A system of rotating business successors: a good idea?
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Given that choosing a business successor is one of the most important decisions that your company will make it should come as no surprise that there are all kinds of theories on how best to do this. One option that you may want to consider is to try a system of rotating business successors. This approach has a few disadvantages but it could be the best way to make sure that you give the job to the most qualified person.
Setting up a system of rotating business successors can be a good idea, especially if you are running a family business. The idea is that you will give each of these potential successors the chance to run the business so that you can determine which one is best for the job. This should allow you to give the job to the most qualified person. That is the biggest advantage to this approach but there are a couple of other advantages that you may want to think about.
One advantage of a system of rotating successors is that it allows you to determine whether or not the person that you have chosen even wants to run the business. This is especially important in family businesses where a child may take on the job out of a sense of obligation even if they really don't want to do it. This is not really the person that you want running the business and there is little real chance that the company will succeed with them running it. Using a system of rotating successors will quickly make it obvious which of your children have no real interest in running the company.
The other reason that a system of rotating successors may be a good idea is that each of the people who are being rotated through the job will bring different skills and experiences with them. That will allow you to benefit from the expertise that they bring since you can keep the best things that each of the potential successors brought to the company. The result is that you will have a much broader perspective than you would have had with just one successor.
While there are advantages to using a system of rotating successors there are also a few disadvantages that you are going to want to think about. The biggest of these is what happens to the people who did not get selected. In most cases if they were employees they will move onto work at other companies. This may result in the loss of some of the most important people at the company. If the competition was between family members it could result in fights and disagreements. If you are going to use a system of rotating successors you need to be prepared for the fact that the people who were not selected will likely not continue to be involved with the company.