RPO and Talent Management Blog by Ochre House | Ochre Talk

Are you going to have an “identified patient”?

I came across a blog post on Harvard Business Review the other day which spurred me into writing a piece on leadership succession.

An “identified patient“ is a psychological term referring to a family member — often a child or a teenager — who gets scapegoated for behaviour that is actually just a predictable response to dealing with an unhealthy family. In this sense, Tony Hayward is BP’s identified patient.

BP is a great example of an organisation in the grips of a leadership crisis because it has suddenly found itself with an “Identified patient”. Whether this is because of leadership failure or because the US administration “wants some blood” is a point for debate. However, it is clear that few organisations are immune from this potential risk. This therefore poses some interesting questions for those in charge of planning succession.

Typically, leadership succession processes are designed to fulfil three objectives:

Build a “talent pipeline” that is full of the capabilities required in the future organisation
       – Plan for future leaders in specific roles
       – Be ready for a sudden change in plan

It’s this final objective that organisations are frequently poorly prepared for. Whilst BP is one example, the Saga at ITV  last year just underlines the point.

My observation is that whilst strategic leadership planning seems to happen relatively smoothly, scenario planning for shorter term changes tends to be overlooked. So a question for you all? If you had an unidentified patient in your organisation, would you have an answer?

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