While the career-honoring ceremony for the retiring city manager was exemplary and the appointing of the successor extraordinarily well done with all the appropriate pomp and circumstance, from a governance perspective it was all quite anticlimactic. These decisions had, in effect, been made 18 months earlier.

The mayor and council had been discussing executive sustainability and succession planning at their annual retreats for at least half-a-dozen years after the large number of municipal senior executives eligible for retirement, including the city manager, had been identified during a SWOT analysis update.

Four years earlier, they had tasked the city manager with identifying at least two candidates for the office and grooming them to give the governing body ample future choices. They also had asked for annual updates on senior department managers and their succession plans.

Thus, when the city manager did reveal retirement plans, the council had extremely good choices and easily made a unanimous decision, which councilmembers shared so that all internal components could adapt over an appropriate time frame. It was a process that was thoughtfully designed, professionally implemented, and it resulted in a completely smooth transition.

Hard Work and Discipline

While this scenario may seem like nirvana, it took a lot of hard work on the part of the elected officials and great discipline on the part of the staff. The process spanned turnover on the council and led to some departures of city staff as decisions crystallized.

Done in full compliance with all appropriate sunshine statutes, it ensured that the community would have an orderly management transition with minimal organizational stress.

ICMA annual conference attendees know from hearing Jim Collins on numerous occasions that he and many other researchers believe that corporate performance is significantly better when there is a qualified insider to succeed to the job of CEO.

In fact, it is one of the key success determinants that Collins discusses in his Good to Great and Built to Last books. While this internal successor planning is a bit of a change of thinking in our learn-and-move-out-to-move-up culture, and may not fit some of our smaller or even midsize communities, it is at least worth exploring from a governance perspective.

It is also a great risk management tool in the event of unexpected turnover — for whatever reason.

Some Key Advice

As the long anticipated "silver tsunami" becomes a reality, more and more communities find themselves in a position where many, and sometimes all, of the key senior staff are eligible to retire.

In states with points-based retirement systems — a combination of age plus years of service — this can almost force tenured staff to move, and can put councils in the position of having to deal with CEO turnover based solely on financial disincentives.

As councils and local government managers have asked me to help them with this, I have tried to give meaningful advice and make sure that:

• The organization is building a pipeline of folks with great attitudes that come from diverse backgrounds—technical as well as administrative.
• These folks have an opportunity to experience and understand the strategies, systems, and culture of the community through formal and informal mentoring processes.
• There is a pathway, including appropriate salary adjustments, for these folks to remain on staff as they grow, even if it means being creative with job titles and duties.
• There are increasingly complex opportunities for them to learn from, and that they are able to experience failure without it being fatal to their careers.
• There is a multidepartmental—and even multijurisdictional—exposure process.
• They have the opportunity to see "behind the curtain" of council-manager relationships.
• The governance system minimizes drama to the extent possible.

A Valuable Process

Interestingly, much of this advice also applies in many ways to the governing body itself. The ballot box, of course, determines the ultimate results, but good councils looking to be great also help recruit, train, mentor, and challenge their own members.

In locales with term limits, the timing of turnover is often well known and consequently much easier to work with. In other cases, it simply means being more observant and being prepared.

Remember that elected succession planning is almost always a process more than an event, and having a larger pipeline of qualified and interested candidates is always a good thing.

Whether on the council or in the manager’s suite, turnover that is planned, programmed, and prepared for is almost always less painful. More importantly, it allows for the organization and the community to continue to progress unabated.