Succession Planning for Security Departments

Survival of the fittest may work in the animal kingdom, but grooming the next generation of CSOs requires a substantial investment of time, a sincere interest in employee development and a dash of humility. Are you ready for succession planning?

By Daintry Duffy

June 01, 2004 — CSO — When McDonald's Chairman and CEO Jim Cantalupo died suddenly of an apparent heart attack this past April, the hamburger chain was able to do something that many companies would be hard-pressed to do in the midst of the shock of such a loss: It immediately named a new executive team. Just hours after Cantalupo's death, the McDonald's board of directors named Charlie Bell the company's new CEO, a move that soothed the nerves of the company's jittery investors and employees.

But this was no impulse decision. When Cantalupo came out of retirement to take the reins of the fast-food giant more than a year ago, he requested that Bell be named COO so that he could groom him to eventually take over the top spot. Cantalupo understood that his legacy at the company would be judged by more than the number of new items added to the menu. It would be measured by how he prepared his successor and the smoothness of the transition of power.

Leaders often wrestle with the task of grooming a successor, and history is rife with stories of succession planning gone awry. Recent tales of Michael Eisner's travails at Disney show the hazards of having no succession plan whatsoeveralthough he claimed to have an emergency envelope tucked inside his desk containing the identity of his handpicked replacement. But, in reality, Eisner drove so many of his would-be successors out of the company that, after ousting him as chairman, the Disney board is still actively working on building a real succession plan.

And it's not just a part of disaster planning. As talented executives and managers graduate to larger leadership roles, they vacate positions that need to be filled by equally gifted people. As a result, executive succession planning has become a staple of corporate due diligence.

A study by executive search firm Korn/Ferry International found that succession planning programs are on the rise: Only 33 percent of American boards of directors reported having a CEO succession plan in place in 2001, but by 2003 that number had jumped to 77 percent. "We're clearly seeing more emphasis placed on things like business continuity planning," says Mark Polansky, managing director and member of the Advanced Technology Practice at Korn/Ferry's New York office. "But it's not only about physical security, cybersecurity and losing electrical power," he says, "9/11 taught us it's also about losing people. [Succession planning] is consequently becoming a more prominent and practiced art."

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• How to Groom a Successor...and How to Be Groomed
• Succession Planning: The Day After the Deputy CISO Left Work on a Gurney