The “rockstar” trap - the biggest threat to sustaining your coalition’s work

My first full time public health job was at a state health department, working with schools to implement evidence based youth violence prevention programs. Principals and school counselors were often the rockstars behind this work - until they weren’t.

I repeatedly heard counselors say: “The program was a huge success…and then our principal left.”

Then I heard principals say: “The program was a huge success…and then our school counselor left.”

Here's the thing: No matter how brilliant your program or policy is, if it relies on the passion or knowhow of a single person, it’s designed to fail.

The “Rockstar” Trap

In health coalition work, we often rely on "rockstars,” those high-energy leaders and members who carry the institutional memory in their heads and the key relationships in their personal cell phones.

But hoping these rockstars stick around forever isn’t a strategy.

People get promoted. They get sick. They move. Especially in a volunteer-heavy environment like many coalitions are, turnover isn't just possible, it’s inevitable.

If your coalition's success depends on a specific person sticking around forever, you aren't building a movement to transform health in your community, you're hosting a temporary project.

To sustain your coalition’s work and impact, we have to go from relying on rockstars to building systems for succession.

What does this look like in practice? Let’s get into it.

4 Strategies for Succession Planning

• Build a “Leadership Bench”. The first step here is to broaden buy-in and foster champions, as discussed earlier in this newsletter series - this way, the passion to keep the work going and the knowledge of how to do the work doesn't just live in one person AND you have a bench of people who are more ready to take on leadership roles when the time comes. To really build that bench though, you need to pair those broader efforts with a more focused succession planning approach. This brief (from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)) on demystifying succession planning in public health agencies can be a helpful place to start. While not specific to coalitions, many of the concepts are still relevant! They define succession planning as “a developmental strategy that equips staff with mentorship and training to grow into a future role when it becomes available. Rather than naming a backup, succession planning fosters a transparent pipeline for growth into a vertical or lateral position change. Stretch-opportunities and cross-training drive the preparation process.”

• Kill the “Internal Rolodex”. Track and transition relationships, just as you would specific activities. Work moves at the speed of trust, and that is especially true when we’re talking about the work of community coalitions. So many relationships are needed to move the work forward - relationships with local policymakers and journalists, school system and faith-based leaders, community leaders and advocates. And if one person’s relationships live only in their internal rolodex, when they leave, those relationships vanish, and the work slows. Instead, track relationships in your project management system (which might just be a spreadsheet - that works!), along with pertinent details and notes, and when someone is leaving the coalition, make sure their relationships are transitioned too, not just their duties. Ideally, that can happen with a warm hand-off during a joint meeting (especially for really important relationships) but even in the absence of that, an email introduction or a link to where relationships are tracked in the project management system can go a long way.

• Standardize the “Brain Dump”. Establish systems that ensure institutional history and knowledge are captured - ideally in real time - so that this information doesn't disappear when a person leaves. So often, our most passionate and effective leaders and members hold so much in their heads, and without the systems to document and share it, this vital information walks out the door when they do. Establish ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ (SOP) documentation processes, have a clear file organization system in a shared drive, use a project management tool to outline and track workplans, and make sure multiple coalition members are trained to know where to find these things, understand how they are set up, and are able to update them as needed.

• Templatize the Transition: Have templates for transition documents so the person leaving has a clear roadmap of what to brain dump and document. The more of this that can happen in real time (as noted in the point above), the better, but there will always be loose ends. Make sure you have a place to capture them.

As we’re highlighting through this series, public health is a PEOPLE business.

But for our work to thrive, it cannot be dependent on the same people forever.

Whether it's the leader whose buy-in is a prerequisite for the work to move forward or the ground-level staff making it happen, plan for succession so you can sustain your work, maintain momentum, and continue to have impact in your community.

It’s the only to make sure that even when your rockstars (or you!) leave, the mission stays.

I'd love to hear from you - which of these strategies is your coalition or organization using well and where might you need to focus more?

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