Business Insight Zone

So much so that I’m willing to call it a rule: if a company doesn’t have a good CEO succession plan in place, it’s simply not a good company — period. (I’m looking at you, Citigroup board of directors — what were you thinking?)

Carol Hymowitz has more in her latest “In the Lead” column:

Too Many Companies
Lack Succession Plans,
Wasting Time, Talent

“Succession planning isn’t an event, it is a process that is best managed over three, five, even 10 years,” because it involves building a pipeline of talent, says Joseph Bower, a Harvard Business School professor and author of “The CEO Within: Why Inside Outsiders Are the Key to Succession Planning.” Yet, “a lot of CEOs are focused mostly on getting through the next quarter, and they ignore the hard work of grooming future leaders,” he adds.

Our previous coverage:

• Merrill flunks the CEO succession test.
• CEO succession — successes and failures.
• CEO succession — it doesn’t have to be like this.

Industries always learn from the mistakes of failures gone before. (This is another version of the old military axiom that you always prepare for the war you last fought.) Here’s hoping that companies across many industries will learn from the gross failures of Merrill and Citigroup and set up adequate succession plans for themselves.