How Do You Transplant a Mighty Tree Into a New Forrest – And Help It Thrive?

This winter, for the first time in six years, I took some prolonged time to rest. At home, no fuss – just the simple joy of quiet mornings, fresh coffee, good reading, and long walks with friends. 

As the wind started to blow more powerfully towards the end of December, swirling leaves, snow, and dust, it made me think.

You see, if there is one thing 100% guaranteed with an entrepreneur, it’s that we can never stop thinking about our business, or about our clients.

So, with the wind catching strength and shaking trees in front of my window, I thought about new CEOs starting in their fresh roles this January.

HOW DO YOU TRANPLANT A LARGE TREE TO A NEW FOREST?

Agreed – roughly 70% of new CEOs still come from internal promotions in corporate organizations. This can offer them a competitive advantage compared to external transplants – and also a fresh set of challenges, such as the emotional transition from friend into boss, and from belonging to leading.

For the remaining 30%, new CEOs come from the outside. They may come from a competitor, a different industry, an expat repatriation, and sometimes even academia. To bring the metaphor home, we can compare these outsiders to the big, mighty trees that everyone admires when we see them in their forest of origin.

But will they succeed when transplanted into a new ecosystem?

That’s the question.

So, what can you do to help your new “transplant” succeed in their new CEO role?

The first thing is start with proper preparation.

If all of a sudden you realize your forest is too thin and you could really use a majestic, tall tree to shelter you from strong winds and landslides, you might be a few minutes too late.

Succession planning is one of the most overlooked managerial processes in companies in general – and in Central Eastern Southern Europe (CESE) in particular. So, the sooner you start preparing your soil for the new tree, the higher your chances of a successful transplant.

What could you focus on during this process?

1. Clarify the true challenge ahead of you: fast growth, company transformation, sales and exit, maintaining market share. Each challenge will require a different style of leadership, and thus a different species of tree.
2. The quality of your soil: business data, organizational structure, products and processes, people skills and capabilities. If you don’t have this, you will make life much harder for anyone you want to bring to lead your forest.
3. The ideal timing. When is your soil – aka company culture – most ready to receive, and when it’s a transplant from the outside most likely to succeed – or flatline?

Once you’re ready for the transplant, you can start looking for the ideal tree.

Most probably, you will find several trees that will catch your attention. You will test them, sample their bark, verify their past growth histories. You will do your best to anticipate the match between them, your forest, and your ambitions for the future. Ultimately, you will decide for one tree that you hope will help you navigate the storms ahead.

But will your new tree throw roots from the very beginning?

Not in your wildest dreams. And not without proper support.

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT YOUR NEW CEO HIRE? 

What you can do to help your new CEO – aka the mighty tree – embed themselves into your system:

1. Pay attention to their roots. Help them map your key stakeholder ecosystem and nurture relationships with important people fast. The more relational support they receive, the faster they can start receiving nutrients from your ecosystem and increase their chance of success.
2. Pour water to their growth. This includes cultural onboarding and executive transition coaching. No new CEO should ever be left alone – least so when they are an external hire, and even less so under today’s circumstances of accelerated AI adoption and endless company transformation.
3. Build a solid support structure around them. This can include a personal resilience coach, a healthcare plan for them and their family, an appropriate budget for executive team development activities etc. If all you plan to do is to dig a hole deep enough for their roots to fit in, then you expect them to thrive by default, you may be surprised when they collapse at the first stronger gust of wind.

Like the mighty tree transplanted to a new forest, a new CEO needs an incredibly robust net of support to land in the new ecosystem, orient themselves, then start throwing healthy roots and owning their role of forest booster and protector.

Never, ever underestimate the importance of your support during the first year of your new CEO in the role – or the transplant will fail and you might suddenly realize you’ve just cut a mighty tree for absolutely no benefit.