It generally takes about two years and costs what most owners perceive is a lot of money, so they're anxious to finish the process and get on with their lives. We generally get everything running sweetly within that time and off they go doing other things and find that their business runs the same or better without them. They figure that we've done our job, and in spite of our careful warnings they tend to bolt off and indulge in their new found freedom without looking back. What they haven't taken into account is the fact that management structures are not stable for long until the owner or senior managers have taken care of what we call succession planning . This is the process of ensuring that there are always capable understudies ready to step up into any vacant key positions in the business.
Succession planning is the key issue in the maintenance of a successful management structure.
There is also a kind of egotistical thought process within the owner that rears its ugly head at about this time and it compounds a lack of succession planning. Once you've placed a business under effective management the owner has to recognise that it is no longer them that is running it. The Good Food Guide says I'm a legend, therefore I must be'. So the business is now being run by it's managers and supervisors, who were recruited and trained by a specialist consultant and not the owner, but the owner thinks they are the one who has done it. Sometimes they go into direct competition with the owner.