The Blind Spot of Succession: Who Replaces Whom When Nobody's Thought About It

The silence that costs talent the most

We often ask executives and sporting directors who would take their seat if they had to leave tomorrow. The most common answer is an uncomfortable silence, followed by a couple of names said without much conviction. That silence is talent's most expensive blind spot.

• Unplanned succession doesn't disappear, it just gets improvised at the worst possible moment.
• The more critical a position is, the more common it is, paradoxically, for its succession to be undefined.
• Planning the handover calmly is one of the highest return, lowest cost decisions in talent management.

Improvising the handover when time has run out

It's common to find organisations and clubs that spend a lot of time on strategic or sporting planning, and very little on the question of who would hold each key position if the person currently in it, for whatever reason, became unavailable tomorrow.

When that departure happens, almost always unexpectedly, the decision gets made under pressure, with incomplete information and the clock running. The result is usually a reactive choice that's rarely the best possible one, and one that also signals to the rest of the organisation that succession gets improvised instead of planned.

• Critical positions with no internal candidate identified or in development.
• Succession decisions made in a matter of weeks, under pressure, after years in which they could have been prepared.
• High potential talent for succession who has never received any explicit signal about it.

Planning succession is not distrust

Our reading is that unplanned succession isn't bad luck, it's the direct consequence of avoiding an uncomfortable conversation about the system's own vulnerability. Nobody wants to talk about who would replace them, which is exactly why almost nobody does.

Working on succession calmly isn't about distrusting whoever holds a key position today, or rushing their exit. Quite the opposite: it's a way of protecting the whole system, the person in the role, whoever might take it on tomorrow, and the organisation, which stops depending on everything going exactly to plan.

Four steps to turn discomfort into habit

Planning succession calmly means turning an uncomfortable conversation into a routine process.

1. Identify the truly critical positions
   • Not every position needs an equally detailed succession plan.
   • Prioritise those whose sudden absence would have the biggest impact.
2. Name candidates honestly, even when it's uncomfortable
   • Accept that, at first, the honest answer might be that there's no clear candidate.
   • That honest diagnosis is more useful than pretending the problem doesn't exist.
3. Turn the gap into a concrete development plan
   • If the internal candidate isn't ready, define what they need and by when.
   • Review that plan with the same regularity as any other strategic goal.
4. Review succession periodically, not only when someone leaves
   • At least once a year, in calm conditions, not under the pressure of an imminent departure.

Before succession turns into an emergency

It's worth asking these questions before succession turns into an emergency:

• Could you say, today, who would take on each of your most critical positions tomorrow?
• How long has it been since you formally reviewed your succession plans?
• Has your high potential succession talent ever received any explicit signal about it?
• Were your last succession decisions made calmly or under the pressure of an unexpected departure?
• Which key position in your organisation worries you most if you had to fill it tomorrow?

Protect the system against the unexpected

Planning succession isn't about anticipating someone's departure, it's about protecting the whole system against the unexpected.

If you'd like to calmly map succession for your most critical positions, in your organisation or club, we can support that conversation before urgency forces it.