Nearly every board faces the challenge of hiring a new chief executive at some point. And when it comes to managing the CEO transition, every board seems to remember that terse line in the bylaws. You know — the one that reads, “the board is responsible for hiring and supervising the chief executive.” Unfortunately, that directive is terribly short advice. It doesn’t come close to addressing the board’s full responsibility for managing CEO turnover.

CEO transitions are complicated, but managing them well is easier than you think. This post outlines the board’s six tasks for managing the transition the right way. But before we talk about what to do, let’s cover what not to do.

The first common mistake is seeing the transition only as a hiring problem. In reality, hiring the new chief executive is a part of a much larger transition process. It’s a process that involves more changes than who occupies the chief executive position. Ignoring this larger process means you’re ignoring a lot of the related changes and risks — leaving them to chance rather than being intentionally managed.

The second common mistake is rushing through the process. When boards discover that their executive is planning to leave, many rush to fill the position as soon as possible.

The pressure to jump in the search mode is understandable. Hiring a new chief executive is among the board’s biggest responsibilities. And, it’s foreign territory for nearly every board. Faced with complexity and the threat of the unfamiliar, the board is experiencing a form of pain. And we all want the pain to go away as quickly as possible.

But rushing leads to cutting corners and skipping over aspects of the transition that can yield big dividends. A CEO transition is an opportunity to level up an organization’s game plan and capabilities, not just manage the potential downsides.

Now, let’s take a look at those six tasks. This figure outlines how these tasks fall along the three phases of the CEO Succession Timeline, discussed in a previous post.