0:01 Who are you? And [music] where are you going? What do you want?
0:13 >> [music]
0:16 >> Hello and welcome to business lessons from the military. I'm your host Kevin Bemel and I'm here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about military history, doctrine, and leadership practices and then distill from them lessons we can apply to our businesses and professional practices. So, today we're continuing with our 24 episode campaign. We're in section three culture and long-term survival. And we're on the sixth episode of of that phase three. We're coming up to the end.
0:52 I think there's just a couple more episodes left in the 24 episode campaign. And today I'm going to be talking about succession session planning in in command. So, this is a topic that is shall we say near and dear to my heart. Not not so much um from a military standpoint, but because of the work I do in civilian life. So, as those of you who have watched the show before know, I I have a multi-family office practice
1:27 and I act as an independent trustee and probate administrator. And oftentimes I'm called in when somebody dies intestate. There's no will, there's no trust. And if they have a business, almost for sure they're leaving that business uh leaderless. And it causes a tremendous amount of upheaval for the clients, for the employees, for just the business itself, and and and the heirs who are at least nominally going to be inheriting
2:03 ownership of the business, it's just a tremendous amount of chaos, and it it comes down to because there is no estate plan, there is oftentimes also no succession plan for the business, and so a lot of money has to be spent pulling things together for that company that otherwise, you know, would not have had to be spent, at least not in shoring up the operation. It could have been spent in, you know, invested in ongoing operations, or you know, passed on to the heirs or
2:39 something like that. So, it's a very unfortunate aspect of the work that I do. Um and I think this happens most often when the business is run by the founder. So, founders tend to resist wanting to create a succession plan. They don't want to let go of of their company, and and so it's just it's it you know, it just becomes very problematic. So,
3:14 I I I think there is a tendency in the civilian world to think for an organization to behave, if not actually think, that leadership is permanent. So, as I mentioned a moment ago, founders delay their succession planning, executives avoid naming successors, and companies just kind of assume, "Oh, this is all going to work itself out. I don't really have to worry about it." So, the military takes a fundamentally opposite
3:49 approach. It assumes that leadership is not a possibility. It is a certainty. Right? So, succession leadership succession in the military is not a side project. It is part of core operational requirements. So, we're going to take a look at the kind of hidden fragility that happens when companies avoid uh succession planning and why a
4:24 disciplined organization treats it as as mission critical. So, let's look at the military side of the equation first. So, military uh success leadership succession is built into the command structure. So, just to give you an example, I spent a lot of time in uh naval aviation. So, in a in a squadron, which typically has um 125 150 sailors in it officers and sailors in it. So,
5:01 you will have the commanding officer, who's typically a navy commander. And then you will have a um executive officer uh who is also a navy commander. And it's understood that after 18 months or so as commanding officer, the uh commanding officer is going to rotate out of the squadron and the executive officer is going to fleet up, meaning he's going to take over the commanding officer's role. And so,
5:36 over the span of about 3 years, that off that officer will have served about half that time as the XO, the executive officer, and half the time as the CEO. And then at the time that that changeover is is imminent, what's called a PXO, a I can't think of the word that that the P stands for. Oh, prospective, a prospective executive officer is assigned to the squadron to get familiar with the XO's duties
6:14 right before the current executive officer fleets up to become CO. And so it's it's a constant process of making sure that there is always someone who can fleet up into that position of being the commanding officer. Now, if if the squadron is is deployed, right? So, you have the commanding officer, the executive officer. If both of them were unable to fill that duty, so then I I think the next in line for command would
6:50 be the Opso, the operations officer. And then probably from there it would be the maintenance officer. And and and there are what are known as department heads who are typically lieutenant commanders, O-4s. There there is a priority as to which one of them would step up first into one of the two senior roles. Right? So, it's it's understood from the get-go that there has to be someone to carry on with leadership succession. And by the way, within the
7:26 departments, so there's there's a an Opso and there's an AOpso, an assistant operations officer. So, if the Opso has to fleet up, let's say to become the XO, the AOpso will fleet up to become the Opso and and and so on. It just It just chunks up like that automatically. And I'm using an aviation squadron just because that's the one that I'm with which I'm most familiar, but you see the same thing in in submarines, you see the same thing on a ship, you'll see the same thing in a SEAL team. And in fact, you'll see the same thing throughout all of the
8:02 branches of the military. You have the same thing in the Marine Corps. Okay, so every leader has a designated replacement and command chains are very clearly defined. Okay, so it's not a matter of if the you know, if if the squadron is deployed and the CO for some reason is disabled, and so now the XO takes over that role. There's no you know, discussion or voting as to who's going to become the XO. It's
8:37 already understood. The Opso is going to fleet up into that position, okay? And and so continuity is planned before there's a before there's a need for succession to take place. And indeed leadership transition is is practiced. It's not improvised. Okay, so for example, when the CO goes on leave okay, he takes time off, goes on vacation basically, right? So that that chain of command process will
9:12 automatically take place, right? And then when the CO comes back, people will go back to their you know, their regular role, right? And in that way they get experience in a role that they might have to fill if if you know, if someone is permanently lost to to that role. So this ensures that if a commander is removed, is is reassigned, is incapacitated, or killed, the unit can continue to operate pretty much seamlessly, but certainly without collapsing, right? So, this
9:48 continuity is designed into the system. Now,
9:54 >> [snorts]
9:54 >> why does this exist? Well, you know, unlike civilian life, right? Military um militaries deal in existential situations, combat, battles, war, right? And so, the while the likelihood of getting wounded or killed in a war today, at least for the American military, is much lower than it was in, say, you know, Vietnam or Korea or World War II, it still takes place. So, we've seen in the in the Iraq War, 13 Americans were killed. Now, to the best of my recollection, none of them were
10:30 senior commanders. However, there could have one of them could have been, for example, a squadron commanding officer, and if that was the case, that somebody needed to be able to step into that CO's role right away, right? And so, people are inevitably going to be wounded or killed in kinetic combat. And by the way, people get wounded and sometimes killed even in training. That is just the nature of the danger of of military work. So, you know, this doesn't have to
11:05 be a combat issue. This could be a a unit could be in garrison and still suffer the loss of a commander. And so, in order to make sure that there are not operational breakdowns caused by a leadership loss, right? Um we have to have this kind of um leadership succession built into just the way the military operates without it without this structured succession. So decisions would stall, authority would become unclear, lines of authority would
11:41 become unclear, who can gets who can make a decision in a particular situation, units fragment under pressure, and now the mission cannot be met, right? And and that in a military context is disastrous, right? So uh you know, look, we we see this kind of thing throughout uh military history um where where battles turned on, you know, the death of of a commander or the incapacitation of a commander. We saw it in the American Civil War. We we we saw
12:18 it in uh World War II, right? I'm not going to, you know, go through and give uh specific examples. I think from a military standpoint, it's it's absolutely clear. So you just Well, I'll give I'll give one kind of broad example. Like take D-Day, right? The Normandy that the the D-Day, the Normandy landings during World War II, right? It was understood from the get-go there were going to be heavy casualties, right? And so leadership redundancy had to be built in, right? And and and and and it was, right? And so that's one of
12:54 the reasons why D-Day, the Normandy invasion was successful is because that reality was recognized uh from from the get-go. It was part of the Normandy invasion plans. So the question then becomes, if it's so obvious from a military standpoint, why do businesses fail at succession? And I mentioned a couple of reasons why I think this is the case at the beginning, but I think that in general succession planning feels uncomfortable. So first of all, founders are emotionally
13:30 attached to their businesses, right? So, I I I know this just for for myself, right? The idea of someone taking over running my business and and looking after my clients, I have very close relationships with some of my clients. I I It's just it It's hard to stomach the thought that, you know, I'm not going to be the one looking after them. Uh that's number one. Number two, like I you know, my current business is is relatively young, but when I had my real estate company back before I joined the Navy, I
14:05 mean, like 20 years was like I had I had, you know, given birth to and raised this baby. And it was very hard to think about giving it up, selling the business, or bringing someone else in to run the business. It's just It's an emotionally difficult decision. That's number one, I think. Number two, I think executives fear replacement will signal some kind of weakness. And this is a mistake, right? Um it it It's really putting oneself ahead of the business. So, if the
14:41 business and what the business does and its clients and customers are truly important, then we need to recognize the inevitability of our need to move on, either because we we pass away or because we're just not able to continue to run the business, or maybe we just are worn out, we just don't want to do it anymore. But we're not signaling signaling weakness, uh we're signaling strength of purpose by making sure that
15:16 that our There is someone to replace us in the event that uh we, you know, move on for one reason or another. Um I think too, organizations rely on this sort of, you know, irreplaceable leader narrative. So, probably the best example of that right now are the various companies led by Elon Musk. I mean, presumably there are deep wells of leadership at Tesla, at SpaceX, at um at um X. Uh however,
15:53 it's it's hard to imagine those companies doing as well uh without Elon Musk there. And I think it investors might be much more comfortable if they knew what the succession plan was. Right? This was a bugaboo always at the Walt Disney company. So, Walt Disney famously did not have a successor. And when he died at a relatively young age, he was my gosh, I think about this, he's 66, essentially the same age as me when he
16:29 died. Um the company got mired for years and years and years in this philosophy of what would Walt do. Um and and and the the company really stymied and it was that eventually led to um the Walt Disney, what was originally known as Walt Disney Productions, being bought by an investor group and turned into uh the current Walt Disney company, right? So, um it you know, it turns out that as as great a leader and as creative a man as
17:05 Walt Disney was, he was not irreplaceable. What what what was what was the case was because he had not designated a successor, the company had to tread a bump a bumpy road for many years until it could find someone to take over. And that's kind of been even even till today, the the issue with succession at the Walt Disney company. Right? And so I think another reason is that uh that that companies don't uh don't plan for
17:40 succession is they're very for focused on short-term performance and that crowds out long-term planning. And and and and that is uh un- unfortunate uh to to say the least. We need to balance the two. Now, of course, as I've talked about in many different contexts, we're never in balance per se, right? But we need to keep in mind that as important as you know, short-term cash flow is to the survival of a business, we also need to be looking beyond the horizon as well.
18:16 And that's what succession planning is is primarily about. I I I'm would add one more reason why I think businesses fail at succession planning. And I think that it's somewhat related to founders being emotionally attached to their businesses. I think there is a kind of ego that gets involved, um combined with a fear that if they designate someone as their successor that is sort of incentivizing
18:52 people to push them aside. So, it's not so much that they're uh that they're signaling weakness per se, it's just that they're they're they're making themselves vulnerable in their own eyes and they don't their ego doesn't permit them to do that. And so, I think we have to fight against all of these uh feelings and and and realities and recognize that for the good of our companies, for the good of our customers and clients, we need to have a succession plan in place. And and the
19:28 reality is, if we don't, we're actually hiding a lot of risk, right? So, an org an organization that depends on individuals uh rather than systems, ha- has a lot of embedded risk in it because if one of those individuals cannot uh uh you know, fulfill their duties or their or their responsibilities, now the organization uh you know, will it's it's not going to operate uh
20:04 uh properly. So, um when suc- succession is ignored, and you have this sort of fragility of of key person dependence. So, decision-making ends up bottlenecking. And uh in sometimes some and and in some cases it it it stops altogether because the person is not there to make the decision. Uh also, when you have a lot of institutional knowledge in one person, when that person goes, especially if the person passes away, all that
20:41 institutional knowledge is lost, right? And and then, another issue is employees become dependent on a sort of informal authority network o- on the one hand, while not wanting to make decisions, not being accustomed to making decisions that might fly in the face of the decision-maker making decisions, right? And so investors can will will oftentimes perceive a risk in leadership continuity to the detriment of the company. So,
21:18 when I had my real estate company, I was doing a collateral review uh of the real estate owned by it was a basically a large distribution company. And while it wasn't I I didn't have the responsibility for doing this, I I I noticed it when when I sat in on meetings with so-called senior leadership that the founder of the company was the only one making decisions and everybody in the room deferred to him. And so, when I reported back to my client about
21:53 this, I told them flat I said like I know you don't ask me to look at this, but I said I noticed something and I would encourage you to look into this more because you've got a founder who is you know, an older man, doesn't appear to me to be in the most robust health, certainly not in the best physical condition.
22:14 >> [snorts]
22:14 >> And I don't see any I did not meet with anyone who it appears would have the ability to take over and run the business in his absence. It seemed to me there's there was a big vulnerability to that company, right? And so, um as a result, not necessarily just of that issue, although I think that was part of it, my client ended up uh deciding not to lend them the money that they were seeking. Um and I won't go into the rest of the story. I I I have talked about this case before, but I
22:49 think that we as companies, when we create this kind of key person dependency, we are holding back the progress of our company and certainly making it look less desirable from an investor or a lender standpoint, right? So, if if a leader leaves, even if he doesn't die, let's just say he moves on to another company, so strategy can stall, confidence can drop, the value of the business can decline, and now, while the organization may survive, um it
23:24 becomes unstable. And so, there is kind of a succession uh paradox. So, um strong leaders oftentimes create fragile organizations because their high competence attracts dependency, right? The other employees just assume, oh, you know, the boss is so so smart, so good at all this, we can just rely on him to make all the decisions. And that's a bad place for a company to be.
24:00 Also, although centralized decision-making often looks and maybe even is more efficient, that's only once as long as the central decision-maker is around to make the decisions. The minute he's not, now all of a sudden, the the organization is frozen. And and so, you have all these sort of informal um relationships that that are actually running the company rather than having a clear understanding of of where authority flows, how it's going to work
24:35 in the event of a need for succession, etc. And you also have a situation that when succession is needed, because there's all these informal relationships, the likelihood of a power struggle is much much higher. Okay? So, how do we How do we prevent this? So, I'm going to I have five ideas on that. Let's take a quick break and we'll and I'll come back and talk about those.
25:03 >> [clears throat]
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25:45 >> [snorts]
25:46 >> Okay. So, how do we then prevent a problem the problem of lack of succession planning? Well, number one. Number one on the list and number one most important. We need to treat succession as a continuous process, okay? It's not a one-time event. Okay? Just like with that uh aviation squadron that I mentioned at the beginning of the show. You have a commanding officer, you have an executive officer. When when the time comes for the XO to fleet up to become
26:22 the CEO, a PXO comes in and that becomes a continuous, you know, chain of occurrences. And then within the squadron itself, there there are people who will step up and that that's all worked out in advance, right? So, as as business owners or as business leaders, we need to regularly identify potential successors, not just to ourself, but to any key leadership role, okay? And we need to be encouraging our our senior leadership to be
26:59 uh grooming people to take their place. Now, that can be difficult cuz it may make them feel vulnerable, right? So, it's got to be built into the culture of the company that we groom the next generation of leaders. Another thing that sometimes holds people back from wanting to groom successors is they don't want to you know, increase people's skills and expectations and then have them leave the company. Uh you know, and now they've lost out, so to speak, on the time and energy and
27:35 expense that was taken to develop that leader. I think that's that's very short-sighted. First of all, if somebody leaves a company, it's it's it must be that there's just not the opportunity there for them. And it is better for them to leave than to stay at the company and be be upset at the lack of opportunity. And so, we as business owners, as leaders in businesses, we should be pleased if our people get the opportunity to move on to another organization, even a competitor.
28:10 First of all, there's only only good things, well, I shouldn't say only good things, but there can be some very good things about having alumni from your company in other businesses, whether it's in the same industry or in a different industry. Especially if you were the one who enabled them to take that next step up. So, they will almost inevitably feel some kind of gratitude or loyalty to your company, and that can mean future opportunity. And so, I think that again,
28:46 we need to make it part of the ethos of the company that one of the first obligations of any leader is to find a successor or a couple of successors and make sure they're ready to step into that role. So, they need to keep They need to constantly be uh updating leadership pipelines and readiness levels in terms of succession need to be consistently reviewed. And in fact, it probably should be part of the review process for senior leaders. Who do you
29:22 have in your pipeline that can step into your role? If the answer is no one, then that's not as good That's not as good a review periodic review as it would be if they've got a really good pipeline. Okay, so succession is ongoing. It should not be reactive. Okay, number two. This is somewhat related. Build depth in leadership layers, right? So, we want to avoid single points of failure. Now, this In a company in a large company where
29:58 you have multiple departments, divisions, or whatever, so it's easier to see why having leadership layers in depth is important, right? Because if if a divisional leader is sidelined, someone needs to be able to step into that role just like someone needs to be able to step up into the commanding officer role of a squadron. But let's say you're a you know, solo trip trip preneur or whatever that word is like me, right? How do I build leadership layers in depth? Well, the way I do it is because even though
30:35 I do so with individual professionals, I build teams and I've got to build to a certain extent redundancy in those teams where practical. Um and if not redundancy in a specific team, redundancy in the professionals who can fill the roles in that team. So, I can't have only one relationship with a strong probate and trust attorney. I can't have only one relationship with only one outstanding accountant who specializes in probate and trusts. So, I've built a network of
31:13 professionals and uh you know, where there's at least two, three, sometimes more people in any given category, so that if for some reason someone is unable to continue in a role, I can quickly pull someone in. I already have uh experience working with that person. I can as seamlessly as possible bring them into the team and the matter can continue to proceed as smoothly as possible, right? So, I think we need to develop multiple capable candidates, number one. We need to
31:49 distribute decision-making authority. So, while in the end I have I oftentimes have to make the final decision because that's what the court requires. Um outside of a case where legally I'm the one who has to make the decisions, I disperse decision-making among my team members, okay? So, you know, they know that if they make a recommendation, you know, 99% sure, I'm
32:24 going to I'm going to um you know, go with that recommendation. That encourages them to you know, be thinking more broadly, more deeply, and to be focused on um on what needs to happen because you know, they're they're in the end they're going to be making the decision. And I think we need to do this throughout our organizations. So we don't want to have only senior leadership making or making decisions. We wanted like with the military where we we we try and push
33:01 uh decision-making as low down the chain of command as we possibly can. I think we need to do that in our businesses as well. Get the have the decision made as close to the issue as possible. That may mean giving your frontline, you know, sales people in a retail business decision-making authority over certain issues because they're right there working with the customers. And so that's what, you know, that's what will work best. Okay? And then finally, train leaders early. Don't wait for there to
33:37 be a looming need for succession. Get them up to speed as quickly as possible. Give them opportunities for professional growth. Let them attend conferences. Um have them do presentations. Give them responsibility over projects commensurate in size with what their skills and positions are. And and give them the opportunity to really run with it so that they can have the opportunity to have successes, but also make mistakes that won't harm the company or at least won't harm the
34:13 company very much. And and they can grow in their leadership ability, right? So depth creates resilience, and that's what we want to do. Next, document critical knowledge. Going back to um one of the earlier points I made about uh you know, corporate knowledge being held by one person, if that person leaves the company or worse, passes away, so now that corporate knowledge is gone. So, we want to make sure that that corporate knowledge gets down on paper,
34:49 so to speak, right? It's probably not going to literally be paper, it's going to be a a document, you know, a Word document or something, right? Um institutional memory should not must not live in one person, right? It's got to be where people have access to it when they need it. So, decision-making processes should be formalized and documented. Uh strategic documents need to be available to the people who in in a crisis for the business or in a succession situation can access them in
35:26 order to know what to do. Um and as much as possible without stymieing the agility uh of of the company and its and its ability to operate day-by-day, um in uh reliance on uh informal knowledge uh should be reduced as much as possible, okay? So, um if it means uh having some kind of operations manual or some kind of process for documenting the history of projects or whatever is
36:02 crucial to the operation of your business, and that'll be different for each company. There should be a system put in place for getting that knowledge written down so that it so that it's available to succeeding uh leaders. Okay, next, normalize leadership rotations. So, transition should not signal a crisis, right? Just like that aviation squadron where about every 18 months there is a
36:37 leadership succession that takes place and everybody knows it's going to be taking place about every 18 months. It's just part of the normal way of that squadron operating. By the way, again, that's that's true throughout the military. It's true on a submarine. It's it's true in uh you know, a a Marine Corps infantry unit. People rotate in and rotate out. Sometimes 18 months, sometimes 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, depending on what the position is. There's a a regular rotation schedule. Now, it's it is not always strictly adhered to, but in the
37:14 main it is. And so, leadership rotation is a normal part of military life. So, within your organization, right, you can rotate responsibilities intentionally to give different people an opportunity to be making the kinds of decisions that they might have to make if they have to be moved into or if they move into a different leadership position. And [snorts] in in building up this leadership capacity by rotating it through
37:52 let's say you're talk we're talking about senior leadership issues by rotating certain aspects of of senior leadership decision-making and responsibilities through senior leadership, it also gives if you're the if you're the you know, ultimate leader, you're the CEO or the founder of the business, it gives you an opportunity to see, "Hey, who really is is dealing best with these kinds of responsibilities, right?" It also will allow leaders to step aside gracefully. You may find that someone you thought was going to be the person to take your role
38:28 just really doesn't like what he would have to do if he did that. So, that can allow that can allow you and that person to figure out, okay, you know, you're not going to become the number one guy. Maybe you're going to stay in your role and someone else will take the number one role and you'll stay in the support position that you're in now and you're more comfortable doing that. It's It's what you really enjoy doing. You don't want to have the ultimate responsibility. There's nothing wrong with that. I I I think we tend to go,
39:03 oh, you know, oh, that person is not a very good person if he doesn't want to be the man in charge. I I think that's a mistake. Not For For many, many reasons, people may not want to have the ultimate responsibility for running a business. They may not have the skill set. They may not have the personality. They may not have the desire. They may have other things going on in their lives that just do not permit them to make that ultimate commitment to a business. And all of that is fine. That That is one of the blessings that we should enjoy here in a free market system is
39:39 people finding positions and and not being forced to take on roles that don't suit them, right? So, we should encourage internal mobility while at the same time creating opportunities to see how do people perform and what does that say about our existing succession plan. So, movement strengthens continuity and in fact, this is why you see uh constant movement in the military, people moving to new roles, new billets, etc. Um because it gives them
40:15 a broader view of what's happening within their service branch and as they move up in leadership and rank and leadership, they need to have that broader view in order to be able to make the best decisions. Okay, so normalized leadership rotation. Finally, test succession under real conditions. So, planning is not enough, right? So, we need to give perspective leaders the opportunity to actually exercise that leadership. Now, you could do, you know,
40:51 kind of an exercise, for example. Uh but, it may also be a situation where let's again, let's say you're the CEO, you're going to you go on vacation for 2 weeks and you let, you know, whoever run the company in your absence, so you don't have to be bothered. And you know, you come back and you see how they did. You see, did they like it? Uh how did how did, you know, people in the company respond to their being the, you know, the senior person in terms of leadership, right? So, you can test succession under real conditions, right? Um I mean, is the company going
41:26 to fall apart in 2 weeks? If it is, you've built an enormously fragile organization, right? So, um you know, you you you this is a good way to really test exactly how strong a company you have, right? And so, you can simulate or create actual um absences of leadership and then let people perform the roles they would they would uh succeed to. Um you can also delegate authority temporarily. So, um maybe you're not going to go on vacation, but you're just
42:02 going to delegate certain authority to one of your subordinates. Well, so that's perfectly fine. It gives them an opportunity to take on that role. You're there to see, you know, day by day how that's working and and to make sure that, you know, a a truly horrible decision doesn't get made. And then and that and that's kind of the final point is you can observe the the the performance of people and see, you know, okay, this decision that I've at least tentatively made, is this going to work or do I need to do some additional
42:38 planning and figure things out better? So, stress reveals the readiness of an organization and all the planning and all, you know, that you do is fine, but it's not until, you know, the so-called rubber hits the road that you'll really be able to see uh whether the plan is actually going to work. Right? So, here's the strategic reality. So, organizations that fail to plan for succession, they experience leadership shocks and and and they lose
43:14 momentum during those transitions, they struggle to maintain investor and employee confidence, and they weaken institutional continuity. So, organizations that prepare and practice leadership successions, so they transition smoothly, they maintain their strategic direction, they preserve their culture, which is very important, and they reduce risk exposure. And that is also very important, especially for
43:51 investors. So, as with all of these uh topics that I've discussed during the 24 episode campaign, it requires disciplined leadership. So, leaders have to accept the impermanence of their roles. Okay? It's It's tough to think that something bad could happen and we can't fulfill our role as a leader. That's a difficult um idea to come uh with which to come to terms, but but it is the truth. And if
44:26 we really care about our businesses, our employees, our clients, our customers, we have to get over that hurdle, right? So, we have to develop others to be leaders intentionally, right? And we need to share authority before we're required to share it. And we need to prioritize the survival of the uh organization over centering all authority in us personally, right? So,
45:02 ultimately, the test of leadership is not control, it's continuity. It's the It's creating the ability for the business, the organization, to survive. So, some closing reflections. Every leader eventually leaves. Okay? Uh you know, as the old saying goes, no one gets out of this life alive, right? So, the question is not whether a transition will happen, it's when will it happen and will the the organization survive it, which is of
45:38 course the more crucial of the two questions. So, in war and in business, succession planning it is succession is not planning for replacement, it is planning for survival. And so, I'll leave you with that final thought. I thank you very much for joining me today. Uh what are your struggles with dealing with this question of succession? If you look right down below you in the show notes, you'll see links to
46:13 uh to um uh social media and you can post a comment. Where do you see uh peop- Where Where do you struggle with succession planning or where do you see struggles in the company for which you work uh in succession planning without, you know, disclosing anything private to the company. Or what are your concerns about succession planning or the lack thereof? I I'd love to be able to respond to your comments. Um while while I'm mentioning it, if you know of someone who's struggling with succession planning, maybe send them a link to this episode
46:49 so they can see it. Maybe this will give them food for thought as to why it's so important and help them overcome that that hurdle. And let's see. So, slate of shows, Monday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, People Mak- uh Trust & Estates Weekly. Okay, again, let me start over again. Monday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, Trust & Estates Weekly. Tuesdays, like today, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, Business Lessons from the Military. Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, People Making Money. And then every other Thursday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time is my show, Jiggers' Place.
47:26 Join me for a cocktail and a schmooze on topics unrelated to finances. So, once again, thank you so much for joining me today. Wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do, Marie Darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.