Succession: Ivy Slater Of Slater Success On How To Do Effective Succession Planning
An Interview With Cynthia Corsetti
Be open to new and innovative ideas, especially ideas that make you uncomfortable.
In today’s rapidly evolving corporate landscape, it is essential to ensure the continuity and legacy of an organization with effective succession planning. C-suite leaders play a pivotal role not just in charting the company’s direction, but in shaping its future leadership. By building their bench strength internally, companies can achieve a smoother transition, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with their core values. But how do seasoned C-suite leaders go about cultivating talent from within? What strategies do they employ to prepare the next generation of leaders for the helm? In this interview series, we are talking to C-suite executives who can share their experiences and insights about these questions. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Ivy Slater, CEO of Slater Success.
Ivy Slater is a professionally certified coach and best-selling author of two books — “Conquering Your Fear of Money, A Woman’s Guide to Business Success,” and From the Barre to the Boardroom: Choreographing Business Success Through Authentic Relationships — with a third book on Leadership due out in 2024. As CEO of Slater Success, Ivy focuses on growth strategies and leadership development for service-based firms, particularly those in the legal, finance, and technology sectors. Ivy has gained a reputation for training clients to lead, grow, and scale their businesses. Before becoming a coach, Ivy was CEO of Slater Graphics, an NYC printing company, which she scaled to seven figures. She is also a TEDx speaker, hosts a weekly podcast called “Her Success Story,” and a regular LinkedIn Live show.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about succession, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
A career path is often ever-evolving, as was the case with my own. I spent more than 20 years in the printing industry in New York City, producing marketing and sales collateral for the publishing industry. In my mid-40s, I realized I wanted to do more meaningful work and knew I had more to offer. With a solid salary and enjoying success at what I
was doing, the leap to take a new path was scary but also exhilarating and necessary. I developed a systematic succession plan to exit the printing company and start Slater Success. That was over 16 years ago, and I have never looked back. I am now working with clients focused on their strategic planning & succession planning, providing them
with the necessary tools to run their businesses with a solid long-term plan.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
COVID changed everything. It changed the way I do business, which was a big surprise. While the pandemic stunted many companies and they faced unique challenges, my business expanded. The power of a coach, a consultant, and a support person was highlighted. Clients came to me wanting to know how to handle remote work, manage a virtual team, and for advice around massive changes like selling their business, retiring, or passing the wand to the next generation. As I had done succession planning for myself and clients in the past, this type of business increased, becoming a regular part of Slater Success.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
Napoleon Hill famously said, “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” We create big dreams when we allow ourselves to dream without limitations, fear, and concerns. We can set goals, strategies, and actions. I believe in the power of this approach in my heart of hearts. When you allow yourself to dream big, magic happens. When you allow yourself to dream big, magic happens. I learned much about the importance of sales volume vs. profitability in my early days in the printing industry. One night, I was reviewing the job tickets for sales vs profits and realized I was bringing in the most revenue for the company. More importantly, my profitability rates were significant. I was stunned! It changed a lot for me. That day, I committed to always know my numbers (a strategy I teach today.) The experience taught me the importance of closely examining sales volume and profitability data since they reveal the complete story.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Slater Success is built on experience. I successfully exited Slater Graphics by creating a strong succession plan and growing two successful companies. As a CEO for multiple businesses in the past 30 years, I’ve encountered almost every obstacle, worked with many different clients and team members, and learned valuable lessons that have shaped me into the leader I am today. As a coach and consultant, I feel like I can say, “I’ve been there,” and truly mean it.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
1. Being Persistent
2. Being Fearless
3. Being a Good Listener
Persistent — I always advise my clients to view a “No” as a “Not Yet”/”Not Ready”/”Not Now” rather than a definite rejection. True success comes from persevering and maintaining relationships, whether in a merger, acquisition, or business sale. In sales or when consulting clients, I encourage them to see a “No” as a temporary setback and to stay in the game, keep building relationships, and look for opportunities to move forward.
Fearless — Very few women sold or ran printing companies when I started my career. Despite my discouragement, I did not let the opinions of others define my capabilities. Even when my professional accountant told me that starting Slater Success was not a viable idea, and I wouldn’t make any money; I didn’t let his words stop me from pursuing my dreams. Today, Slater Success is a thriving consulting and coaching company with a supportive team and an expanding group of coaches and consultants.
Listener — As someone who has been selling since my 20s, I have found that being a good listener has been more beneficial than being a good talker. My listening skills allow me to connect with clients and provide added value to our engagements. This has helped me build strong connections with clients and has led to greater success in our business accomplishments.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader? I’m curious to understand how these challenges have shaped your leadership.
Back in 2007, I made a bold decision to phase out of a secure and lucrative future running my printing company to start a coaching business. Coaching was still an emerging industry at that time. When I looked up “coaching” on Google, the top results were for sports such as soccer, tennis, and even fencing before I got to anything related to professional development. Coaching has since become a widespread practice for developing people within organizations. This includes up-leveling leadership teams.
Coaching is now so popular that it’s even featured in TV shows like Billions, where Wendy Rhoades (played by Maggie Siff) is the on-staff coach/psychiatrist and an admired character on the Showtime series.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. What does succession planning mean to you?
Succession planning involves analyzing a company’s future and charting a course toward sustained success. This involves creating a plan that considers long-term growth and the staying power required for the company to thrive over an extended period, regardless of what form that success may take. Companies can undergo various changes such as growth, leadership turnover, acquisitions, or being acquired, all of which can take different forms.
What are the nuanced challenges often faced in succession planning? What are the strategies to overcome those challenges?
When dealing with succession planning for a leadership team, aligning everyone toward a common goal and direction is the main challenge. This is crucial for achieving success. It is common to find non-aligned leadership teams with differences with the organization’s vision or values. Without proper alignment, the team will likely face obstacles and difficulties along the way.
Bringing in an outside consultant or coach to create alignment is helpful. This is someone who can be entirely objective from all points of view of the leadership team. They can listen openly and work with the leadership team as individuals, as well as a group to bring their thoughts and theories into a solid team direction for the company’s long-term succession plan.
Once the leadership team is aligned and going in the same direction for the company’s future, you can accomplish anything. Succession planning should take place during company growth rather than when one is ready for retirement.
How do you cultivate an environment that not only identifies but nourishes the hidden talents within your organization? What practices have you found to be most effective?
To nourish an organization’s hidden talent, I suggest having a dedicated team or person, either Human Resources or Learning and Development, to bring in an outside consultant/coach who focuses on identifying hidden talent and then further developing their skill. Once the talent is recognized, implement a leadership development training plan.
This can be done individually by providing the person with a coach or a program that is working with several budding leaders in a group, building their leadership strengths, and solidifying a team approach for future growth and cohesiveness in the organization.
It is crucial to invest in developing potential high performers as everyone ages or exits for various reasons, and you need to identify who your next leaders will be ahead of time.
What’s your philosophy on growing talent from within versus attracting external talents? How do you find the right balance?
Achieving the right balance in your organization combines having an effective hiring process and attracting high-quality job candidates. To determine whether your hiring process is working for you, you need to evaluate your candidates’ quality and decide whether they can develop into the next stage of your organization. A robust hiring process, along with good training, is critical to minimize the need for external talent. I am also a fan of bringing in some external talent, as they can provide valuable insights and perspectives from their previous experiences in various companies and backgrounds. This can be a great asset to your organization, especially when looking for fresh perspectives and ideas. It would help to have both visionaries and doers in an organization. Some people possess the ability to do both.
What’s your approach to ensuring that succession planning is a holistic process, and not just confined to the top layers of management? How do you communicate this philosophy through the organization?
It all starts with an intelligent management team devoted to working through either their HR department or whichever teams are functionally expanding. Succession planning and strategic planning must be carried out consistently, not just when people are looking to retire or when merging with another company. That’s why you should always consider succession planning as a strategic approach and integrate it with your strategic plans annually. It becomes systemic when you make it a regular process throughout the company. This process includes all levels of people working in the organization.
As succession planning and strategic planning are integrated, they become a natural communication throughout the company as it takes on various parts of the strategic plan.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “Five Things You Need To Do Effective Succession Planning”?
1 . Organizations should create a strategic plan for succession and growth every year. Viewing the succession plan as a critical component of growth strategy is vital.
2 . When you attend your strategic planning and succession planning sessions, approach them with an open mind and an open heart. Be receptive to discovering possibilities even in unexpected places. Create a team to brainstorm ideas, possibly seeking outside expertise to bring fresh perspectives to the table.
3 . Be open to new and innovative ideas, especially ideas that make you uncomfortable.
4 . Create an action plan for succession with identifiable markers to ensure accountability and leadership team engagement.
5 . Ensure the entire leadership team is engaged with the succession action plan AND its identifiable markers.
Off-topic, but I’m curious. As someone steering the ship, what thoughts or concerns often keep you awake at night? How do those thoughts influence your daily decision-making process?
As someone who is in charge, unexpected challenges and obstacles that may arise sometimes keep me awake at night. It could be related to weather, such as a significant weather event that disrupts the industry or in manufacturing when machinery breaks down. The pandemic and COVID caused substantial disruptions, and I had the experience of leading a company in New York City during 9/11. So, the constant thinking and anticipation of obstacles keep me awake at night, whether small or large.
However, I will always be sharp and true to my values and do my best to navigate my team through the unexpected.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I’d start a movement that would significantly impact children. Encourage children to be open and heartfelt to other children, let go of bias, and work together without regard for one’s background. We can make a difference by teaching young children about empathy and kindness and showing them how to share toys and have positive experiences. We can create a world where it doesn’t matter what anyone looks like.
How can our readers further follow you online?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivyslater/
https://www.facebook.com/slatersuccesscoaching
https://www.instagram.com/ivyslaterssc/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ8b1sGnADlpFE2NrqUfToQ
https://twitter.com/SlaterSuccessCC
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About the Interviewer: Cynthia Corsetti is an esteemed executive coach with over two decades in corporate leadership and 11 years in executive coaching. Author of the upcoming book, “Dark Drivers,” she guides high-performing professionals and Fortune 500 firms to recognize and manage underlying influences affecting their leadership. Beyond individual coaching, Cynthia offers a 6-month executive transition program and partners with organizations to nurture the next wave of leadership excellence.
