"Your CEO Succession Plan Can’t Wait" (Profs. J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Boris Groysberg, and Paul Healy) reiterates the importance of prioritizing interim/emergency and long-term succession planning - a critical board responsibility that, in practice, often lags its importance and which has rightfully garnered greater scrutiny in view of COVID-19 health risks.
Among other things, the article observes that even those companies that have diligently developed and periodically reviewed their plans pre-pandemic will likely need to re-evaluate their candidate profiles and timing to accommodate significantly changed circumstances that may include changes in strategy, a restructuring, exiting or entering particular lines of business, pursuing new ways of delivering products and services to different customer demographics, etc.
Notwithstanding the greater potential for an unexpected void in top leadership due to the pandemic, the authors emphasize quality over speed in candidate decision-making to avoid making a bad situation worse, which weighs in favor of a focus on emergency/interim candidates who can step in immediately if necessary and allow for well-deliberated longer term planning.
See our prior report: "Emergency Succession Planning COVID-19 Style" and additional resources on our CEO Succession page. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!