified as potential successors;
• Reviewed assessment results both with each of the individuals for purposes of identifying a meaningful development plan, and with the senior leadership team to better understand the realities with regard to longer term succession;
• Worked closely with the COO and Head of Human Resources to identify practical and realistic ways to ensure the direct reports got the appropriate degree of guidance and direction, particularly in light of COO’s external focus (e.g., changing processes, altering reporting relationships, rearranging certain job responsibilities, etc.);
• Designed and facilitated an executive team building session to help the group better understand the implications of their collective tendencies and personalities for being able to successfully lead the organization into its upcoming growth mode.

Our work gave the COO a more objective sense of the capabilities of his senior team, so that he was better positioned to identify a potential successor for the future and think about how to prepare the organization for such a transition. In the shorter term, the team building created a stronger bond amongst the senior leadership team, so that they were better able to manage more independently in light of the important external focus of the current COO. The changes in process and structure allowed the group to more fully capitalize on the natural skills and talents within the team, something that was particularly important during what would prove to be a very exciting but challenging time in the organization.