In this elite episode, Mark L. Vincent, Executive Advisor of Teall Vincent Enterprises, shares how he has helped hundreds of founder/CEOs become True Owners so they can own their business without having to run it!
You will discover:
– How much you should be involved as an owner
– How to find a new CEO to replace you
– A clear sign you’re waiting to long to start planning your succession
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And here with us today is a rather high, I would say, extraordinarily high, high demand coach in the one and only, Mark L. Vincent, who’s PhD and EPC. He’s partners with accomplished he partners with accomplished leaders to pave a road through the process of business continuity and succession, a process consulting pioneer and a systems convener. With more than 30 years of service as an executive advisor and corporate board member, Mark is a certified executive process consultant and wild facilitator. He serves on the global council for micro advising, its work in emotional intelligence and development technology, and he’s here to talk to us today, to unpack, to reveal the secrets of this really hard, challenging, surprisingly hard and challenging and mysterious time of succession and continuity. So Mark, welcome to the show. So glad to have you here. First question out of the gate is not an easy one. As a founder, how do you go about finding someone who could potentially replace you?
Mark L. Vincent
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just flip a switch right and they walk in the room when you want them to Yes. So there is a two parter for this, there is one’s own intuitive awareness, who’s around and what’s working or not like you’re in tune or attuned to it. And that’s a little bit of a soft skill. And then there’s the hard skill stuff of saying, Well, what do we want in a successor? What do I want in a successor? Who would I trust? And sometimes, as you do that, you discover there’s some things that you’re not ready for. So you got to work on your own preparation to even engage it. You you end up with a set of traits, characteristics, set of experiences, some aptitude. Aptitude is huge, right? What? What they need to be able to do. And then you can, as you intuitively, instinctively, say, I think that person could you’re actually moving that against the data set. So it’s a data informed intuition because of the end, there’s that sense of fit and gut. Some people jump in that direction. They make bad choice. Some people end up going just for this long list of criteria, and they end up never making a choice. So it is literally walking around, turning on the lights, having consciousness about it, being conscious of it, and being able to move back and forth between what you’re observing and noticing and your set of criteria. And if I can also add you don’t make this decision all by yourself. Yeah, it is good to have people who’ve got your back. They might not even be in the business, but people who are have got your back, care about you, will speak honestly to you, and you trust to this kind of thinking in front of them as one more check and where you’re safe to do so.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so good. And one of the problems that that I’ve seen founders have in this process is that they’ve never done it before, right? Like, there’s just so many things you don’t know. And so I’m wondering you, you know, you mentioned traits, uh, characteristics, and a number of things there from someone who’s seen this happen time and time and time again. What are some of the most common traits that you’ve seen that correlate to success in gen two leaders, the CEO who takes over after the founder?
Mark L. Vincent
Well, we’re going right into one of my favorite subjects, and I think one of the most critical ones. So a person who learns early on in their career how to become good at what they do and to manage themselves well as they do it often is the kind of a person then that has the opportunity to lead an organization and to lead people. So they’ve gone from just managing themselves well to managing this trust well. They got there by continuing to learn. So I learned marketing, or I learned how to operate the machinery, or I learned strategic thinking, strategic planning well, and at one point I hadn’t done it before and I didn’t know so I learned there’s a great big temptation when you start to sit in the C suite to function out of what you know, not out of what you learn. And so you have keep the learning turned on, so you can move horizontally across an organization and not just rise vertically in it, because you can’t be an expert in everything. So you learn well, to move into this place as a founder who might be looking at a value event or an ESOP or something along the way. You can’t start from, I should know this stuff. You should start you do better to start from, I don’t know this stuff. I get to learn. We’re going to learn, we’re going to engage us. This is what brought the success in the first turn of one’s career. Is what the second turn you. It’s what’s going to bring it in the third and there are serial entrepreneurs out there. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about the person who’s just going to spin a business up and out and so we’re talking about someone who’s building value wants that value to continue when they’re done with it and benefit others, bless the world, continue in the mission. Well, we can’t pretend that we’ve done it before, and we’re only going to do it once, really. Yeah, so doing that in the community, doing it from the student posture, rather than the knower posture, is the biggest trait. It is essential.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. And so there’s this principle that I use for folks that are in this this stage, and that is that the secret, I think, to succession working well, is that you’re not trying to find someone to pursue your vision for the future, but to offer a new vision for the future, but someone that you trust to do that. So there’s continuity to it. The values stay larger the same. There’s a lot of things that have to stay the same, otherwise we forget who we are. But I think one of the common mistakes that folks have, especially when they use that Intuit intuitive approach, and they look around and they’re just kind of thinking, who’s the best of the people that I have here, right? Who’s the one that I trust the most? Well, when you’re leading, what do you trust other people to do to execute your vision? Right? That’s what that trust is founded on, to some extent, not in a narcissistic kind of way, but when we’re looking at the future, if you’re not going to be there, that’s a very different question. Would you agree?
Mark L. Vincent
Oh, I completely agree. And I think you’ve said this so well that I don’t know that there’s anything I can add to it. I can touch on a resource that we really like to see involved here, a leader who’s led well and actually has helped to achieve a vision, has a leadership philosophy that they operate by, and it’s usually not external, like they haven’t written it down in some way, we’re not talking about the book of the business, although for some that’s what It is, but to be able to say, here’s how I’ve operated. So now a successor who’s going to be taking responsibility for the vision can know what it is and not have to trip over anybody’s invisible suitcase. They know what it is. They can reject it for something better. They can amend it and add to it if it is a working kind of a vision. But they’ve got something to work with, and they don’t have to guess at we often work with leaders at that point and invite them. If they’re not a creative like, I don’t know. I just run this business. We start saying, what do people say? You say all the time, and if they don’t know, let’s go interview this. Could Talk to your spouse. Let’s talk to a couple of your key lieutenants. Let’s talk to a couple of key customers, maybe somebody you’ve mentored, and we’re going to ask them, What does Jim or Joni always say about leading? And you’ll find that every time I’ve done it, there’s repeating statements. Ah, okay, now we know what these principles are. Let’s dig down underneath that? Why do you say that? And the leadership philosophy emerges, usually very practical. It might be 10 or 20 points, just these are the things I’ve operated by. Now. It exists. It’s in the real world. So a successor doesn’t have to function in ignorance and just try to force something in and then get surprised when it doesn’t land well, because they didn’t have the full context.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, I love that. There’s this really cool through line via stages five and six are what we’re talking about here, for folks who know the founders evolution. But stage seven is that visionary founders stage where you you kind of get back into the game, just for the love of the game, right? And mentoring and contributing, and there’s all kinds of cool stuff. I have found the seeds of what you’ll do in stage seven exist in that document, right? They exist in that philosophy, that way of of looking at it. And so it’s just, it’s this really cool, like, not only is it helpful for the transition from stage six to five to six, but also helps you in the transition from stage six to stage seven when you’re ready, it’s fantastic. So dialing in on the successor themselves. So this is someone who’s got a vision for the future. You trust them. One of the challenges, if you go like, way back to the beginning of the founders journey, when they’re hiring their first couple employees, there’s this big rift of like you’re not hiring you, yeah, and this is kind of the ultimate test of that, because if there’s any one person that would be as close to you as you, it’s going to be whoever takes over after you, right? But they’re not the same. So in what ways will the CEO’s job, who’s taking over after you be different than the founder’s job when they step into the CEO seat.
Mark L. Vincent
Well, let’s acknowledge that if you’ve been successful, the role has grown with you as the founder, and you embody it, and you’ve got this inherent knowledge and intuition that’s deep in your neural pathways. The successor doesn’t have 15 or 20 or 30. Years. They don’t know every name. They don’t know everything behind every decision. So one of the things that often happens is to create a realistic job description for that role, knowing that some of the founders roles are going to split out. The best one that I’ve worked with usually is not a one to one switch. That person is going to be stepping up into something, and we’re even better if we imagine it being a an organization with an even greater capacity. So if we’re going to be good in this predecessor and successor role, we’re slingshotting them forward, not putting obstacles up that they have to walk around. Yeah, so I need to be thinking, as a founder, what’s it going to be like when the business is 25% larger in two years, or whatever our strategic plan is calling for, what capacities are we going to meet? What’s the town that’s going to be needed? And out of that the actual role emerges. And one of the reasons why this succession takes place is that when I’m doing that kind of work, I begin to discover a I’m not the person to run it from here. Yeah, don’t want to run it from here where we’re going, but it’s all fruit of the success that we’ve had. So if I’m ready to break my role up appropriately and to do it with that larger cast in mind, it really opens up the flower to decide what is the job from here. And it’s not about just replacing me. It’s about, yeah, the future. And that sets that person up in a visionary seat from the beginning.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I totally accidentally stumbled upon that whenever we were going through our own succession in my past job, when I was selling and replaced me with three people and and like they crushed it. I mean, just the amount of growth that they achieved, especially the first few years after I was gone, when I was no longer the limiting factor, which is a bit of a hard pill to swallow, you know, but, but any one person would have been so I couldn’t agree more. Yes, there’s someone at the top, it’s not just a team, but it’s also a person and the team that they’re leading that are really important. I think that’s such an important point. And I love the idea, and it’s so funny, because you have these visionary leaders who’ve who’ve built something from nothing, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’re handing over what is not what will be. And so that idea of what’s this gonna look like, 25% such a great principle when you’re looking at what needs to come next. The other thing that I like about this, and I’d like to unpack this a little bit, is one of the temptations, because being CEO is not a bad gig, right? Like it’s got some perks that come with it, especially when you optimize it for you, and you design the right team around you, it can be a great, great season of life. One of the challenges is that’s really comfortable. You know, in a lot of ways, that’s very comfortable. And so what tends to happen if we’re not careful is that we’ll wait until things get a little rough before we really take the process seriously, or before we really hand it off to someone else. And while that might be fine for you and how you exit, it tends to put those who follow behind you at a significant disadvantage. So when you’re looking at this process for folks, I guess, the very first question is, when should you start the process?
Mark L. Vincent
Well, the the consultative answer is, day one, right? You just, you should be doing that. But there’s, there’s this moment where you begin to realize that in a next strategic arc of some kind, like middle of big planning or something that you aren’t really going to be the right person for that moment, or you don’t want to. You’re you’ll have too many birthdays, you’ve got plans, whatever that is, at that point, you’re probably verging on too late, yeah, to do this well. So that’s just kind of what CYP was like. Don’t, don’t delay any longer, right to be ahead of that a little bit more you’re thinking. And I have really found a lot of benefit in this. You what? You’re linking business continuity with succession? Yeah, a lot of organizations continuity planning is over here in the finance department, or something along that line. And succession planning is some breakout of HR, or maybe it’s being handled with a board or something that’s saying, Look, we want to know what the bench is. The insurance company wants to know what the bench is, you know, so you tend to be not working together. I would submit, and I become deeply convinced that succession is a fundamental part of business continuity, and they ought to be brought together. So all along, we need to be planning the bench. We need to be planning the moves. We need to have that grid. What happens if someone’s hit by a bus, sudden illness, whatever, where we can move people up and out, where this gets scary is that you’ll end up. Helping more talent than you can hold. Yeah, at the company? Yep, I love some of the companies are out there. I could get specific, but that have said we’re going to bless our marketplace. We’re going to provide some of these people that we can’t put we’re going to create 200 CEOs. We can only have one. So we’re going to give 199 other options, and we’re going to do it in such a way that if we ever want to hire them back, we’ve not burnt any bridges. And our vendors and our customers are better. Our whole ecosystem is better because we’re we’re blessing that. So I think as soon as we have that mentality, we’re doing it all of the time, and as quickly as we can get there.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah. That’s so good. That’s so good. So a couple more questions for you here, and then I’m gonna let you go. First one is, let’s say we find someone, we get them installed. I’m gonna zoom forward in this process. We get to the end of it, they’re sitting in the CEO seat. And now the huge question for everyone at this stage is, now, what do I do? Right? Like now, and there are, there’s a whole, like, nine episodes on that, so I don’t want to answer that question, but I want to look at it in a very specific context, and that is, as business owner, what is your role and your involvement as it relates to the CEO that you’ve just installed?
Mark L. Vincent
Yeah, well, I’m speaking somewhat personally here, because I helped build up an organization. Ran it for 18 years, sat as the chair of the Partnership for another six and then stepped completely away in this year. I’ve sold my my equity. So I’ve, I’ve lived the journey, not just advise the journey with those who I’m working with. Yeah, and I have to say, not just from my own experience, but not on my clients, that this return to almost where you begin of working on your self matters a great deal. Otherwise, you cannot gage when it’s appropriate to help, when it’s appropriate to say, I will not help you, when it’s appropriate to reach back and fix something. I have one friend that said his way of gaging This is, has an artery been opened? If an artery has been not open, has not been opened, I don’t touch it no matter what’s being broken, whatever’s being banged, because people are learning in that, even if it means it’s out during a quarter or something along that line. But if an artery has somehow been open and you need that kind of intervention, then yes, I will do that, but you’re at a spot where your discernment becomes one of your highest skills. I would sometimes compare this to being an athlete and saying, now I’d have to really build up my muscles of restraint. It’s always been about how quick out of the blocks, how efficient. And now I’ve got to be able to sidestep, pivot, get off the track, get out of the way. You know, start and stop very, very quickly. Those different muscles and different now pathways got to develop those and I think that kind of coaching, that kind of work on self, the deeper reflection. For some people, they’ve not developed that very much in their life, and now it becomes a significant challenge, but that’s where the real strength and wisdom rises, and the really quality relationships between a predecessor and a successor happiness. So if I’m the CEO, I’ve got to start moving in that direction already. I can’t wait until I’m fully retired. Done now. I don’t know what to do. I have to start preparing myself for that future, just like I’m preparing the business for its future.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so good. That’s so good. I love it. If an artery hasn’t opened, great, great principle, because stuff is going to go wrong. It’s not if things go wrong, it’s when right and to what degree. So that’s that. So just a great principle, because there’s a tension there, like you’re not selling necessarily, not yet. You don’t have to, and so you’re still in but, but not. And so defining those with some some ground rules, and knowing yourself in the process is very, very important mark before I let you go. One more question. What would you say is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Mark L. Vincent
I think one I keep returning to over and over and over again, is that going slow is going fast. So we’ve got an awful lot of public examples right now of reactive leadership, just throwing everything at it and seeing what sorts out and comes up, and it puts everybody else into a reactive state. So everybody around you cannot actually bring you their best, and they’re all watching you, you become the show, and so that that just diminishes the capacity of the organization, even if it’s doing more, it’s very, very wasteful by slowing down enough to be thoughtful and reflective, we’re not talking about being indecisive. We’re talking about being able to see and think and you. Is the executive function of our brain, rather than the reactive portions of our brain. We will have one meeting instead of five meetings. We will get five decisions made in one meeting instead of half of a decision made in one meeting. And over time, the momentum builds so that take the deep breath, check in with the peers around the table. How we doing, how you doing? Let’s get in the spot where we can think together. It feels like we’re parking but we’re not. It actually means every next step builds momentum, rather than it being have having to cast it aside. I wish I could own that earlier in my life.
Scott Ritzheimer
So good, so good and so hard. It’s awesome. So Mark, there’s some folks listening. They’ve been thinking about this. They know it’s time to take action. They don’t want to do it alone. They’d love to have some support. How do you guys help and where can they find out more?
Mark L. Vincent
Well, let’s start with where they can find out more, because I recently just set this domain up as I exited from my own business. So we just have marklvincent.com and you need the letter L, otherwise you’ll be looking at Vin Diesel who shares my given name, or there’s an opera singer out of Australia who’s also called Mark Vincent. You won’t find me unless you use L, but marklvincent.com and there’s really two things that we’re doing. One is the executive advising with people who are in that spot. They’re in the CEO seat, maybe they’re board members working with the CEO, and they’re trying to figure out, how do we build this for smooth continuity into the future, and sitting there in those moments, helping them build that scale. That is just a great love. And then for some, they need to do it with others. They can’t just do this by themselves. So I put together some peer groups that runs for a couple of years just to work at that in a community of other people who are working on their story. It’s called Maestro level leaders. And Maestro level leaders.com is a place a person can go and find out more information about those peer advisory groups.
Scott Ritzheimer
Brilliant. We’ll get both of those links. Markelvincent.com, maestrolevelleaders.com in the show notes. So do check those out, particularly those of you in stage five or looking toward stage six, fantastic resources. You don’t want to do it alone. Mark, what a privilege and honor having you on just a joy having you on the show here today. Loved this conversation and cannot wait to see what you can do with folks who reach out for more help. And for those of you who are watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time take care.
Contact Mark L. Vincent
Mark L. Vincent, Ph.D., EPC, partners with accomplished leaders to pave a road through business continuity and succession. A Process Consulting pioneer and Systems Convener with more than 30 years of service as an Executive Advisor and Corporate Board Member, Mark is a certified Executive Process Consultant and WiLD Facilitator. He serves on the Global Council for Mygrow, advising its work in emotional intelligence development technology. Mark’s Executive Advising walks alongside a global Client base, including artful convening and facilitation of organizational systems facing complex circumstances.
Want to learn more about Mark L. Vincent’s work at Teall Vincent Enterprises? Check out his website at https://marklvincent.com. You can also learn more about their Maestro Level Leaders CEO peer groups at https://www.designgroupinternational.com/maestro-level-leaders
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