A wise executive knows when to make room at the top

17 October 2009 by Mark Sutcliffe for The Ottawa Citizen

Vern White might be Ottawa's most popular police chief in years. And he loves his job. But that doesn't mean he'll be doing it for very much longer.

"I'd do it for free if I was rich," says White. "I pinch myself every morning at 5 a.m. I can't wait to get into work."

But when his five-year contract expires in 2012, White will turn in his badge. Even if the police board and the entire community are begging him to stay on, he won't continue in the role he looks forward to every day.

"I'm gone," he says. "I will not renew my contract."

White is only 50, so he's not planning to retire. So why leave a job he loves, even if everyone wants him back?

"It's not about me," he says. "If it was about me, I'd ask for a new contract right now."

White's theory, which he's made clear since his first day on the job, is that the police service needs new leadership every five years. He put a five-year plan before the board when he took over and his goal is to complete it and get out.

If he had any ambition to stay on past that, he says, it wouldn't be good for the organization. And he wouldn't perform as effectively, both now and in the future.

"In this kind of job, you need to take chances and you won't take those chances if you want to be there 20 years," he says. "You will take those chances if you expect to be there five.

"At some point in time the switch goes off and you stop taking risks. Taking risks jeopardizes your employment. If you're afraid to lose your job, then you're not doing your job."

White is a rare executive who is willing to put a time limit on his tenure.

But there are other organizations and companies, particularly those in the public domain, that would benefit from more regular turnover in leadership positions.

"There are many, many examples of long-term leaders that have been very, very successful," says Jim Harmon, managing partner of the Ottawa office of Ray & Berndtson. "But when there's a significant public face to the role, you become diluted over time. People don't hear your comments anymore.

"If I'm coming in with change, does anyone listen if I've been overexposed for an extended period of time? I think it's going to be interesting to see if anyone's going to pay attention to Barack Obama in a year."

Harmon says leadership turnover is particularly useful in organizations that are undergoing a high level of change.

"If the change is painful, it's difficult to be accepted post-change," he says. "This is the person that wielded the sword, and it's tough to live with the aftermath even though the stakeholders might agree that it was the right approach. If it's positive change, maybe you can live with it afterwards. But then the issue becomes, can you ever have another hit record? That was great, but what's next?"

"If you stay longer, you stretch out your goals over a longer period of time," says White. "You're just not going to push."

A long, undefined tenure also has an impact on succession planning and creating opportunities for senior management. White says he once worked for someone whose stated objective was to be one of the longest-serving RCMP commissioners in history.

"None of us were preparing for his departure," he says. "This organization needs to know when I plan to leave so they can decide if they want to vie for my job."

White says he's particularly impressed with the impact of Gen. Rick Hillier, the former chief of the defence staff. Most people think he was in the job for a long time, says White. But he led the military for only three years.

He figures that government departments, Crown corporations like Canada Post and publicly traded companies would all benefit from a similar approach to their top jobs.

"After five years, you should be reviewing things that are five years old," he says. "Typically people who build something won't take it down. Seven years in, I'm not going to say what I did five years ago was wrong. There are things that I'm probably not great at. Someone else needs to come in with fresh eyes, fresh ideas to ensure the organization can become good at those things."

White also believes strongly in term limits for politicians, including city councillors. That's something he can say comfortably, since he's not counting on them to renew his contract.

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