Succession Planning

Succession planning is the practice of identifying which roles are critical enough that losing the current holder would create real risk, naming people who could plausibly step into those roles, and actively developing them toward readiness. It's a forward-looking risk-reduction practice, not a one-time list of names attached to a role — a plan that stops at naming a successor without developing them is a plan in name only.

Key components

• Critical-role identification — an honest assessment of which roles actually warrant a succession plan because their sudden vacancy would materially disrupt the organization, rather than assuming every role needs one.
• Potential successors, honestly assessed — one or more candidates per critical role, each with a genuine readiness assessment (ready now, ready in one to two years, ready longer-term), not just a name written next to the role.
• A development plan closing the specific gap — concrete actions (stretch assignments, mentoring, training, exposure to the role's actual responsibilities) targeted at the specific difference between a successor's current readiness and what the role requires.
• Regular review — readiness assessments and development plans revisited on a set cadence, since both the roles and the candidates' readiness change over time.
• Risk coverage across the organization — critical roles identified wherever they actually are, not only at the most senior levels.

Why the readiness gap matters more than the name

Writing a name next to a role answers "who would we call," but it doesn't answer "are they actually ready, and if not, what's being done about it." A successor who is named but never given the stretch assignments, mentoring, or exposure that would close their specific readiness gap is no more prepared on the day they're needed than if no one had been named at all. The honest gap assessment — what does this person still need in order to be ready — is what turns a list of names into an actual plan.

Common pitfalls

• A successor named with no development plan — naming someone without any concrete action to close their readiness gap leaves the organization exactly as exposed as having no plan, while creating a false sense of coverage.
• Only the most senior roles covered — succession planning focused solely on the CEO or executive team while other genuinely critical roles (a sole specialist, a key technical owner) have no plan at all leaves real risk unaddressed.
• Plans kept secret from the successors themselves — when named successors don't know they're being considered, they get no chance to seek out the development, exposure, or feedback that would actually prepare them, and the plan quietly fails to do its job.
• Readiness assessed once and never revisited — a candidate judged "ready in two years" three years ago, with no update since, may no longer be the right assessment in either direction.
• Single point of failure per role — naming only one successor with no backup means the plan itself has no redundancy if that person also leaves or turns out not to be interested.

Learn more

• Job Description for the role definition a successor is being developed against.
• Performance Improvement Plan for the parallel discipline of a time-boxed, gap-closing plan, applied here to development rather than remediation.
• Compensation Benchmarking for ensuring a successor's pay stays aligned as their responsibilities and readiness grow.
• Offboarding Checklist for the process succession planning is meant to make less disruptive when a departure actually happens.