Whatever happened to succession planning?

Fortune notes that neither Citigroup nor Merrill Lynch appeared to have firm CEO successor plans. At Merrill, who knows if Greg Fleming was seen internally as "the man" someday. If he was, those plans have been really complicated. At Citigroup, most people assumed a horse race was underway, with Vikram Pandit having a slight advantage right off the bat over Gary Crittenden. Pandit may indeed get the nod. Same goes for Fleming. But some are betting on outsiders, who will come in with a clean slate and fresh ideas. The danger is that they get hot-boxed into certain positions. This reminds me of Lou Gerstner, when he took over IBM way back when. Most people thought he would break up the company into so many Baby Blues. He did just the opposite, to spectacular results.  

For more:
- here's the Fortune article

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