Charan Ram
Harv Bus Rev. 2005 Feb;83(2):72-81, 147.
The CEO succession process is broken. Many companies have no meaningful succession plans, and few of the ones that do are happy with them. CEO tenure is shrinking; in fact, two out of five CEOs fail in their first 18 months. It isn't just that more CEOs are being replaced; it's that they're being replaced badly. The problems extend to every aspect of CEO succession: internal development programs, board supervision, and outside recruitment. While many organizations do a decent job of nurturing middle managers, few have set up the comprehensive programs needed to find the half-dozen true CEO candidates out of the thousands of leaders in their midst. Even more damaging is the failure of boards to devote enough attention to succession. Search committee members often have no experience hiring CEOs; lacking guidance, they supply either the narrowest or the most general of requirements and then fail to vet eitherthe candidates or the recruiters. The result is that too often new CEOs are plucked from the well-worn Rolodexes of a remarkably small number of recruiters. These candidates may be strong in charisma but may lack critical skills or otherwise be a bad fit with the company. The resulting high turnover is particularly damaging, since outside CEOs often bring in their own teams, can cause the company to lose focus, and are especially costly to be rid of. Drawing on over 35 years of experience with CEO succession, the author explains how companies can create a deep pool of internal candidates, how boards can consistently align strategy and leadership development, and how directors can get their money's worth from recruiters. Choosing a CEO should be not one decision but an amalgam ofthousands of decisions made by many people every day over years.
首席执行官（CEO）继任流程存在缺陷。许多公司没有切实可行的继任计划，即便有计划的公司，也很少对其满意。CEO的任期在缩短；事实上，五分之二的CEO在任职的头18个月就失败了。问题不仅在于更换CEO的情况越来越多，还在于更换得很糟糕。这些问题延伸到了CEO继任的各个方面：内部发展计划、董事会监督以及外部招聘。虽然许多组织在培养中层管理人员方面做得不错，但很少有组织建立起全面的计划，以便从数千名领导者中找出六七位真正的CEO候选人。更具破坏性的是，董事会未能对继任给予足够的关注。搜寻委员会成员往往没有招聘CEO的经验；由于缺乏指导，他们提出的要求要么过于狭隘，要么过于宽泛，然后既不对候选人进行审查，也不对招聘人员进行审查。结果往往是，新CEO常常是从极少数招聘人员的陈旧人脉关系中挑选出来的。这些候选人可能魅力十足，但可能缺乏关键技能，或者在其他方面与公司不匹配。由此导致的高离职率尤其具有破坏性，因为外部CEO通常会带来自己的团队，可能导致公司失去重点，而且解雇他们的成本特别高。凭借35年多来在CEO继任方面的经验，作者解释了公司如何打造大量内部候选人，董事会如何始终使战略与领导力发展保持一致，以及董事们如何让招聘人员物有所值。选择CEO不应是一个决策，而应是多年来许多人每天做出的数千个决策的综合结果。
