Succession planning

I have life insurance.

When I’m dead I probably won’t care about the living, but while I'm alive I do care. And I want my people to be taken care of if I happen to make an unexpected departure.

If you should ever have to leave your current organization — for reasons happy or sad — wouldn't you like the organization to proceed well without you?

As the in-house expert for your CRM or any other system, you can take steps now to make that happen.

1. Share your vision

Help people to understand what makes your CRM system great.

Why you love it. Why you chose it. What you're hoping to achieve with it. Where you see it going in the next year or two.

Talk about this often. It gives people something to buy into, and something to shoot for, which is great whether you're there or not.

And when you're not there, it will give them a path they can follow while they're learning to manage things without you.

2. Document stuff

Yes, we know people don't read documentation. It's long and boring, and normal people would rather figure it out themselves than read your 500-page treatise on how to do everything.

So a long list of how-to's is probably not helpful here.

But specific configurations are worth documenting, for example:

• User roles and permissions:
  What is the purpose of each role? In short simple terms, who are the people who need one role or another?

• Tags, groups, and relationship types:
  What is the meaning of each of these? A relationship type named "Contact of" doesn't have an obvious meaning. Write that stuff down somewhere.

• Vendors and external services:
  Just what is it we're paying these people for? What's the best way to reach them? How do these services fit together? How do you know which vendor to call for which kind of problem?

In other words, document the answers to questions that you could answer simply, if you were there.

3. Train "one level above"

Every time you train someone on a new task or procedure, make sure they understand it.

And then take a minute to explain how this task helps whoever is above them on the org chart:

• Once this task is done, who else uses that data?

• How does their department — or another department — benefit when this task is done in this way?

Again, this is a great thing to do in general. It gives team members a sense of value in the work they do. It helps them understand why their work is important.

But if you're ever “no longer around,” it will matter all the more.

Here's the thing:

We all love our work, our teams, and our organizations. Most of us have no intention of leaving them.

But circumstances change. Surprises happen. Opportunities arise.

Take steps now to make sure that this organization, into which you've poured so many late nights and weekends, is ready to excel in its mission, no matter what happens.

Think of it as life insurance for all of your hard work.

All the best,
A.