The Successor

I am a child of the 70’s. Therefore, I belong to the Star Wars era. The passing of a Star Wars team member has inspired this article.

Peter Mayhew played Chewbacca in the Star Wars films passing away on 30 April this year. I read an article about Mayhew’s death, detailing Mayhew’s last outing as Chewbacca in ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’. Importantly he had started coaching his successor for the role of Chewbacca and continued the coaching during the filming of ‘The Last Jedi’.

This inspired me to write this article as I am in the middle of designing an integrated talent framework, an important part of which is how we recognise and decide who will be the successor for certain roles within an organisation.

Returning to Star Wars, Chewbacca would have to be one of the most loved of all the characters, a definite favourite for many. Chewbacca is a critical role in the success of the Star Wars films and has been there from the beginning. An integral cog in making it all work.

Those responsible for producing and directing the Star Wars movies must have recognised the need to look to the future. Mayhew had health issues and was getting older, as we all do, and the time had come to find his successor. What is so brilliant, is that Mayhew played an important part in coaching his successor. We can only assume he saw it was important he support this transition and ensure the Chewbacca we all know and love is what we continue to see on the silver screen.

It is not uncommon to see employees leave a business and there is no-one to replace them. There can be many reasons for this but if we know someone will be leaving i.e. retirement, parental leave, sabbatical, we can plan for it and ensure continuity of business. Even if we don’t know someone is leaving, if we have successors in place, we remove the risk.

Do you know who will be the successors for the important and critical roles in your business? How would you decide?