Succession planning in Nigeria

A public servant due for retirement according to the civil service rule book has to go for a three month pre-retirement leave to allow his successor assume duty of office in an acting capacity so as to learn the ropes as it were. Many a public servant refuses to follow this guideline; they remain in office until the last day before proceeding on retirement. There appears to be a process problem in the public sector.

Many organisations in Nigeria do not have succession planning strategies in place.  Vacant positions in many instances are filled by applicants from outside. Chief executives forget that the first place to look for competent workers to fill future needs is among those who are already working for the organisation, talents within are necessary to achieve business goals. These talents already know the organisational culture, norms, values, business model, and process better than an outsider.

Managing innovation is not an easy task, I know, but chief executives should promote the culture of sincerity and innovation in the workplace. After all, executives cannot control everything and everyone at the same time in the organisation and the right thing to do is to push down decision and authority to the lowest cadre of staff as much as possible for good organisation. This sends a clear message that, “we are all in this together.” Stakeholder management drives organisations to succeed beyond present levels. In today’s work environment, concerted effort and not force is what is needed to achieve business, departmental and organisational goals.

Leaders, good ones, groom people to take over from them at a moment’s notice. These leaders do not surround themselves with the ‘Yes Sir’ type of workers. Diversity and inclusion means a lot to them in the workplace, so also is a proper work life balance of staff members.

What observers have noticed is that executives love to micromanage workers and this affects succession planning because it encourages deviousness in the work place which affects the building up of legacies. Power should be passed around and not held by a few.

Knowledge management is one way to ensure a proper succession planning. Knowledge should be shared. This is hard for most executives to do, because they believe that they are so good in their job and can complete task better than others. Delegation in the workplace is an age-old tradition. You wear yourself out if you do not delegate properly. Delegating responsibilities frees up the manager to focus on strategies and objectives of the organisation. Delegation does not mean abdicating accountability.

The process of succession planning in the public sector in Nigeria has not been embraced as it should and the sector is worse for it. Older management teams in the public sector are suspicious of those in middle management and vice versa, and without the cooperation of all public servants, especially the senior management team, the process of succession planning may be misplaced.

Simon Abah,

Abuja