The Edge September/October 2025

PROTECTING YOUR BUSINESS

Who’s Next in Line? The Importance of Building a Succession Pipeline

By Jill Odom

LIFE IS UNPREDICTABLE, AND WHEN YOU FAIL TO ANTICIPATE SUDDEN changes, it can leave your team in a tight spot. Building out succession pipelines for the various roles in your organization not only allows you to know who will step up if someone abruptly becomes unavailable, but it also grows your team members’ leadership skills.

the opening of a new branch or winning a new contract can trigger the need for succession pipelines. “I think the faster a company tries to grow, the more talent reserve they have to have,” says Kurt Bland, president of Bland Landscaping Company, based in Apex, North Carolina. “We grew 33% last year. That’s why we needed six branch managers.” CONSEQUENCES OF FAILING TO PREPARE Byron McFarland, founding principal of The McFarland Group, which specializes in business succession, notes that many owners find themselves so caught up in fighting fires or chasing new opportunities that they struggle to focus on employee development. “I think probably the most aspiration al aspect of business is development,” McFarland says. “However, the cost of de velopment is time, and usually the people that they’re pulling out for development are the ones that are doing the most work. It’s really tough for small businesses to incorporate a development plan that would result in orderly succession in the absence of key role players.” However, failing to identify and prepare employees who can step up into higher leadership roles can have a serious impact on your business. “Leadership gaps can lead to lost pro ductivity, decreased morale, and a drop in service consistency,”Tuzzolino says. “Teams may feel uncertain, and customers may sense the disruption.” Helgoe says that promoting team members into higher roles without proper training puts your customer ties at risk. “The consequences of not having some people to step into these roles tend to be failure on the project,” McFarland says. “If it’s a construction project, and you lose somebody who is key. Then you either A) bring in somebody else from another project over to run it, or B) you’re elevating somebody that’s on the site to that role. Either way, there’s some risk.”

founder of Monarch Landscape Com panies, based in Los Angeles, California. “Their parents got really sick, and they don’t have anyone to take care of them, and they’re gone for six months. We still love the person, and they’re going to get a job when they come back, but we had to have a plan in place to take care of that. Sometimes your life is more important than your job, and you have to account for that.” Burnout, resignations or even an employee’s passing are other events that can prompt an immediate leadership change. Even more positive situations like

“By proactively developing a bench of trained, engaged future leaders, we’re able to fill key positions quickly and confi dently, maintaining our momentum and navigating challenges without disruption,” says Jim Tuzzolino, Southern division pres ident for Ruppert Landscape, headquar tered in Laytonsville, Maryland. There are a multitude of reasons a key role may unexpectedly need to be filled. A debilitating illness or a family emer gency can cause a team member to be unavailable for a period of time. “This happened to somebody recently with us,” says Brian Helgoe, CEO and

18 The Edge // September/October 2025