My Personal Transition Story

Posted on December 13, 2018 by Robert Foley, One of Thousands of Retirement Coaches on Noomii.

Ten years ago in the midst of our company’s huge growth curve where day to day survival was paramount to success my Chairman/CEO asked me a simple question. " Bob what’s your plan to prepare for your successor once you decide to hang it up?" Hang it up? We’re in the middle of a Hugh growth curve and you are wondering about succession? I have no time for that. I need to focus on today so there is a tomorrow.
Today that is the prevailing mindset in Corporate America, especially with my Boomer generation, as mine was 10 years ago. The difference with me is my CEO continued to nudge me and challenge me to think about, how not when, I was going to transition from my Chief HR role in a company with over 8,000 employees. Thus began the five year process we would put in place to accomplish a smooth transition for all involved.
Well first I had to get used to the fact that at some point I would need to leave Corporate life. A life I occupied since I was 27 years old when The Sheraton Corporation hired me as Manager of Staffing for the North American Division. So beginning to think about voluntarily transitioning was a very scary and very foreign thought process.
Finally nine months later after going through all the emotional stages and arriving at acceptance I started to put together my plan. First I enlisted my CEO to be my only confidant and mentor in this very delicate process. We discussed the essentials of the job as Head of an HR function for 10,000 souls projecting five years hence and what strategies would need to go into place as we streamed up to my departure day.
With that roughed out we knew what HR strategies and tactics had to be put in place but now we had to figure who would become my heir apparent without it being obvious. So we went from the abstract to the real. I began the process of creating a five portal proprietary HR internet system. Documenting all of our HR processes so with continued expansion the HR function would have the ability to plug and play our specific and proprietary way of doing things into any hotel that was acquired. In effect we were setting up a tactical interface that would free up my replacement’s time to oversee the day to day but to also have the time to be Strategic in their vision for the next ten years. To do all of this however would be a five year journey and the chosen one would have to work right beside me the whole way so they owned it as much as we did.
But who would we choose? Do we go with someone internally that had a generalist HR background? Or do we go outside for an experienced HR generalist, an almost peer if you will, that could help us traditionally shape everything. Or as my CEO finally brought us both around to do we find a bright and talented HR generalist who could take our solid but traditional framework and tweak it to be cutting edge as we evolved our thought process in the Talent Czar project.
We jointly (CEO and I) decided to go bold. We went female, bright and hungry. The biggest obstacle we had to overcome in our thought process was not how the world looked today but how it would look five to eight years from then. Cue the Millennial, Caroline Warren from the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago, who committed to spending the ramp up time with me and would commit to then staying at least ten years after I left and also would begin the same transition process as I did.
So we began and built www.besthotelcareers.com along with Talentczar.com which housed everything HR from A to Z. I was the architect and drew the lines she would build out the structures, beta test them and then roll them out. We would meet daily for a half hour no matter what to discuss our progress and then go back to the real world and do our daily jobs. As time went on she brought in a creative multi-media type to help her make the site more functional and look appealing. While at the same time teaching him all she knew about HR so he could now be her muse as she was to me on this project. Again she chose someone savvy, hungry and smart who was fully engaged in the continuing process. By the way I was still the Chief HR Officer at this point.
Things started to happen in my life five years into our relationship. I ended up with a rare medical condition that put me on a leave of absence for three months and Caroline took over like a champ. No significant difference was noticed. She then had her first child upon my return and then twins a few years later. During those periods I had to pick up her duties as she picked up mine when I was absent. But my moment of clarity came when it was time for me to move on when two things occurred. Caroline was ready to lead and I needed to take care of my cancer stricken wife who sadly did not survive.
During my periods of work absence to be my wife’s care giver,driver and supporter Caroline simply assumed my role and we stayed in constant contact with me as coach and she as Leader. Upon my return from my time as caregiver I let Caroline and my CEO know of my intent to leave the company in six months. With that in mind we promoted two very capable field HR executives and reorganized for life with Caroline sans Bob. The only unforeseen circumstance happened when Caroline, as before mentioned, became pregnant with twins but the reorganization was in place and the new team stepped up with the both of us absent due to the strength of the output of our five year plan in place and the tremendous supervisory help from the company’s COO Jim Dina who always strongly supported the HR function before, then and now.
Upon Caroline’s return the plan in place had done its job and good thing as the company is now going through another Hugh growth phase and HR survives and thrives due to the people involved and the plan in place. Caroline is waiting for that question from the CEO that came to me ten years ago and she has all sorts of ideas.
The transition from Boomer to Millennial happened in an orderly and friendly way with no ripples on the water. I stayed on as a consultant to the company and to this day still provide High Performance Leadership training to each hotel’s new senior management leaders. Caroline and I still have those half hour blue sky sessions but now only once a month because that’s about all she needs as its her vision and legacy now.
You see that’s the core element in this transition I had to willingly relinquish my Leadership and Strategic role and give Caroline the room to develop the new thought process. This transition succeeded because it evolved in steps that spoke to the times and we empowered Caroline to set things up as she needed to while I continued to lead and endorse her vision. This process gave me the comfort to relinquish and she the confidence to take over. All done while a dynamic and hard charging organization had to transition it’s business model (due to the economics of the times) acquire and relinquish certain hotel assets and operate the business on a daily and in a challenging way. This transition was all done in the flow of daily life not as an academic exercise off to the side but front and center as things occurred.
On December 20, 2013 Caroline came to work the SVP of Human Resources and I stayed home to start my consulting career with Pyramid Hotel Group as my first client. Mission Accomplished!!