10 Things You Can Do to Prepare Your Organization for the Future

In a training session with the Seacoast Church staff a couple of years ago we arranged the training room to look like airplane seating.  At the beginning of the session I told them we were going on a trip, but I had good news and bad news.  The good news - we were going on a trip to Hawaii and on this pretend trip their families were going with us.  The bad news - we wouldn't be back for a couple of years.  So with this scenario in mind, the question was who is going to take your place?  And what do they need to know to take your place?   (I figured taking them to a nice vacation location was better than telling them the plane was going to crash and we would all be killed)This exercise was designed to get us thinking about reproducing ourselves and preparing our organization for the future.  How future ready is your organization?  Keep in mind that you and the others in your organization will not be in the position you are currently in forever.  Here are 10 things you can do to start getting prepared. 

1. Put some of your sharp young leaders at the decision making table.
2. Give young leaders the opportunity to expand their leadership competency by letting them lead a key project.
3. Give young leaders greater visibility in front of the organization. 
4. As an executive leader give some of your young leaders some of your credibility by publically pointing our their potential and value they bring to the organization. 
5. Give your young leaders opportunities to watch you make difficult decisions.  Discuss the why's and how's of those decisions with them. 
6. Make sure older and more experienced leaders are investing in your younger leaders.   Make it an expectation in your corporate culture. 
7. Put dollars toward the development of the young leaders in your organization exposing them to some of the best training and best experiences. 
8. Challenge your young leaders to start reproducing themselves.  They need to develop this discipline early. 
9. Create an atmosphere where young leaders are allowed to fail. Sometimes we don’t see their potential because they're afraid to take risks. It's up to us to create a culture where leaders aren't afraid of failure.
10. Establish a culture of leadership development (by doing the things listed above)  Check out previous post on Foundations for Building a Leadership Development culture  CLICK HERE.

What else can you do to prepare your organization for the future?