Choosing A Successor/Replacement Is A Leap To Faith

We build a mountain of facts, stand on top, and leap to faith.                                       Soren Kierkegaard

In September 2001, in a game against the New York Jets, Drew Bledsoe, quarterback of the New England Patriots, was hit by Mo Lewis, Jets linebacker, and was knocked out of the game with a sheared blood vessel in his chest which almost killed him. 

Bledsoe was the number one overall draft pick in the 1993 NFL draft and had played for the Patriots since then. In March of 2001 Bledsoe signed a 10 year $103 million contract with the team and was highly favored by the New England fans.

After being sidelined Bledsoe was replaced by Tom Brady who had been drafted in the sixth round as the 199th player taken that year. On paper, Brady did not come close to the credentials and experience Bledsoe possessed but the Patriots needed a quarterback and so, with no other choice, they leapt to faith.

The next year, in the 2002 Super Bowl, Bledsoe watched from the sidelines as Tom Brady led the team to a victory over the St. Louis Rams. Bledsoe earned a Super Bowl ring as a member of the team but he never regained his starting position.

With Brady at quarterback, the Patriots have never had a losing season. They have won a remarkable 12 division titles. They have played in nine 9 American Football Conference Championship Games from 2001 to 2014 (including four in a row from 2011 to 2014). They won six of them.

As for Brady’s achievements he has started in six Super Bowls winning four of them. He’s been selected three times as the Super Bowl MVP and he has been chosen as the League MVP. Brady is considered among the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

So what’s the point of all this?

No matter what it looks like on paper, replacements are rarely one-to-one. That’s impossible. Talent and skills differ. The situation at the time of replacement is unique. The demands of the moment are particular, calling not merely for a repetition of what has been but relevant to what is current and what the future holds. In other words, succession planning is critical, but it is largely an art with a huge dollop of faith.

Who could have predicted what Tom Brady has delivered? How can one accurately measure and scientifically predict how someone will perform? They were both intelligent, athletic and possessed strong positive egos. Bledsoe and Brady were both high achievers with a strong goal orientation. They were both inspirational leaders. And yet, one, Drew Bledsoe, even in his prime, and considering the state of the team when he was the active quarterback, performed well, but just that: well.  Brady, by comparison, is considered among the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

It has happened that CEOs have unexpectedly died and had to be replaced. But no matter the diligence taken to choose the replacement/successor, it is never, never, never a one-to-one equivalency. I don’t mean the obvious. Of course one will never be nor can ever be the other.  But when it comes to choosing . . .

Take, for example when a Director is promoted to Senior Director and the open role needs to be filled. As the graphic above indicates, you can analyze, define, use different data collection tools, you can reflect, investigate, even follow your gut, but nothing guarantees the “right” choice.  You must make your best judgment and then take the risk. You must trust your analysis and find out. All you can do is decide and then observe.

In other words, you must leap to faith.

Choosing the right replacement is probabalistic at best. To assume otherwise is to lead yourself into an illusion which can be very costly and time consuming.

As the Tom Brady example illustrates, success is proven in the trenches where a leap to faith is, or at least should be, standard operating procedure.

 (Photo Credit: Penn State Harrisburg, Flickr)

Jim Sniechowski has published his first novel, Worship of Hollow Gods, at Amazon.com. In Worship of Hollow Gods Jim bears witness to the world of a sensitive, nine-year-old boy, subjected to the underbelly of his Polish Catholic family in working class Detroit. The year is 1950. The family gathers for a Friday night family poker/pinochle party. The outcome reveals a world no one ever talked about then and are forbidden to talk about now---the unspoken, the impermissible, the reality beneath every family’s practiced facade---and what lies beneath when the front has been ripped away. Worship of Hollow Gods is available now in Kindle and paperback for at https://tinyurl.com/hollowgods

James Sniechowski, PhD and his wife Judith Sherven, PhD https://JudithandJim.com have developed a penetrating perspective on people’s resistance to success, which they call The Fear of Being Fabulous. Recognizing the power of unconscious programming to always outweigh conscious desires, they assert that no one is ever failing. They are always succeeding. The question is, at what?

Currently working as consultants on retainer to LinkedIn providing executive coaching, leadership training and consulting as well as working with private clients around the world, they continually prove that when unconscious beliefs are brought to the surface, the barriers to greater success and leadership presence begin to fade away. They call it Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous. https://OvercomingtheFearofBeingFabulous.com