BOB HAND: All right we are going to talk about succession planning starting on slide 97.

It starts with saying that no leadership plan is complete without planning for an eventual change in leadership.

All of us who are executive director or tremendously competent and capable and wonderful but we still have to plan for when we leave.

People say to me, you have done such a wonderful job, when you leave the place is not going to do well.

If that's the case, then I haven't done such a wonderful job because we have to plan for that.

That's part of planning process.

It is however, one of the most important and challenging opportunities, particularly when the executive director leaves for the nonprofit board.

So many agencies fall apart when the executive director leaves.

They can be going along and everything is running fine.

That director leaves.

They haven't made good plans.

They stumble through the process and before long, they are in critically bad shape.

So this is really, really an important aspect for us.

So the next slide.

Just a point.

Some of us have worked in this business for a long time but none of us are going to work in it forever, despite the lack of retirement plans, eventually you are going to collapse if nothing else.

It's critical we make these plans.

And the next slide.

So a thoughtful transition plans and this isn't complete.

It's just some of the ideas.

A time to reflect before jumping into the search mode.

In other words, it's not just, wow, the executive director is gone so now let's start looking at it.

You need to look at the organization's strengths and challenges.

You may have a job description for your executive director that says specific things, but at any given time some parts may be more important than another.

So as, you need to have your board looking at that and saying, if we are replacing right now, what are the critical issues that we need to take into consideration?

You need to review the strategic plan and the direction.

Because, again, what kind of leader you bring in is going to be dependent on what's the plan for the organization?

Where are you going?

What specific kinds of strengths do you need to get there?

You need to engage the board in leadership evaluation.

Evaluating the existing leader but also the whole leadership of the organization and the leadership concept.

The leadership modes that you want.

Engage the staff in discussion regarding the organization's values, visions and cultures.

Again, some of this is broader, but without these basics, you are not going to have a good plan for replacing the executive director.

And develop a transition team and I think we are going to be talking about that in more detail later.

So let's go to the next slide.

What we are going to focus on for Sheri and I talking about is the succession planning for the executive directors of independent living centers.

But before we get into that, I do want to say that we need to have a plan for every employee from your administrative assistance service providers, finance managers, all of it.

One of the things we've developed at RICV is we have a system where every six months every employee has to go through and sign off on a sheet that says, everything they do at least one other person knows how to do it and they have to list who that is.

And that's not just their job description.

Many times we, all of us take on roles that are not in the job description so if they are doing special items we have to have chosen someone saying they are going to learn that as well.

Not to the extent the employee knows it but to the extent they could carry it on in an emergency situation until we get the person replaced.

You have to have these plans if you want to have a good, consistent system for your program.

SHERI BURNS: on that particular topic, because we are going to be spending most of the time talking about at the executive leadership level I think it's important for us to describe a few minutes how we have done this and bob talked about having one other person that has been like a buddy and has learned your particular job or you've learned somebody else's job well enough to fill in or them which is essential.

That was one of the things also when I was at cil and fully intend to implement at s.

CIL they know your job well enough so you can fill in for them or they can fill in or you.

For everybody be a generalist.

In your organization you have specialty who focuses on housing or focuses on assistive technology and device lending library and different things that you might be doing and that you become a specialist or others become a specialist in your agency in those areas is that you learn enough about each other's jobs and what you do that can pick that up or somebody else can pick that up.

And what we did was implement within our all-staff meetings.

We had once a month all-staff meeting and they are long enough to include business aspects of what needs to be discussed among everyone on a business level, as well as training.

And so what we would mix it up and sometimes have outside presenters come in and talk about their programs and services and be adequately informed about the referrals in the community.

And the other half of the time is do in-services amongst ourselves.

So that the person that was providing advocacy and benefit's assistance was training everybody else on the basic of that job and vice versa.

So that we all know enough to step in and take over in an emergency situation including myself.

I think a good way of doing that is cross training within your organization as well as a buddy system for in-depth training.

And also even for the board to be fully aware of what's going on.

It's a good idea for us to have staff do in-service with the board of directors so they understand the programs and services extremely well so that's one suggestion of handling it.

BOB HAND: okay.

Let's go on to look at it.

So a plan for replacing any staff position, we recommend a few things.

Develop written procedures for all services.

And independent living centers often have them for administrative policies procedures but not necessarily programmatic ones.

And ensure at least two staff persons know the basics of each service that's a brilliant one.

We should have thought of that earlier.

That's what we were just talking about.

Let's go on to the next slide.

Looking at executive director.

We believe there should be two types of plans.

And the first is for an unexpected departure.

Amazingly these happen quite often.

An executive director gets at job and they have to take it right away.

And executive directors have passed away.

Some extreme problem comes up and the board terminates their employment immediately.

I keep thinking, I may win the lottery and call in from Tahiti and see good luck guys.

They need a plan for that.

And the next plan, the next slide, how are you going to deal with an interim executive director.

You could look at that could be if you have a deputy director.

That's the obvious choice.

It could be a board member.

We often see the chairman of the board step in.

That's one of the ways that it's most likely to have problems, though.

Because board members often have, maybe great at running a board.

They don't necessarily know the details of running a center.

Personnel items and restrictions of grants.

That's a process that's used.

If you are going use it, you have a written process that says that's what you are going to do and these are the things that the board member must do as the executive director.

You could have one or more management staff, who again, you have pre-trained to be in this position.

And so if the executive director leaves immediately, they already know that they are going to be the ones to take over and they've been trained on what they need to do.

Or you could use an outside person.

Somebody who comes in just to be the interim executive director.

Now if you are going to have an interim and let's go to the next slide.

You need to determine is that somebody who's going to apply for the full-time position or not?

Because those are two different things.

If somebody is an interim and they may be applying full time, that's going to affect how they go about their job.

Sometime you have somebody who comes as an interim and you saying you are not going to be applying, so you can just concentrate of the immediate aspects of it and there's not going to be any questions about, are you doing things to set yourself up to be the next executive director.

So, again, your board needs to look at that and pre-decide, you know, not wait until the last minute but pre-determine what they want.

Obviously at least one supervisor, manager should know where all information is kept and where all procedures are.

One of the things we find as an executive director leaves and all of a sudden there's all kinds of things that nobody knows where they are at that's critical for the organization.

Business and financial accounts and grant information, user ids and passwords.

That's not just for the executive director but for all of your staff, you should have a master list.

Nobody is allowed to put in their own user ids and passwords on anything and they should be kept in a secure place and someone can step in and go to that place and get it.

Make sure you have more than one person to sign on an account.

Whether it's a board member or treasurer.

And the executive director leaves and they are the only one that can sign, that's going to be a problem.

We have just, a very short time to talk about it, but this is the kind of things to take, to keep in mind for this, so if you have somebody, so one of the plans you need to make is, your executive director leaves without notice, what are the things that you are going to do?

 What's the plans you have to have in place?

What written procedures do you have to protect your organization under those circumstances?

And Sheri.

SHERI BURNS: okay.

So the second type of situation that you want to plan for within your organization is if the executive director gives some notice.

And ideally you need a minimum of three months, a longer period of time, 3, 4, 5 months of time to actually plan for everything to happen on a smooth basis.

During my previous board chairs has a frown on her face.

She says a year.

That's the whole point of planning.

Actually if you have all of those things in place ahead of time and a really well developed plan that's thought out well before you need it even with three or four or 5 months’ notice is that you don't feel as panicked.

You have more time to put everything in place because it's already been planned out.

You are not in the moment you have to think about it.

What should be included in this plan?

Who will make up the ED search committee?

Will it just be the board who is responsible to find the next executive director or is it going to be a combination of board and staff?

Are you going to engage representatives of the staff to be involved in that transition committee or that search process?

And third, you might also engage members of your community that are important to be part of that process.

No right or wrong way.

What works best for your organization?

At CRIL we decided to have a combination of board and staff involved in that transition committee and responsible for different aspects of the process.

Who will decide on the salary and benefit package and the job description.

You could be using the same job description.

There's no need to change the job description for the next person coming in.

Or as Bob said based and what your strategic plan is for the next five years decide that you are going to be looking for somebody different or who has different attributes or strengths in different areas that you want to bring in for the future of that organization and it depends on and why it's very important to have a real strategic plan that you are able to then look at and incorporate into that process.

And then the salary and benefit.

Is that going to be the same as what you had in place before?

Is it going to be a range?

Here is the minimum and here is the maximum.

It depends on what your history is and what your budget is and what the comparative salaries are for nonprofit EDs in your area.

Will you find someone from the local community?

Are you going to be looking across the state?

Are you going to be doing a national search to bring someone in who will be the best fit for your organization for the future you have to consider all of that what's important and what procedures will be used for reviewing and scoring the applications?

Conducting the public background research.

Conducting the formal reference checks and conducting and scoring interviews.

At CRIL we didn't have a process in place.

According to Doreen it was wasn't ample notice.

It was enough notice for us to sit down as a committee and put all of these things in place.

It was time consuming.

There was an investment of time of the members of that transition committee over that four-month period of time, but we did have time to look at these things.

And again, the best thing to do was plan ahead when you are not in that situation of having to say, I only have two months or four months or whatever it and all of that needs to be considered and part of that process.

The succession planning should also include how and who will conduct the professional background checks.

Are you going to be looking for their employment history?

Their education?

Their certifications?

Their credit history?

And how that's going to be conducted.

There are several organizations, businesses that do this kind of work that you can engage.

Obviously there's a fee involved, but for basically a few hundred dollars you can hire an organization to conduct that background check on your top candidate.

So maybe, you get everybody narrowed down and then you decide this is our top candidate, then how are we going to go about check being what's on their resume is accurate and truthful.

If they have graduated with this degree.

If they actually are creditworthy and are going to be good stewards and have with the organization's finances.

All those things are very important and you need to have a process for that.

Who will be the one that negotiations a verbal offer and final offer?

Is it going to be a couple of members of the board or the executive committee or a board chair?

That needs to be decided by the board and then a letter of hire should go out as well.

You want something in writing that's protecting your organization as well as the person that there is an agreement there.

This is what we are offering and you want to make sure that it meets legal muster as far as your particular state's labor laws and all the things for that person to be hired.

What does the executive director have in the process?

Are they part of process from start to finish?

Are they part of only the initial process working with the transition committee to have all of those processes in place and those systems in place?

Are they going to actually be part of the review committee and taking a look at and scoring the applications coming in and helping the rest of the committee members decide who to interview are they going to be part of interview panel.

I personally did not think that was appropriate for me to be part of interview panel so I pulled out of that particular process because it's not my place to hire the person but I was helping the board be prepared to bring on the next executive director.

And then how will the former ED be recognized before leaving?

Is there something that the organization wants to do as far as putting out announcement letting the community know that this person is going to be leaving and then conversely I had a welcoming and inviting the community to get to know the new person coming in?

It can be a formal announcement that goes out.

It could be a media release.

It could be invitation to attend a reception for one or both.

It could be all of those things.

It has to be part of plan what you are going to put into place for the exiting person assuming they have not passed away and.

Or they, or they left to Tahiti and the new person coming in and introducing them to the community.

What was the last point?

I think that was the same thing.

Introduce them.

Thank you.

And just again as reminders that boards don't think about replacing their executive director until the person leaves or announces that they are leaving and of course that's the complete opposite of planning and this is what we are talking about is succession planning and we all want to be in a position so that you are putting the pieces of the plan in place so that it's all ready to go.

Kind of like disaster preparedness.

You don't want to my your stuff in the middle of a hurricane or right after the earthquake has hit.

It's the plan.

This should be done ahead of time when you are not in that emergency situation.

We urge our boards to have the plans and transition procedures in place and there's wonderful, wonderful tools that you can go to and get a lot of this information.

ILRU has great tools that are there that I utilize.

Compass point is another nonprofit support organization that has wonderful tools in place.

So there's lots of stuff out there.

You don't have to think of, oh my god, what should be in the checklist.

It's all out there.

Do a little bit of research and go to these two excellent sites that support nonprofits or independent living center and they can guide you through the process.

That's the last one.

That's it.

So we have about four minutes, Tim, for any questions for bob and myself on succession planning.

Ramiro?

RAMIRO MONTOYA: you left CIL to go to Silicon Valley, it was nice.

Like, you know, City Hall in Hayward, you had a farewell party and it was nice because you had a summary of all the struggles during your period of time.

Battles.

That was really nice chronologically.

I learned things that I didn't know.

SHERI BURNS: thank you.

Hi.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Daniel again.

Quick question, when you go about having, you mentioned the succession planning for your staff as well which is an interesting role.

A lot of staff kind of accidentally specialize.

They fall into stuff that works well for them as an individual because that's where personal strengths lie.

That might not be easily duplicated by another staff member because their skills lie differently.

Is this something maybe a manager should always be the person who also knows how to do those tasks or someone who is a co-worker at an equal level?

SHERI BURNS: I think both.

The manager certainly should be well aware and understand the ins and outs of the programs and services and how to provide them at least on a basic level to step in.

And also one of the things that we did at cil was put very detailed programs in place, curriculum.

Much like bob has done in the community leadership.

Leaders without limits binder and there's power points and curriculum developed for every single service area.

If we had a housing workshop which cil does every Monday afternoon covers from a.

To z of all the housing search and credit correct and everything.

And Michael typically has been providing that particular training on a weekly basis and he calls in sick.

I wouldn't want to have to cancel that workshop.

So anybody can step in because they know where the PowerPoint is.

There's a binder and go run with it.

And that's what we should be setting up at all of our centers.

We've got materials in place and anybody can jump in and anybody can jump in.

Maybe not every single thing in the specialty area but things are not going to stop because you are not there.

Also, I was thinking the same thing, managers, manager’s, I mean, the, excuse me.

The executives, those executives have a whole lot of ability that may have come with a lot of experience at that particular area.

Is that something that's easily quantified in the succession plans?

Like all those hidden skills that you've picked up along the way because you know that person or you know how, the things work in this area.

How do you quantify those hidden things?

SHERI BURNS: that's probably the most difficult thing to pass on or to have in a plan to write down.

There's so many things, I mean, even I just said having curriculum or having PowerPoint or whatever in place is that there's still so much stuff that we have in our head that we've learned along the way, especially if we spent enough time in this particular field or relationships that we've built that even if we try to write them all down, it would be impossible to get everything.

So I think what we can do is do our best to make sure we're passing that information on and having it written out in some fashion, or meeting if the person is still there, obviously meeting with that person and letting them know.

But we have to plan for that not being the case, and so as much as we can write down or share with another person, Michael was talking a lot earlier about sharing stories so that somebody else has that information, I think the better.

Is there anything else?

BOB HAND: the only thing I was going to add, it's kind of related but I think it's important.

Any time we have an opening if we have time to do it, I think it's worthwhile to relook at the job description.

It may have changed over those years.

So before you hire the next person, relook at the job description.

You may want to redevelop it.

Maybe you're saying this person was really good at this but now that we're going to replace them, we want to change that a little bit.

I think our time is out, though.

SHERI BURNS: one last comment or question?

Middle table?

I just wanted to say that one of the things that we did when you left was I met with the staff and asked them to give us their sense of kind of the attributes they like to see in an executive director as well as ideas about where they wanted the organization to go, and I think that really helped the board a lot and, you know, in evaluating where we were going.

SHERI BURNS: thank you.

Thank you for sharing that, Doreen.

I'm glad you did.

Because whether the staff is, or you have some staff representatives that are involved in the transition team, it's important to have everybody feel a part of the process and to have buy-in.

So that was an excellent thing that I think the board did, and Doreen, spending time with the staff and getting their input as to what are the most important characteristics and attributes and skills that you want to see in the next person coming in?

And what do you not want to see?

Exactly.

The other thing we asked was what are your fears, and that was very enlightening, too.

You know, what are your concerns about, you know, this next period of time, transition period of time and after that?

SHERI BURNS: thank you.

I think we're out of time but really quick.

I wanted to ask, our board in our cil, actually, we don't have the staff participation with the board.

It's like the board comes in, you know, once a month, does their meeting and the actual staff does not really truly participate with the board.

So could you speak on how to encourage maybe a staff cooperation with the board to facilitate this a little bit easier?

SHERI BURNS: sure.

There's a couple of ways really quickly.

I mentioned one which I think is very helpful is to have the staff rotate coming in and just doing a 15-minute presentation at a board meeting at the beginning of the board meeting and talking about what services they provide, giving some success stories, consumer stories to really iterate and illustrate for the board the impact of what you do and now you affect people's lives, and then a short q and a.

That's one excellent way.

Another flip way is to do some kinds of activities throughout the year that you're working together, and they could be social in nature where you have a barbecue or a potluck or a holiday party or things like that where everybody's mingling together and getting to know each other on a social basis, as well as on a systems change advocacy level, all of our board members should be involved in the advocacy efforts of the organization as well.

They're not, I mean, ideally not just providing governance but also supporting the goals that we have set in our system change plans and attending some of those activities, although we have the disability capital action day that you heard a couple of people talk about every year where we take a group of folks to the state capital to meet with our legislators, and we have community members, staff and board to participate in that, so it's ways to bring everybody together to get tone and get to know each other.

Okay.

Thank you.

BOB HAND: thank you all.