Boomerang CEO’s – it’s time that the term becomes a quite common in the industry. We have recently seen some high profile come backs by some top business leaders, who have been called back and who have stepped in to steer their faltering businesses.
“Procter & Gamble brings back former CEO to fix company”
“ Troubled Infosys falls back on Narayana Murthy”
“JC Penney looks to old CEO to secure its future “
Now, these headlines are important and worth looking at and pondering. While these headlines and the developments they speak about are being looked at by the business & investor community with a mix of feelings, they also have an important message for business leaders and HR practitioners.
First things first. Not all might have been well with these businesses. Either they are bleeding financially, or they are stuck on the growth curves. Next. These organisations have either not been able to get their succession plan in place or they have lost their bench strength because of poor business decisions.
Wow ! It is time we appreciate that it really is too difficult to find a top talent to steer a large businesses.
A change in leadership to an old trusted leader may bring in back some lost glory. Lots of assumptions in the thoughts that all is going to be great and better. We can’t really be sure about the positive impact of such decisions for at least another year. While there is lots to be seen over a period of time, looking at the immediate impact of these announcements – it seemed that the moves had a positive impact in the next day stock prices, however by the end of the day and end of the week the sentiment driven surges stabilised.
Coming back to the the case of faltered or non existent succession planning by these top brands. Succession planning at this level is ideally expected to be a prime agenda for the company’s board and the incumbent leadership.Can we really attribute these decisions of calling an ex chief back to a misplaced succession planning process ? In case the board and incumbent leadership is unable to foresee the future and assess the depth of impending crises, i would assume, you can easily forget their focus on initiating the search for the next leader.
It seems that one fine day you wake up realising that life is not so pretty, and drastic changes are needed, investors need to be answered. Then, you have no one to fall back upon, and you end up getting the old guy wither because you don’t have any one else or because you will be safe in front of investors.
What do you think about these boomerang CEO decisions ? Was it a failure at succession planning or was it some thing else, share your thoughts at share@hiringsquare.com ?