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Understanding Succession Planning – a conversation with Darryl Bates-Brownsword
0 Playsin 7 hours
At the time of recording Darryl Bates-Brownsword was the managing partner at Succession Plus UK. He is now Chief Growth Officer at Fabric, a consultancy that specialises in helping founders maximising the value of their business on exit.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds, Darryl explains to host Michael Millward that we cannot expect employees to spend their entire career in our business. People leave work for all sorts of reasons.
Darryl describes how important it is for every organisation to have a succession plan, and that an organisation without a succession plan will be too reliant on the founder or senior manager.
Darryl and Michael discuss the different elements of a successful succession plan and the management techniques that managers need to implement in order to be able to create a viable succession plan.
More information about Darryl Bates-Brownsword and Michael Millward is available at abeceder.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Independent Minds Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
on zencaster Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abyssaida and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for every everyone.
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abyssaida.
Focus on Succession Planning with Daryl Bates Brownsword
00:00:27
Speaker
Today, I'm going to be learning about succession planning from Daryl Bates Brownsword.
00:00:32
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr. Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production process so easy.
00:00:48
Speaker
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr, visit zencastr.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abbasida. All the details are in the description.
00:01:01
Speaker
Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencastr is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:12
Speaker
As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
Roles in Succession and Exit Planning
00:01:20
Speaker
Today i am joined by Daryl Bates-Brownsword, who is a specialist in succession planning.
00:01:26
Speaker
Hello, Daryl. Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me on the show. It's a pleasure. I'm very interested to find out more about succession planning and all the various different things that you do. But could we start with you explaining a little bit about what it is that you do at successionplus.co.uk?
00:01:41
Speaker
what What we do is we work with primarily privately owned businesses and business owners, the the established businesses. So typically those that have got between sort of 20 and 250 people in them is is where our expertise fits.
00:01:56
Speaker
And what we know about that marketplace is that of privately owned businesses, that business owners want to build a sustainable model for people coming into the business, moving through the business and and exiting out of the business.
00:02:10
Speaker
Not everyone is in the business for for the long term. So... They need some sort of structure ah and formalized structure for the various roles in the business and to cope when people are away and and and they really need a big incentive additionally to attract people to a smaller business so that they can see what the opportunity is and what their career progression is.
00:02:31
Speaker
So that's the succession side of the business, but we also do exit planning. through And for us, the difference between succession and exit planning is that it really it's just a continuation of the journey.
00:02:44
Speaker
Succession is moving people through the roles and exit planning is when the equity owners actually exit their equity stake in the business. So hopefully that gives you a bit of a frame up on on and the concept at least.
00:02:57
Speaker
It sounds as if What you are doing is helping people to build businesses by building the people that they
Viewing Employees as Talent
00:03:04
Speaker
employ. Yeah, look, it's a really good insight. One of the things that grinds me is, I guess, when we talk about people as as human resources.
00:03:11
Speaker
And so one of the first things we do is we frame it up as talent or people management. What is it? What are human resources? Human resources are just people. So how do we work with the people? And we want the business to be valuable and that's valuable as as a going concern, as an entity, so that the the founders can exit the business.
00:03:29
Speaker
What that often involves is finding opportunities for the people in the business. And one of the things that we're really big fans of is employee ownership. What that does is actually provides, say if you like, an ownership opportunity for everyone in the business.
00:03:43
Speaker
So exit planning and succession planning just become the one because it moves beyond the founder's exit of the business and exit planning just becomes succession planning.
00:03:54
Speaker
So, yeah, look, it's it's looking after the people. it's It's going, yeah, business is more than just systems and structures. We need systems and structures, but we need the right sort of people. So we look at cultural fit.
00:04:06
Speaker
to run the systems and structures in the way to deliver the the proposition to the clients so that everyone in the ecosystem experiences value.
00:04:17
Speaker
And if if everyone gets value, then the business prospers. This is very true.
Evolution of HR and Remote Work Challenges
00:04:21
Speaker
i'm an ah HR ah person with a lot of years of experience. When I started my career, we were personnel and training. then one day was working in ah an organization and the personnel manager came in and said,
00:04:35
Speaker
um we're now going to be the HR ah department, the human resources department. And I said, okay, what does that mean? Pay rise. Because we're now human resources, we were supposed to be thinking much more strategically.
00:04:48
Speaker
But one of the things that it seemed to do was separate us a little bit from the people, because to operate strategically, and to think strategically, you need to look at data, and you need to look at the past in order to then Think about what that might mean for the future.
00:05:02
Speaker
And you do, when you become human resources, become slightly separated from the day-to-day activities of the people within the organization. So my solution was almost like, okay, I have a desk, but you're more likely to find me out in the factory attending meetings, talking to people on the production line, finding out what it is that they want, what it is that they need.
00:05:25
Speaker
um how I can as an HR stroke personnel stroke people management professional how I can add value to what they're doing make life easier and but I agree with you all too often organizations can think of people as part of the machine part of a process rather than as individuals that I suppose is one of the ways in which work is going at the moment we all need to be finding more individual solutions to encouraging, motivating people to work. I guess one of the really interesting challenges that we've got today is this whole offsite or remote working, finding our own hours and and getting the balance right between working with people onsite and getting stuff done and those who want to work remotely and and just you know focus on whatever it is they do remotely.
00:06:14
Speaker
But in my experience, as the economy has it changed over i don't know the last hundred years or so, when we've moved from primarily a goods and manufacturing economy to ah professional services and knowledge economy,
00:06:26
Speaker
To really leverage that knowledge and to turn it into value for clients, we need to work together. um And but for an old timer like me, that's best done faceto- face to face.
00:06:37
Speaker
what What I love working now is, is and and the people we work with, is is we just get so much more effective and productive in in that knowledge share and sharing of ideas and concepts face to face with people.
00:06:49
Speaker
I'd hate to be an HR manager nowadays. ah yeah with It must be just so tough. Oh, it is. It is really tough.
Recruiting and Business Structuring
00:06:56
Speaker
It's so tough being in my profession nowadays, but I'm really interested in what you're saying about this idea of succession planning and making it very individual to the person. When you started off by saying you you're interested in looking at career structures, so you don't recruit somebody just to do the job, you recruit them as part of their career. It's almost as if you are part of managing their career in some way. So you recruit somebody, but you're helping people
00:07:25
Speaker
them to manage their career? To put this into the context of, you know the clients we work with in that, you they are no longer a ah lifestyle business. So it's moved beyond the business where it's ah an entrepreneur, founder, and five, 10 or 20 helpers focused and and and around the entrepreneur.
00:07:46
Speaker
So, you know, those lifestyle businesses, when they it's got a a founder or founders, and a number of helpers around them, There's no real career there. They're they're just helpers. They're a yeah admin type or or production or or technical type roles supporting our entrepreneur.
00:08:03
Speaker
the businesses that we want or we do our best work with are those businesses that have moved beyond that step where the founder is now saying right i need to get out of the technical or the operational work i need to replace myself so how do i replace myself because i'm used to being doing a million things at once and thinking of everything and and picking up everything every bushfire that that that started So the first thing they need to do is start building a structure in their business.
00:08:30
Speaker
and And what we do differently is, you know, most businesses, when they start to build some sort of, you they want to document their business structure is that they'll borrow an organizational chart from a a corporate. They go, well, how do we grow our business? Well, let's have look what the big boys are doing and and let's replicate that.
00:08:48
Speaker
So if they have a look at ah a corporate organizational chart, what they'll see is a chart that's people based. And, you know, it says Tom, Dick and Harry and Mary and Sue are doing these roles. And, you Mary is the finance manager or the the finance director, for example, and Tom is the marketing director.
00:09:07
Speaker
A typical organizational chart is a people first chart. When businesses try to replicate that in their small business world, they they they get unstuck real fast because they run out of people before they run out of roles.
00:09:20
Speaker
And so they get confused and and they just get stuck about what they're going to do to you really map out their business. So what they have to do is, and and how they get unstuck, it's probably worth explaining that, is that, you for example, you if they haven't got a marketing person yet, though marketing will be just missing on their organizational chart.
00:09:40
Speaker
And so you ask them where yeah when when you identify the gaps, you ask them, well, who fills that? And then the the owner looks around the room and sort of sees that no one puts their hand up and they go, oh, well, that's mine.
00:09:52
Speaker
I do that. And that's why business owners of those sort of scaling size businesses are forever chasing their tail because they've started to document the business, but there's a whole lot of gaps in their chart.
Functional Mapping vs. Org Charts
00:10:04
Speaker
The gaps aren't identified and therefore, you they only get done when they they flare up into to into some sort of crisis. And so the owner steps in and and fills that gap.
00:10:15
Speaker
So in terms of succession planning, what we need to do is get the traditional org chart and flip it on its side. And instead of going who does what, let's map out all of the functions, all of the things that need to be done to complete the business on a year to year basis.
00:10:30
Speaker
And then we if we identify all of the what's, what needs to happen, the what's being finance, being marketing, being operations, being sales, being strategy, um yeah yeah yeah and you can list them all out. And yeah we can start with the four main ones. But as the business grows, you get more of these primary functions.
00:10:49
Speaker
The number of functions doesn't change as the business grows. What does change is just the amount of people you've got involved in each function and how many people are in in each function.
00:11:00
Speaker
So in your early days, this this functional chart, as I call it, will have one person's name assigned to many roles or many functions. And as the business grows, then you go, right, well, Michael's getting really busy here because I've got him doing marketing. I've got him doing all the people stuff. I've got him doing all the finance.
00:11:19
Speaker
And he's just being stretched too much. It's too much for him now. So what we need to do is we're we're ready for a dedicated full-time finance person. So we take michael off Michael's name off finance and we recruit a finance person and the role has already sat there and we know exactly what role the new finance person has to fill.
00:11:37
Speaker
So the first thing we start is we we get the chart and we map out everything that needs to happen in the business. Then we assign people and now we've got a people map on top of the functional map and we can start to map out succession. So we've got this new finance person and we can go Right. Well, the finance role is only this big today, but when we're three times the size in you three, four years time, yeah your role is going to change from a financial controller to a financial director type of role.
00:12:06
Speaker
We either need to get you trained up or if it's beyond your capability, then we'll bring in another person who can mentor you. And and we we start to know what we've got to play with and we can see what the succession planning and what the opportunities are for people to grow in their existing roles.
00:12:21
Speaker
yeah Do we need to bring in new people? Do we need to bring in more skills? Or do can we grow the skills we've got? Exactly. i agree with you. I remember when we have ah very small clients where people are moving from being an entrepreneur to being an employer, they're thinking about, do I employ a friend? Do I employ a relative? And actually what you need to do is employ the person who's going to do the work best.
00:12:47
Speaker
The most effective person to do that work may not be a friend or a relative. But you have to, first of all, define what work it is that you want those people to do. And we see lots of entrepreneurs, lots of managers who've decided that the job is a job title and I need to fill find somebody to fulfill that job title without actually analyzing what the work is that is going to be done and how that work will contribute to the success of the organization or the department.
Task Analysis and Strategic Work
00:13:15
Speaker
And so very often what we start with an entrepreneur is looking at, okay, list all of the different activities that are required to be done um in order to fulfill the objectives of the organization, or even just to make sure that a product goes out of the door or that a solution is developed for a client, whatever it is, every activity needs to be on that list.
00:13:41
Speaker
And then it's case of, okay, What are the things on that list that only you as the entrepreneur can do? Those become part of your job. What are the things that you really don't like doing or you're really not very good at?
00:13:54
Speaker
Those are the things that somebody else should be doing. And then it would gradually break that list of activities down and so we can start to see where those things people will or we can start to see the activities that those people that you bring into the organization will need to do and then the objectives and performance standards you need to have for them in order for everybody to be contributing to the level that helps the next person in the chain it's it's it's something that a lot of people when they're running a business or running a department inside an organization
00:14:30
Speaker
don't actually think about. It's like we need somebody with that job title or somebody has left and they had this job title, therefore we need somebody else to replace them with that job title without actually analyzing the work that those people will be doing and how they can then be developed into the next job so everybody benefits as the organization grows.
00:14:53
Speaker
Totally. And and we we do some capacity planning around that. Most businesses do business planning and they'll i'll go, hey, look, we did 5 mil last year, 10 mil last year. What do we want to do next year? Well, yeah, we grew by 10% last year.
00:15:07
Speaker
Let's add 10% on and there's our business plan. What we do is we let's have a look at the the modules that make up your work units, if you like, and go, given the current resources you've got in your organization, all the the resources that a client facing, all the ones that do the work that generate product output,
00:15:28
Speaker
Given the current resources you've got at the moment, machines, people, you know, of various technical capabilities, what's the maximum revenue your organization could produce?
00:15:39
Speaker
And when you start breaking it down into work groups, you can see where you've got overlaps and and you might go, well, hey, our sales could could sell 10 mil a year, but our production team can only deliver 5 mil year. Yes.
00:15:51
Speaker
well, either your overweight sales or your underweight production, where where it starts to highlight where your growth in capacity needs to occur. So there's one thing we look at.
00:16:02
Speaker
Another tool we play with, which is sort of extending on what from what you do in a similar way you know, we'll have a look, know, when we're trying to tear yeah um tasks off owners, founders who are who are still stuck in control freak mode and and wanting to do everything themselves.
00:16:19
Speaker
We go let's have a look at all of the tasks that you're performing. And let's, you know, let's have a look at how much we should pay you or how much we are paying you. We'll we'll break that down into an hourly rate.
00:16:30
Speaker
And then let's see how much time you're spending on tasks that you could pay someone less than that hourly rate to perform for you. And then that often highlights something really big to the owners and they they can see how much work or yeah low value work they're doing themselves still.
00:16:46
Speaker
And it would be so much easier to employ someone to do those tasks. And so I've seen it where it's up to half the, the founders time. Yes. And then that frees them up. We give them hope for the week back to do really value adding stuff or, you and we try and position it in their minds that instead of focusing on revenue building, let's focus on asset building or building the, um, the, the valuation side of it. Yes.
00:17:12
Speaker
It's a, it's surprising how much, well, how many times i have been working in a client organization or in organizations where I've been employed, where the people who leave the office latest, the last people to leave, are very often the most senior people.
00:17:29
Speaker
And when you start talking about what is it that you're doing, you realize that they are doing work that could, like you say, be done by somebody else at a much cheaper price.
00:17:40
Speaker
But the people who ah should be doing that work have left on time. because the work hasn't actually been delegated to them. They haven't been shown how to do it. They haven't been taught that they need to do it.
00:17:53
Speaker
And so the manager of the entrepreneur, the owner of the business is like holding onto too much. It's like, I can't let it go. I can't let it go. And sometimes i wonder, is it a lack of trust in the people that you've actually recruited?
00:18:05
Speaker
Or is that lack of trust in yourself as the entrepreneur that I don't want somebody else to do this. Only I can do it. Well, there's, There's a bit of that. And, know, because I can do it, I feel needed. I feel valued in my organization. important. I'm the only one who can do this.
00:18:23
Speaker
The business can't cope without me. And I go, yeah, well, that's a mistake. The graveyards are full of indispensable people. And yeah, well, the more the business needs you, the the less it's worth, you know, is is the reality check. So there's a bit of that.
00:18:35
Speaker
Yes. There's a bit of, well, if I'm not doing this, I need to be doing this other strategic type work. And and frankly, I don't know how to do that because no one's ever trained me. And I don't feel productive when I'm when i'm doing that sort of work.
00:18:46
Speaker
And we go, well, part of the enlightenment is that when you're working on strategic work, it doesn't hit the revenue line for six or 12 months, but it has a greater impact on equity value of the organization.
00:18:58
Speaker
And then the the third level is on on working with those people of, you not letting it do, didn't, you know, delegate it is that they haven't found a way to delegate the task, but still maintain control of the tasks.
00:19:12
Speaker
So, you know, they just ask other people to do it. they They just say, fix this for me, or go and do this task for me. They don't have a process. They don't have a system. They don't have any training on how to do the task.
00:19:22
Speaker
And they don't have a feedback mechanism. They they just abdicate rather than than than delegate. And then when they they don't get it done the way they wanted to because they didn't explain it, yeah they get some sort of weird sort of satisfaction where going, well, you didn't do it properly. I'll have to do it myself.
00:19:38
Speaker
And then they come back and complain and go, well, you can't get good people. Where are all the good people? Where are the good people that think themselves and think like me? And you go, well, they're off building their own businesses. You need to work with employees. Exactly. I've said that so many times to people. yeah I can imagine that there is some there is someone who,
00:19:55
Speaker
runs a business or runs a department in an organization, they're a manager, and they're listening to this and they they're hearing us describe them. They can hear in our words the way in which they are running their business and recognizing that they're not doing it as well as they could.
00:20:11
Speaker
What do you think if that person out there is hearing this and thinking like, yeah, that's me, I'm doing all the things that they're describing, and what do you think that they should do as a first, so like the first simplest things to do, what would they be to to get their business back on track?
Empowerment through Delegation and Training
00:20:28
Speaker
Well, the first thing to realize is that you're the problem. You're the yeah the problem that's holding the business back, that's limiting the growth of the business, that that is the cause of people leaving or not finding the right people.
00:20:42
Speaker
And yeah, that is probably a bit blunt. It's the reality, isn't it? It's the reality. But if you realize you're the issue and and you're ah at least open to going, hey, well, maybe I need to do something different, there's the first step.
00:20:55
Speaker
Now, if they knew what to do themselves, they they would have already done it. So yeah i don't want to be too pushy on that side of things and and just be have some empathy and go yeah we are we do get stuck in our habits and and you we do things the way that we've we've always done them and that have always worked for us.
00:21:16
Speaker
So we need to bring in help, whether that's some sort of consultant, coach, advisor, trainer, do some sort of additional education, but we need to build on that awareness that we've started to have and go, know, even if it's reading a book, you know, there's there's a stack of great books out there that can guide us on how to do things differently.
00:21:34
Speaker
but But where it, depending on where your organization is, I guess the first thing I would start to do is is a process similar that you described earlier, is just starting to map all of the tasks, all of the functions in your business, everything that's required to get a product out the door.
00:21:50
Speaker
um You know, so that includes selling it, producing it, delivering it, and then making sure you get paid. So they're the the key areas of the business. And then making sure that you've got some sort of standard way of doing those. so Document how you want those things being done or how those things are being done.
00:22:08
Speaker
If you've got that documentation, even at a high level, it could be just a series of checklists, you've then got the the beginning of something to train someone and set expectations if you want them to do a task for you.
00:22:21
Speaker
So, you know, that's, you know, the areas that I would start and, you then you can start handing off some of your tasks to someone else and you've got yeah a a framework or or a starting point for training them on how to doing those tasks.
00:22:36
Speaker
and If they don't get it right, you can bring them back to that documentation and either update the documentation yeah if there were gaps because they didn't understand it, or you can use it as some sort of metric to go, hey here's the way we want things done and you should be able to do four a day. So yeah we can start to measure performance and go, well, if it's four a day and if you're only getting three done a day, is that because you're learning that the process isn't right, it's a skill level or...
00:23:06
Speaker
and you're just not capable of doing it at that level. Once you've got some documentation, you've now got some objective choices on how to make assessment of what to do next. Yeah. it's it's I guess that's where we I start. You should have been an HR person.
00:23:24
Speaker
It is exactly, i totally agree with you. It's like you can't expect somebody to do a good job. unless you've actually explained to them what that job is. You know this is the input, this is the output that we need.
00:23:37
Speaker
This is the time in which it needs to happen. If you have a problem, you know, these are the people to go and ask. If you need to make a decision, these are the parameters in which you can make that decision. Anything outside that decision, come to this person.
00:23:50
Speaker
and We all, i think, like to have structure, rules that we can apply within that structure and and to follow because it makes life more straightforward. It makes it easier. It makes it simpler.
00:24:03
Speaker
It may means that we can do a good job. And I firmly believe that everyone who goes to work wants to do a good job. Nobody really goes to work to make a mess of things.
00:24:15
Speaker
But if you haven't got those parameters of what to do and how to do it and when to do it by who what why when how you those open questions that everybody needs the answers to about the work that you want them to do you're destined to fail and the failure is really like you said know if an employee fails at the job that you've asked them to do pretty good chance that the reason why that employee has failed is down to the way in which you explained that job to them so sorry but
00:24:48
Speaker
The reality is if something goes wrong in terms of an employee, very often the problem is not necessarily the employee. It can be the manager and the way in which work has been explained to that employee.
00:25:01
Speaker
That's a really good starting point. And yeah I'd take it one step further and go, um yeah employees, the people, want to and be involved in something bigger than themselves. Yeah. They want to be part of something meaningful and important.
Systems for Creativity and Acquisition Readiness
00:25:14
Speaker
And also they crave good leadership. Everyone craves good leadership and and part of good leadership is setting boundaries and and what to do when you bump up against those boundaries. yes and And I think if leaders crave good leadership,
00:25:30
Speaker
So, um yeah, and one of the things yeah associated with those boundaries is systems. I agree 100% in all sizes of businesses. um Some of the pushback we get when we go, look, you need to systemize your business is that people go, well, they're all we're a creative industry, we're a knowledge industry, you know, systems stifle creativity.
00:25:50
Speaker
And I go, well, let's just put them in and see what happens because it it actually um enables and creates an environment for even more creativity and innovation. is is the experience we've got when we document systems and and boundaries.
00:26:04
Speaker
ah People know what they can and can't do. They they know when I get stuck, and it's really clear of what to do next and and who to turn to and where to get help, which just speeds things up. And yeah one of the other things that we haven't mentioned is in a documented business, if we go that Michael's job is yo task one, task two, task three, task four, we include in his job description, if he's away, who performs that task.
00:26:29
Speaker
yeah So that way we make sure nothing slips through the cracks when when he is away for either a short or an extended period and and and his various tasks are are allocated. You know, whether it's at sickness or holiday or or any other reason that that he can't show up for work.
00:26:45
Speaker
So, know, and yeah from a documentation, yeah it makes life easier and, you know, makes life even more enjoyable at work. But from a privately held business, it actually makes that business so much more valuable and and actually attractive to be acquired.
00:27:04
Speaker
And one of the big things of yeah big issues for business owners is that their business isn't attractive to be acquired. And only actually 20% of businesses that go to market to be sold, the business being sold, only 20% that go to market actually get some sort of transaction.
00:27:21
Speaker
And that's because they're not attractive to the acquirer. It's just too big a risk because the business is just too dependent on the founders. So it's it's a win-win, really. Yes. All the way around. It works well.
00:27:33
Speaker
I like when you said that this is a ah good starting point. And I think I agree with you. This is a good starting point for anyone listening as to what they need to do, but also a good starting point for us I have really enjoyed our conversation today.
Conclusion and Future Discussions
00:27:48
Speaker
Thank you very much.
00:27:49
Speaker
But I hope that we'll be able to have more conversations in the future. Thank you very much, Daryl. Hey, it's been my pleasure, Michael. And um thanks for inviting me to share some thoughts. Thank you.
00:28:00
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. And I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Daryl Bates Brownsword. You can find out more information about both of us at abeceda.co.uk. The Zencastr system has, as always, been very efficient today.
00:28:19
Speaker
But if you're listening to the independent minds on your smartphone and experienced technical issues, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data.
00:28:30
Speaker
So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link and in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:28:45
Speaker
The description is well worth reading. I'm sure that you will have enjoyed this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Daryl and I have enjoyed making it.
00:28:56
Speaker
Please give it a like and download it. And to make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:29:12
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening, and goodbye.