Physician executive succession planning is like changing the batteries in your smoke detectors. Everyone knows they should do it, yet we don’t get around to it until they start in the middle of the night. Like tending to those smoke detectors, getting ahead of executive departures pays off. It will keep your organization from stumbling around in the dark looking for solutions when you need to find a new executive.
There are many reasons succession planning goes untouched. Busy management teams don’t have time. They’re worried the current executive will feel threatened by the process. Or maybe they believe that advanced planning for today’s reality will become instantly irrelevant amid the constant changes whipsawing the healthcare industry.
In my experience helping healthcare organizations manage executive searches — for planned departures, unexpected exits, or the creation of a new role — I’ve found the opposite. These justifications are instead very good reasons for succession planning.
“We Are Too Busy Managing Today’s Crises to Plan for Theoretical Ones.”
I get it. Time is scarce and precious, and when executives are fighting so many fires, it’s difficult to justify redirecting resources to solving a theoretical problem. However, the truth is you are going to be forced to confront it. At some point, an executive will leave. Industry turnover rates exceed the national average. There is an increased chance that they will leave sooner than you expect, due to factors including external offers, internal misalignment, perceived organization/role instability due to industry trends, and retirement. If your organization is caught flat-footed when it happens, it will take more time to figure out the solution. This is absolutely a situation where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
The search is just one component of replacing a physician executive, and that alone takes an average of 6-12 months. It will also require input from your team to figure out job requirements, create a job description, and benchmark compensation before the search can even begin. With a well-thought-out succession plan, the search can start with the actual search — instead of spending precious time ironing out the details before it can begin.
Acknowledging the Elephant in the Room
One of the most common objections I hear regarding succession planning is that the team is wary of alarming the current executive by suggesting the organization is actively working on their replacement. Instead, HR should approach it as an opportunity to regularly engage the executive in ways that make them feel valued and empowered (and less likely to leave). By implementing routine meetings to gather the physician leader’s feedback and information related to the role, succession planning paradoxically acts as a retention strategy. The process will ideally surface obstacles or systemic challenges impeding the executive’s success — before frustration builds. This creates a constructive problem-solving dialogue with HR without the physician executive needing to raise it from a place of overwhelm. Another outcome of these conversations is that they create an opportunity to identify high performers who might be candidates for succession. These providers can then be mentored in advance of a future promotion, making the eventual transition faster and smoother if they are right for a role.
Paralyzed by a Dynamic Industry
We all know the healthcare industry is experiencing unprecedented change and uncertainty, be it healthcare policy, technology, or mergers and acquisitions. Things are changing so fast and so dramatically that it can feel useless to plan for such an unpredictable future.
Again, this is exactly why planning is imperative. Change is coming, and your team needs to be ready for it. Budget cuts, mergers, and advanced technology have one thing in common: staff reductions, whether they’re due to resource limitations, culture changes, or redundancy. This dramatically increases the likelihood that a successor will be required, and that it will happen more suddenly than a retirement or a typical notice period. Thinking through succession now helps you fine-tune job descriptions and revisit compensation benchmarks — data you’ll want on hand when a sudden upheaval hits. When the only certainty is uncertainty, the healthcare organizations that emerge successfully will have developed strategies to respond to various outcomes. And a solid succession plan will minimize the risk of a leadership vacuum destabilizing the administration and/or sucking the motivation from the team.
Best Practices for Physician Executive Succession Planning
There isn’t a standard playbook for succession planning. Each organization has its own structure, role definitions, regulatory requirements, and political climate. However, there are a few practices that I’ve seen work consistently across all types of healthcare organizations.
Treat succession planning as an ongoing process, not a single event.
Keep ahead of departures with ongoing conversations. Use them to surface pain points, discuss career goals, define role scope, and identify emerging leaders who could step into an executive role.
Partner with the departing executive.
A common mistake organizations make is keeping the departing executive at a distance during succession planning and hiring. Instead, use them as a resource. Let them help you to define the role, understand the day-to-day, and uncover barriers to success. Then, involve them with the incoming leader during a (preferably) overlapping transition period.
Even in acrimonious departures, it helps to have these conversations. They uncover the conflicts and conditions behind the exit, so you can manage the narrative before it reaches candidates. It is standard procedure for candidates to search for a candid explanation as to why the previous executive left. In some cases, they might even reach out to the person whose role they’re interviewing for. It’s best to be prepared to address the grievances they may raise. This is an excellent opportunity to engage your recruitment partner. They can approach the situation from a distance, extract pertinent information, and best interpret the feedback to candidates should it come up.
Identify and mentor possible successors before a departure is imminent.
In a perfect world, you’d have a successor waiting in the wings with the training and institutional knowledge to pick up where the departing executive left off. Make identifying rising talent part of your culture and learn to spot the qualities that make a good physician executive. Bring high performers into committees, offer leadership training and mentorship, and give them high-visibility projects that will stimulate and motivate them. Or formalize a successor role by creating an ACMO position in your organization.
Always run a national search — even when you have an internal successor in mind.
Your internal candidate may well be the right choice, but you won’t know that with certainty until you’ve benchmarked them against the broader market. A national search puts your succession plan to the test, surfacing external candidates who may bring skills, experience, or perspective your internal pipeline simply doesn’t have. Without that outside comparison, you may miss out on the candidate that is truly the best fit for the role.
Hire with succession in mind.
Hire candidates with the qualifications and ambitions to become a physician executive and nurture their pathway to succession using the strategies listed above. This is especially important in smaller organizations with fewer physician executive roles.
Allow HR to lead succession planning with engagement from the management team.
Good succession planning requires proactive, confidential conversations with leaders; job description creation and refinement; frequent, clear communication to keep the team engaged and motivated during the transition; and compelling job descriptions with competitive compensation packages. Having HR at the helm ensures all these important pieces come together smoothly.
Work with your recruitment partners to stay current with market trends.
Take full advantage of your recruitment partner’s market knowledge for compensation benchmarking, role scoping, and candidate landscape assessment from the outset of your planning. As many physician executive roles are either new, abstract, or evolving, getting these things right is the critical success factor. Once your physician leader is on board, consider asking us for executive coaching referrals, as we have connections with certified executive coaches through our association with ACHE. New leaders benefit greatly from coaching to find their sea legs as they right your ship and get everyone on the team rowing in the same direction.
A successful succession plan begins with a trusted search partner. The Physician Executive Search team at Jackson Physician Search is eager to leverage our vast network and expertise to help you find the best candidate for your organization. Reach out today to learn more.
About Dirk Jansson
Dirk Jansson is the Director of Physician Executive Search at Jackson Physician Search, where he is dedicated to connecting healthcare organizations with results-driven physician leaders who can help reach their short- and long-term objectives while aligning with their unique culture.
Leveraging more than a decade of experience across multiple industries, Dirk’s passion for the art and science of physician executive recruiting, coupled with an intense commitment to serving others, is foundational to his success. His unique access and refined method of navigating complex, specialized candidate pools help healthcare organizations of all settings and sizes nationwide secure the physician leaders they need to thrive in the rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare.
