Today I thought I would test your knowledge of CEO Succession Planning with a quick three question pop quiz! You can either take the pop quiz below or watch the video where I go over all of the answers in depth! 

Here are the questions!

Question 1: Approximately how many people in the United States will be turning 65 every day until around 2030?

1. 500
2. 5,000
3. 10,000
4. 25,000

Question 2: What are the top three things that most CEO succession plans are missing? (Remember to pick three options from the list below)

1. An emergency succession process
2. An anticipated succession process
3. An emergency successor
4. Development plans for potential successors
5. List of critical competencies for the role
6. A CEO Job Description

Question 3: Whose responsibility is it to create a CEO succession plan?

1. The CEO
2. The Board
3. A Consultant
4. Both the CEO and the Board

Have you answered all of the questions?

Now let’s go over the answers and see how you did!

The answer to the first question is actually the third option. A PEW research study found that 10,000 people per day, starting on January 1st 2010, will be turning 65 every day until around 2030. Since the baby boomer generation is now reaching retirement age, there will be a lot of turnover at organizations throughout the country!

So, I urge you to take a look at your CEO and your executive team at your organization and see how many of those people will turn 65 within the next 10 – 15 years – I’m sure that number is at least half of them. And if it is that many, are you aware of that and are you preparing?

Now, moving on to the answer for question number two, remember that you had to pick three different options. If you selected 2 (an anticipated succession process), 4 (development plans for potential successors) and 5 (a list of critical competencies for the role) you would be right!

All of the things listed above as options are important to have in a CEO succession plan, but for some reason those three things are the aspects that are left out most often. Sometimes people think that having an emergency succession plan is enough so they don’t create an anticipated succession plan — but it is incredibly important to have both. Make sure you take a look at your succession plan and see that you have all of those aspects included!

Finally, the answer to question three is actually 4 – it is both the CEO’s and the board’s responsibility to do CEO succession planning. One of the board’s responsibilities includes identifying what critical competencies are needed in a future CEO. Also, they should take a look at what the succession process will look like as a whole and determine what they are comfortable with.

On the other hand, the CEO is in charge of every other aspect of the succession plan. The CEO would pick the potential successors, see where any gaps are between the potential successors and the competencies, and create development plans for each of the potential successors. Also, the CEO needs to make sure that they are updating the board on a regular basis so they know who the potential successors are and how they are doing with the plan. 

So, how did you do today on this pop quiz about CEO succession planning?

Hopefully you got most of the answers correct, or at least learned something from the quiz!

Do you know how prepared your organization really is for management turnover?

If you answered no, then you NEED to take our free 60-second quiz to find out! Answer a few quick questions about your organization and then you can learn how prepared you are for management turnover. You will also receive a personalized report with your results and recommendations for how to better prepare yourself for management turnover! Take the quiz now!