AMA Takeaways: Succession Planning is Not About Replacing People. It's About Building Readiness.
Last week, I had the opportunity to host the Association for Talent Development (ATD) online community's featured Ask Me Anything (AMA). ATD periodically invites practitioners, authors, speakers, and leaders to facilitate these discussions, giving members a chance to ask questions on a specific topic and learn from real-world experiences.
If you've been following this blog, my topic probably won't surprise you - Succession Planning.
Throughout the week, Talent Development, HR, and Organizational Development professionals from a variety of industries shared thoughtful questions about retirement risk, high potentials, leadership readiness, executive buy-in, development planning, and more.
As I reviewed the conversation afterward, I realized that many of the questions boiled down to one overarching theme:
The organizations that navigate leadership transitions most successfully aren't necessarily the ones with the "best" succession plans.
They're the ones that intentionally build readiness before they need it.
Below is a summary of a few of the most common questions from the AMA, along with key insights that emerged from the discussion.
Q) What is the most common mistake organizations make when starting succession planning?
A) Focusing on replacement planning instead of talent development.
Too often, organizations create a list of potential successors and consider the work complete. Naming names is easy. Building readiness is harder.
The most effective organizations treat succession planning as an ongoing talent strategy. They develop people long before a vacancy occurs through meaningful experiences, stretch assignments, mentoring, coaching, and exposure to new challenges.
Q) Is the 9-Box a good place to start?
A) The 9-Box can be a helpful tool, but it shouldn't become the focus.
I've seen organizations spend hours debating which box someone belongs in while spending very little time discussing how to prepare that person for future opportunities.
Instead, start with a few critical roles and ask:
- What does success in this role look like?
- What capabilities will be needed in the future?
- Who has the potential to grow into this role?
- What experiences will help prepare them?
The goal isn't talent mapping...the goal is readiness.
Q) What lessons have you learned from implementing succession planning in the real world?
A) The conversations matter far more than the technology.
Whether you're using Workday, Cornerstone, UKG, Lattice, a spreadsheet, or other tools on the market, meaningful succession management happens through thoughtful conversations about talent, business needs, future capabilities, career aspirations, and readiness.
One of the most important questions leaders can ask is, "What will this role need to do 3-5 years from now?"
Too many succession discussions focus on the past, not the future.
Q) How should organizations prepare for a wave of retirements?
A) First, acknowledge that many organizations are facing this challenge right now as we move through the era of "Peak 65."
Beyond identifying successors, organizations need to ask:
- What knowledge will walk out the door?
- What relationships could be lost?
- What wisdom and judgment have been developed over years of experience?
Knowledge transfer is important.
Wisdom transfer is critical.
Potential successors need opportunities NOW to:
- Observe key decisions
- Lead projects
- Build relationships
- Learn from experienced leaders
- Develop business acumen and organizational context
Retirement planning is not simply about staffing. It's about preserving organizational capability.
Q) What signals suggest a succession planning strategy is needed?
A) In many organizations, the signals are already there. Some common red flags include:
- Leaders approaching retirement without clear successors
- Knowledge concentrated in one or two employees
- Difficulty filling leadership roles internally
- Repeated external hiring for critical roles
- Limited bench strength
- High-potential employees with no growth opportunities
These are just a few signals that indicate succession planning deserves attention.
Q) How do you move from succession planning to succession action?
A) This is where many organizations struggle.
The talent conversation happens.
The successors are identified.
The development needs are discussed.
Then...nothing happens.
People are busy - I get it. But the stakes are too high in this area. We're too busy NOT to put the plan into action.
The biggest shift I've made over the years is reframing development as part of the work, not separate from it.
Instead of asking, "What training does this person need?"
Ask, "What experiences does this person need?"
The most impactful succession development often comes from:
- Stretch assignments
- Strategic projects
- Cross-functional exposure
- Mentoring
- Knowledge/wisdom transfer
- Increased leadership visibility
Whenever possible, incorporating development into the flow of work accelerates context, confidence, and readiness.
Q) How should someone start a succession planning process from scratch?
A) One misstep organizations make is trying to build a fully-loaded succession plan for every role all at once. Instead:
- Identify a handful of mission-critical roles.
- Understand what success looks like in those roles.
- Assess current talent.
- Discuss readiness gaps.
- Create development opportunities.
Progress matters much more than perfection. Small wins build momentum, credibility, and support for expanding your succession efforts.
Q) How can Talent Development professionals build credibility through succession planning?
A) By solving business problems. Business leaders care about growth, continuity, risk, organizational performance, and future leadership capability. When Talent Development professionals connect succession planning directly to those outcomes, credibility grows.
One of the quickest ways to build trust is to solve a real business challenge, demonstrate results, and show how Talent Development contributes to organizational readiness.
Q) Where should Talent Development professionals focus their own development?
A) This question generated one of my favorite discussions during the AMA. The future of Talent Development is bigger than training. If I were prioritizing my own development today, I would focus on:
- Succession planning
- Workforce planning
- Change management
- Knowledge management
- Leadership development
- Organizational effectiveness
Most organizations don't have a "training" problem. They have a readiness problem. The more we undersatnd how talent investments drive business outcomes, the more strategic our role becomes.
Q) How do high potential programs and succession planning work together?
A) They are related, but they're not the same thing. A simple distinction:
- High Potentials have the capacity to grow into larger roles or take on more complex responsibilities.
- Successors are being considered for specific future roles.
Sometimes those groups overlap...sometimes they don't.
A high-potential employee may not aspire to a particular leadership role. Likewise, a strong successor candidate may not fit on an organization's traditional HiPo definition.
I generally reocmmend starting with critical roles first, then assessing whether members of your HiPo pool may also be strong successor candidates.
And remember...high performance and high potential are not the same thing. Look for learning agility, adaptability, curiosity, and the ability to handle increasing complexity, not just strong current performance.
Q) What is a Succession Sprint?
A) A Succession Sprint is the framework I'll be sharing at ATD OrgDev this month.
Inspired by agile methodology, it helps organizations make meaningful progress without launching a massive, enterprise-wide initiative.
The concept is simple:
- Focus on 2-3 critical roles
- Define what "ready" looks like
- Identify potential successors
- Create targeted development actions
- Establish follow-up conversations
Then repeat.
The approach is practical, scalable, and designed to help organizations move from "We should do succession planning someday" to "We're actively building readiness today."
Final Thoughts: Why This Matters Now More Than Ever
Although this AMA was planned to align with my session at ATD's OrgDev conference, the timing could not have been better.
Organizations everywhere are facing workforce shifts, retirement waves, evolving business models, emerging technology demands, and changing leadership expectations. At the same time, many are struggling to build sustainable talent pipelines.
That's why I believe succession planning has never really been about replacement planning.
It's about organizational confidence.
It's about ensuring that when opportunities arise, challenges emerge, or transitions occur, capable people are ready.
The strongest organizations don't wait for a resignation, promotion, retirement, or crisis to start developing talent. They prepare continously.
Because ultimately, succession planning is not about predicting the future...it's about preparing for it.
Will you be at OrgDev or Core4 2026 in Indianapolis (September 29 - October 1)? If so, I'd love to meet you. If not, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn or subscribe to this blog!
