Succession Management

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Succession Management
Success in organizations fundamentally depends on the ability and aggression of the organizations in recruiting and keeping top-notch employees. According to Forbes Magazine, General Electric is the largest and arguably the leading diversified business regarding management style, succession planning and ideologies in the world (Girion, Lisa). According to the iconic GE CEO, Jack Welch, hiring the best individuals within, training and continuously improving their ability, and knowing the best amongst them forms the primary strategic goal towards organization’s progress (Girion, Lisa). This essay focuses on analyzing the succession management approach of GE based on the succession style of Rock Block, a leading and large concrete manufacturing family company.
Although considered the best and most effective, GE’s succession management approach, however, may not be an efficient and workable model for quite some organizations. Designing a succession plan can be related to writing a company will, thus few individuals would be interested in engaging in intensive selection procedures of their successors. For instance, it can be concluded that Rock Block lacked a long-term plan for hiring and keeping top-notch employees as the number of recruits continued to fall despite increasing customer demand. If Rock Block, through its long period of existence, had come up with effective and viable long-term plan on how they would acquire new employees and maintain their existing ones, employee shortage would not have been a hindrance to the company’s continuity.

The rate at which employees join or leave an organization has long-term effects on the company’s continuity, either positive or negative. Recruiting new employees over short intervals is attributed to various adverse effects. For instance, new employees are subjected to new organizational culture hence require time for orientation. New employees also take the time to get well integrated into the new system, and this is associated with relatively poor employee relationship hence poor operations. Getting integrate into the new system might also involve some spells of low productivity. Different organizations have different politics and intrigue in their top management levels which might not favor most new executive hires. More importantly, the transition process between new and leaving employees subjects an organization to vulnerability towards profit misfortunes, limited company growth, and low probability for promising business continuity.
GE’s succession management approach was effective as it is attributed to various long-term strategic plans. According to the company’s CEO, Jack Welch, hiring the best and keeping them is a fundamental aspect of business growth and continuity (Girion, Lisa). Therefore, top management officials focused on identifying new promising employees, training them intensively, and retaining them for the long-term. Also, the model provided for the search and evaluation of potential future successors long before they would be recruited, and this provided the company with sufficient time to fetch highly skilled and productive employees. GE’s succession management model was effective for the long-term existence of the organization (Girion, Lisa).
In conclusion, succession management is vital for organizations as it forms a framework that serves as a proven leadership model, improves staff morale as employees can be recruited from within to fill vacant positions, allows better assessment ability, and provides smooth business continuity. As a result, organizations should seriously focus on designing succession plans, an approach that would serve as an all-around approach towards an organization’s success. According to Jack Welch, succession plans provides a strong foundation for an organization’s growth as it provides a succession model for the long-term, especially considering the new corporate age of new companies, early retirements, and increasing rate at which executives are getting sacked from their positions. Additionally, a smooth and well-planned transition of executives, say CEO’s, creates the difference on the growth of organizations into their next phase and eliminates potential disasters such as productivity losses, investment fear, profitability misfortunes, and employee withdrawal.

Works Cited
Girion, Lisa. “GE Succession A Leadership Lesson.” LA times, 2000, http://articles.latimes.com/2000/dec/03/news/wp-60548.