Succession Planning for My Roundtable Group

June 30 I launched my 4^th Chicago area roundtable group.  We’re calling it the Next Generation Roundtable.  I’ve led a Chicago area roundtable group for 20 years – something like 23 of Chicago’s 30 largest local firms are in this group.  With my urging, the group did its own succession planning (how do you like that!) and enthusiastically endorsed my suggestion to form a roundtable comprised of younger partners from their firms.  4 months later, we had 23 partners signed up and convened the group’s first meeting last Thursday.  The excitement was indescribable; our discussions were spirited and focused.  These ladies and gentlemen had a lot to say and had plenty of questions.  We could have met the entire day instead of the 2 ½ hours that was scheduled.  I can’t wait until our next meeting in August.  I may have created a monster!

 How many of you belong to roundtable groups in your cities?  Every meeting (we meet 8 times a year), most members go back to the office with at least one solid idea from our discussions.  If you are not in such a group, why aren’t you?  Over the years, some have told me that they can’t imagine meeting with the competition.  My experience is that the plusses overwhelmingly exceed the minuses.  I’d like to hear about roundtable groups you are in.