CEO Succession

CEO Succession: A Window on How Boards Can Get It Right When Choosing a New Chief Executive

By Dennis C. Carey and Dayton Ogden. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 224 pages, hard cover, $25.00

Based on original research and interviews with numerous well-known companies, Carey and Ogden paint a rich and diverse picture of the processes used by leading companies to ensure leadership as a stable force for implementing each company's long-term strategy. They cite such best practices for top management succession as encouraging boards of directors to play an interactive role with the CEO in crafting the firm's succession planning process, identifying succession candidates below the top layer of management, measuring internal candidates against outside leaders to ensure the development of a comprehensive set of skills among internal succession candidates, and using financial incentives appropriately to assure successful succession planning.

Throughout the book, Carey and Ogden repeatedly make the argument that effective succession planning is an ongoing process resting primarily with the board of directors.

CEO Succession is a thorough and well-written discussion of the reasons why top management succession is increasingly important for effective organizational leadership. The book is an excellent primer for further developing an increasingly important board responsibility-leadership continuity.

Source:

CEO Succession: A Window on How Boards Can Get It Right When Choosing a New Chief Executive
Jeffrey P Katz. The Academy of Management Executive. May 2000. Vol. 14, Iss. 2; pg. 130,