Reframing Succession Planning: A Practical, Equitable Approach to Organizational Continuity

Succession planning isn't planned extinction; it's a collective look towards the horizon.-- Photo courtesy of The Lawrence Hall of Science For science centers and museums, succession planning is a strategic response to longstanding workforce challenges, including staff recruitment, turnover, and professional growth.Disruptions over the past six years—from the pandemic to present day—have exacerbated these issues and surfaced critical, fieldwide conversations about how to address them.  In 2023, the Association of Science and Technology Center’s Leadership and Field Development Committee put forth a call to action for institutions, and the people who work in them, to develop adaptive capacities—skills, strategies and practices (at both the individual and collective level) for adjusting to and leveraging environmental and economic changes.In this article we put forth an adaptive capacity for workforce development that is often ignored and even feared: succession planning!Often misunderstood as a “secret” executive process, succession planning is actually an essential equity tool.