Workscape Institute

Succession planning for a professional sports team should be easy, right?  General Managers in professional sports know exactly when their employees can leave, and how their salaries compare to the market.  They know their players’ moods simply by keeping up with press interviews.  In short, General Managers have lots of available tools to help gauge which players will leave, and how and when they will need to be replaced.

Unlike other workplaces, commute time and benefits are rarely an issue in professional sports.  In contrast, in most companies, these issues can be major considerations for current and prospective employees.

Finally, whereas recruiting new employees can be near impossible for certain industries and certain geographies, professional sports have a built-in recruiting process with annual drafts and free agency periods.  Don’t like the players you’ve acquired through the draft or free agency?  Just call another team in your league and see if they would like to make a trade.

Given all those advantages, has succession planning in professional sports become an accurate, consistent, and repeatable process?  Not so fast.  A quick comparison of two NFL teams can easily dispel that notion.  For starters, let’s take the 2007 Atlanta Falcons.

In 2006, they had star quarterback Michael Vick and an up-and-coming backup quarterback in Matt Schaub.  By the start of 2007, their star player Vick (who is now serving a 23-month jail sentence for an illegal dog fighting operation) was in court and unable to play.  Meanwhile, Falcons management had traded away Schaub before the start of the season, leaving them with a shortage of talent for the most important position on the team. 

On the flip side, let’s look at the 2000 New England Patriots (in the spirit of full disclosure, I live in Massachusetts and am a Patriots fan).  Star quarterback Drew Bledsoe was in his eighth season and the team had two veteran backups.  Roster limits in the NFL typically force teams to keep two or, at most, three quarterbacks on a team at any one time.  A fourth quarterback is almost always cut from the roster or relegated to the practice squad, where league rules allow other teams to pilfer players at will.  In 2000, the Patriots selected little known quarterback Tom Brady in the sixth round of the NFL draft.  Evidently, while they weren’t convinced of his abilities to be the backup or third string quarterback, they saw enough potential in Tom to reserve a roster spot for him as their fourth quarterback.

In the second game of the 2001 season, Bledsoe suffered what turned out to be a near fatal injury.  Brady, who was then the primary backup, was immediately inserted into the game, and proceeded to help New England win 11 of the next 14 games.  That 2001 team later defeated the heavily favored St. Louis Rams to capture the franchise’s first Super Bowl.

The key learning point here is that succession planning is all about planning for the future.  By keeping Brady and investing in potential, the Patriots were envisioning a day when they may need to replace their then franchise quarterback Bledsoe.  In short, the Patriots accomplished the most important goal of succession planning by securing a player who was ready to lead when the time arose.

While the Patriots wisely kept Brady and the Falcons regrettably traded Schaub, the key is that both teams constantly evaluate and rank their existing talent.  In fact, all professional sports teams employ armies of individuals who do nothing but evaluate and rank talent.  One could argue that conducting effective talent evaluation and succession planning is the single most important driver of long-term success for any professional sports organization.

What is your company doing to support effective succession planning?  Do you have a clear plan to replace certain employees or positions when the need arises?  If you need any incentive to drive succession planning within your organization, just look at your nearest professional sports team.  Effective succession planning is a crucial driver to their success, and it will help drive success at your company as well.