Your Succession Plan Is Probably a Lie

Most succession plans are not succession plans. They're lists. They're decks. They're boxes checked in service of a board calendar. And everyone in the room knows it. Over half of CEOs and board members report they have little confidence their succession process positions them well for the future. Only 31% of CEOs strongly agree they have a viable pipeline of candidates. After a decade of Deloitte telling us that 86% of leaders think succession planning is urgent but only 14% think they do it well, nothing has changed.

Jackson Lynch and co-host Scott Morris go after the real reason succession planning stays theatrical: the vagueness is strategic. It lets managers avoid hard conversations, lets HR check a compliance box, and lets executives avoid accountability for development that never happens — while a trillion dollars of enterprise value gets destroyed quietly, one inadequate leadership transition at a time.

The conversation moves from diagnosis to action: how to shift from succession planning to ascension planning, why the forcing mechanism is everything, and what it looks like to actually tell the truth about who's ready and who isn't.

What You'll Learn

• Why starting with names instead of outcomes is the original sin of succession planning — and how reversing that order changes everything downstream
• The difference between a development plan and an ascension plan: specific experiences engineered to test specific gaps against a defined outcome standard
• Jackson's one-by-two-by-four framework for succession depth — and why timing never enters the conversation
• How to use tabletop exercises, borrowed from IT security, to expose the gaps your spreadsheet will never surface
• Why readiness is a confidence function, not a calendar function
• What it actually takes to say "we don't have an internal successor" — and why that's the unlock, not the failure

Key Quotes

"A name without a development plan is hopium. It's not a plan."

"Readiness is a confidence function, not a calendar function."

"The value of succession planning isn't the plan — it's the conversation the plan forces you to have."

"Development happens through movement. Not intention. Not vague language. Movement."

Sources for Statistics Cited

• Heidrick & Struggles CEO & Board Confidence Monitor, 2024
• Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey, Winter 2024
• Deloitte Insights

Transcript

JACKSON: We had a function where we had 10 people on the succession plan when I got there. Ten. And every one of them was a stretch. The honest answer was: we do not have a successor in this role. And once we said that out loud, we could actually build the plan. Until we said that out loud, we couldn't. So we came up with, okay, we're going to upgrade below the leader, we're going to create one runway, then we're going to upgrade the C-suite. We were able to go and execute those plans. If you don't tell the truth, you never get to that work.

JACKSON: Hey there, senior leader, and welcome to the Talent Sherpa Podcast. This is where senior leaders come to rethink how human capital really works. I'm your host, Jackson Lynch, and today I am joined by my co-host, Scott Morris. He's a former CHRO with the scar tissue to prove it, a possible former backup dancer in a regional car dealership commercial, and the founder of Propulsion AI. And Scott, we're going to make some people very uncomfortable today. Succession planning. We're going to talk about it. Every company does it. I've even written that it's one of the most important deliverables a CHRO has. Every CHRO presents it to the board, but we're going to unpack it — because most of it's theater. And I say that as someone who's produced more than my fair share of binders.

SCOTT: Ah, yes. The digital age.

SCOTT: Before we dive in though, Jackson — do us a favor, everybody: subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a comment, drop us a quick review. You can do it on whichever platform is your preferred platform. That's how we grow the pod and keep the content sharp for senior leaders. It's a small favor you can do for us, and maybe a big favor you do for somebody else.

JACKSON: That's exactly right. And let's dive into this, Scott. Every CHRO has heard this: succession planning is critical. It's a board imperative. You need a deep bench. And we all nod in agreement. We produce the decks. We update the nine-box. We have the annual talent review. But here's the thing — I spent years back in my formative HR life at Nestlé producing dozens of binders full of people-planning materials. And rarely — rarely — did we actually talk in specifics about what the person needed to demonstrate. Instead, we talked about vague comfort and personal desires and readiness, whatever the heck that means. And it's not just at Nestlé. I've seen it in every company since. I've been in rooms where there are literally 10 people on the succession plan for a function. B players grading C players, seeing A players. And everyone in the room knew that it was theater. And yet we went along with the game. So, Scott — have you ever sat in a talent review where you thought, "We all know this isn't real, right?"

SCOTT: My first instinct was to say like every single one. And I don't know if it's that extreme, but yeah — a lot of them. But here's the thing: beyond what you and I think about this, or what you and I have experienced personally, the data confirms that it's not just us. A 2024 Heidrick & Struggles survey of over 3,000 CEOs and board members found that 57% of them said they were not confident that their succession planning process positioned them well for the future. Think about that. These are the people responsible for it, and more than half don't believe it's really working. And contributing to that, the Winter 2024 Fortune and Deloitte CEO survey found that only 31% of CEOs strongly agreed that they had a strong slate of viable future CEO candidates — half were unsure or disagreed. And a decade ago, Deloitte found that 86% of leaders thought that succession planning was urgent and important, but only 14% thought they did it well. Nothing suggests that gap has closed. So my question back to you is: why does this persist? If everybody knows it's theater — to borrow your word — why do we keep performing?

JACKSON: Because it feels productive. You're producing the deck, you're having the meeting, you're updating the nine-box, and it feels like work, it feels like governance. But it's activity without outcomes. And the cost is absolutely staggering. It's a little dated — 2021 — but a Harvard Business Review analysis estimated that poor succession planning destroys close to a trillion dollars a year among the S&P 1500 alone. A trillion bucks. That's not an HR problem. That is a capital allocation failure. And that's not even what gets me the most. Here's that number: 30 to 50% of executives do not make it 18 months from their promotion. That's Center for Creative Leadership data. And 68% — from a 2018 Egon Zehnder survey — admit that they were not prepared for the job. So our succession plans are not preparing people for the roles they're going into. What exactly are we planning for?

SCOTT: I think — a little tongue-in-cheek, but honestly — I think we're preparing for the meeting. We're preparing for the board presentation. We're not preparing for the actual risk event. And here's the thing that makes it all make sense: the vagueness serves everybody's interests. It lets the manager avoid hard conversations. It lets those of us in HR check a compliance box. And it lets executives avoid accountability for actual development. Who in that boardroom benefits from specificity?

JACKSON: Nobody. And I've been part of organizations where I had a robust succession plan when I arrived, and then the person left — and instantly we realized nothing on the page was actually part of the plan. You wonder why we hadn't interrogated that sooner. I think it's because specificity creates accountability. And accountability is uncomfortable because you actually have to say: I have a person in my C-suite with six direct reports, and not one of them is ready to step into the role. They don't want to have that conversation, so they don't.

SCOTT: Okay. We've named the thing. Let's call out a couple of the faulty assumptions that get leaders stuck. Why don't you kick us off with the first one?

JACKSON: The one I hear most often is: "We have a succession plan." And what we really have is a list of names. A list is not a plan. A plan requires criteria, an assessment relative to that criteria, gap closure, movement, a forcing mechanism of some kind. The assumption is that having names on a chart means we're prepared for transition — but that's just not true. A name without a development plan is hopium. It's not a plan. And hope is not a strategy for a $50 million salary decision — which, over the course of years, is exactly what we're talking about for most senior-level C-suite roles.

SCOTT: And then there's the assumption that "they'll be ready in one to two years." I don't even know how anyone assesses that. We put it out there, but what does that mean? Ready for what? Based on what criteria? Where have they demonstrated it? Here's the faulty assumption: that time in role somehow equals readiness, or that exposure equals capability. Readiness isn't a calendar function — it's a confidence function. And confidence requires evidence, which requires a standard. Not just elapsed time.

JACKSON: I'm right there with you. But let me add another one — and it's: "I've done this kind of work before, so I can do it anywhere." That's usually what candidates tell themselves and what hiring managers want to believe. But context really matters. Skills don't transfer as cleanly as we believe. I'd be a really good CHRO in one type of company and a poor one in a different one — and that says more about the context than it says about me. The specific interaction of strategy, culture, and where the company is in that moment defines whether a leader succeeds. That's why the Development Dimensions International research shows roughly 50% of external executive hires fail in the first 18 months. That would suggest something other than that person's previous success is driving the failure, don't you think?

SCOTT: Yeah. Because it doesn't transfer. By the way, I've been that CHRO — successful in one context, not so successful in a different context. The skills didn't change, the knowledge didn't change, the approach didn't change. The context did.

And here's what I think is actually my real pet peeve — more than the one-to-two-years thing. We review these plans annually. We create a succession plan and treat the review like an audit rather than a living document. Once a year is not risk management — it's compliance. And we gravitate toward compliance. The assumption is that the annual review will keep the plan current and actionable. But talent markets move faster than annual cycles. Competitors recruit our people in real time. If we're looking for a good example of how to do it right, look at how IT manages cybersecurity risk. That's the gold standard. They don't say, "We reviewed the threat landscape in Q3, so we're all good." But that's exactly how a lot of leaders treat critical leadership positions. Why do we accept that?

JACKSON: Because we have the muscle memory that comes with this performative act. It feels like we're doing the right things. There's a governance element too — it's tied to the board calendar. In public companies, they do that work consistently, usually once a year. But that's where the compliance lens gets us in trouble. Just because we review it with the board once a year due to governance standards doesn't mean that's how often we should take the binder off the shelf. And one of the big challenges of the current succession planning approach is there's no forcing function. You could do this plan, and if someone doesn't leave, nothing happens for the next year. You get pulled into a false sense of comfort.

And here's the cold hard truth from an HR perspective: nobody gets fired for doing what everybody else does. The risk of being different feels higher than the risk of being ineffective. I've tried to build these things out differently, and one of the challenges is getting everyone else aligned. They intuitively get it, they agree — but in the battle for calendar space, it comes back to "Why are we doing this?" And I would argue it's because we're not actually managing risk appropriately.

SCOTT: The urgent always crowds out the important. And there's always an urgent priority for CHROs, for COOs, for CFOs. Nobody gets a pass on that.

JACKSON: I agree, Scott. But before we get to what we do about this, I want to name the thing underneath everything. Because if we don't understand how we got here, we're going to build new workarounds on top of old workarounds. Why does succession planning become theater?

SCOTT: I think it's because we start with names. Every succession planning process I've ever been part of — that's where everyone gravitates. We start with names instead of outcomes. We start with who's available rather than what's required. And once you start with names, the whole conversation becomes about defending those names and arguing the nuances of what those people bring to the table — rather than defining what the role actually needs. Have you noticed how quickly talent reviews turn into performance reviews of the people on the list?

JACKSON: Every single time. And it's backwards. Think about the order of operations in most companies. Step one: list the critical role. Step two: list the people who might fill it. Step three: rate those people on potential and performance. What's missing?

SCOTT: We never define what good looks like in the new role. We never define the outcomes first. And without that — how do you even know if somebody's ready?

JACKSON: Exactly. We end up skipping the hardest part — defining the outcomes, the capabilities, the specific things we need to see demonstrated before we'd bet the business on this person. If I had a dollar for every time I've had an argument about 18 to 24 months versus 24 to 36 months, without ever talking about what needs to happen during that time period — I'd be a rich man. Because we skip that whole process, the rest of the exercise becomes vibes. She's a strong operator. He has good executive presence. She's well respected. They have great hair. None of that tells you whether they can actually do the job.

SCOTT: It doesn't. And I've sat in those reviews and nodded along with vague assessments. How many times have I let "good potential" pass without asking: potential for what, specifically?

JACKSON: Same here. And the uncomfortable truth is that vagueness serves everybody. It lets the manager avoid a hard conversation, lets HR check the box, lets the executive avoid accountability for actual development. If you want to actually do something, it has to be uncomfortable.

SCOTT: So how do we break that loop? Because it sounds like everybody we're talking about is complicit — managers, HR, executives. Who actually has the incentive to change this? It's got to be the CHRO, don't you think?

JACKSON: If they're willing to be the one who says, "This is not real" — by starting in a different place. Not who's available, but what is required. Not readiness, but demonstrated capability. Not potential, but the specific gaps and the experiences needed to close them. That's the mindset shift. And it requires courage, because no one is really doing it that way. When you change something people are comfortable with, you're going to make them uncomfortable. That's usually a sign you're doing the right thing.

SCOTT: All right. Let's move from succession theater to actual risk management around talent and succession. One of the frameworks I really like — that I learned from you — is what you call the one-by-two-by-four. Give us the primer.

JACKSON: It's simple. For every critical role — that's the "one" — you need a role that's clearly defined. You should have two people who are one job away, and four people who are two jobs away. Notice I didn't talk about timing at all. That's how you define succession depth. The numbers are the easy part. The hard part is what sits underneath those ascension plans.

SCOTT: And that word is important. I had always called what I did succession planning — until I learned from you that what I was really doing was ascension planning. And for anyone who wants to conflate that term with development plan: those are completely different things.

JACKSON: Completely different. A development plan says: here are some things you need to work on whenever you have a free minute. We'll look at it again in a year and change a few words. An ascension plan says: here is exactly what we need to see demonstrated. Here is the experience that will test it. And here is where we're going to give you that experience. Because what we're looking for is: here's the new job, here's what the outcome deliverables need to be — and we're gauging the candidate based on our confidence that they can actually execute those. You're putting people in positions and opening doors in the organization so they can actually demonstrate the things you need to see. That's completely different from "18 to 24 months."

So, how do you do it? Step one — and this will be shocking to anyone who's listened to the first episode — you should define the outcomes first. Do not put a single name on a succession plan before you define what the role requires. Not the job description — the outcomes. What does success look like in the first 18 months at a very detailed level? What capabilities are non-negotiable? One of them ought to be building strong teams. And what is the strategic context the position will inherit? A sales role in an established market versus a greenfield market leads to a very different profile. Everyone assumes the role is defined and everyone knows what it means — but they're usually wrong. If you skip this step, everything downstream is compromised.

SCOTT: As I'm listening to you, I think a lot of us treat this as a promotion exercise. We want to promote people we like, people with potential. But it's promotion with a purpose — and that purpose is to achieve something for the organization. So not only do you have to define the outcomes, you have to assess people against criteria, not vibes. Once you've defined the outcomes, you look at candidates and assess them against those outcomes. Not "she's a high performer" — that may be true, but it's not necessarily relevant to this context. Not "he has strong people." The right assessment is: here are the seven things we need, and here's our confidence level on each one of those things based on evidence from this person. You end up with a really clear picture: I'm confident on these four, I need to see more evidence on these two, and on this one, I have no data.

JACKSON: That clarity changes everything, because now you know exactly what you're testing for. How many times have you seen a development plan that says "increase collaboration" or "improve strategic thinking"? What does that even mean?

SCOTT: Both of those are incredibly hard to see unless you're there day to day. And I think that leads right to the next piece.

JACKSON: It does. And it's where the ascension plan comes together. For each gap, you name the experience that would give you confidence. Not "she needs more strategic exposure" — to go to a meeting? That's not development. Instead: she needs to lead an acquisition integration. He needs to manage a restructuring. And then — this is critical — even if you have someone already doing that role who would otherwise be in the way, you move them out and put these people in to give them the experience. That's the portfolio optimization piece. You don't wait for experiences to happen organically. You engineer them. That's the biggest difference between succession planning and ascension planning: there's a forcing mechanism, and you act on it. You don't put it on the shelf and hope you don't have to use it.

SCOTT: And that has consequences. If I say I'm going to move somebody out of a role so someone else can get that experience — that's a hard choice. You have to make it in order to do it.

Let me hit a fourth piece. And maybe you should take this one — people like you better than they like me.

JACKSON: So it's unpopular and you want to give it to me. Sure. Flattery will get you everywhere. Here it is: you need to actually tell the truth. You have to be honest — including saying, "I do not have an internal successor." I've worked with enough CHROs over the last 10 years to know this is where they tend to flinch. They see it as a personal failing. It's not. Sometimes you genuinely don't have a viable candidate. And the move is not to pretend that you do. The move is to say it clearly, and then do something about it. That means knowing three people at your competitors who you would want to recruit if the role were to open up. It means having relationships with search firms and being acutely aware of what's happening in the market. It means building the de-risk plan before you need it.

Real life story: I was a CHRO, and we had a function where there were 10 people on the succession plan when I arrived. Ten. And every one of them was a stretch. The honest answer was: we do not have a successor. Once we said that out loud, we could actually build the plan. Until we said it, we couldn't. We decided to upgrade below the leader, create a development runway, then upgrade the C-suite. We were able to execute. If you don't tell the truth, you never get to that work.

SCOTT: The honesty drives the action. That's the unlock. The moment you stop pretending, you create a burning platform. But how did that land with the CEO or board when you said, "We don't have a successor" — even though 10 people were on the list?

JACKSON: It didn't land well at first. Nobody wanted to face the fact that they'd been overseeing something with a glaring flaw. I get it. But continuing to pretend isn't the answer. You need to create the de-risk plan. We upgraded below the leader, created the runway, upgraded the C-suite leader, and finished it out. The year before, there were 10 names on the plan and nothing was happening. By being honest about who was not ready, we actually got about the work. And we measured it in talent density. The list of 10 names actually creates complacency. An honest "we don't have one" creates the urgency you need to move.

SCOTT: Let me shift us to the next one. This one comes from information security, and I think they're brilliant on this. Security teams run tabletop exercises — they simulate breach scenarios. It's 2 a.m. on a Saturday and ransomware has been detected. They walk through the incident response. Who gets the first call? What's the escalation path? Who decides to shut down systems? Who communicates to the board, to customers, to regulators? What's legal's role? They stress-test the protocols, the communication chains, the handoffs between teams, and they look for gaps and unclear ownership.

I think we should do the same thing. The CFO is resigning — they did it this morning. The quarterly earnings call is in six days. Walk me through it. Who takes over the investor call? Who runs the finance team day to day? Who communicates to the board? What decisions get paused? Does the interim candidate really get the job? Who leaves, who fumes, who engages? And when someone hesitates — you dig in. What's causing that hesitation? That's how you find the real gaps. Not in a spreadsheet — in the simulation.

JACKSON: I have led that exercise inside companies, and helped CHROs lead it. It always comes out different from what you anticipated walking in. And where did I get this idea? It's not mine. It's Marc Effron's, over at One Page Talent Management. He calls it simplicity, accountability, and transparency. Strip out the complexity that doesn't add value, focus on the ready-now successors, and be transparent about what you actually know versus what you don't.

The real question is: are CHROs willing to stop being binder producers and start being risk managers? Are they ready to have the uncomfortable conversation about who's not ready?

I think the number-one play is to pick a critical role, define the outcomes before the names, put down the five outcomes that define success in the first 18 months, and don't look at your current succession plan until you've done it. Then compare: do the names on the list actually map to the outcomes you need?

SCOTT: This is about muscle memory. Do a small version of it. Start to feel what it feels like. Here's number two: for your top three succession candidates, list what you're confident about and what you still need to see demonstrated. No vague language. "I'm confident she can build a team. I need to see her manage P&L in a downturn. I have no data on her ability to influence the board." Be specific.

JACKSON: And those ought to link back to the clarity of the role's outcomes. It's binary — either I'm confident or I'm not. If I'm not, that moves to step three: identify one experience you can engineer in the next 90 days. It doesn't have to be a complete organizational reshuffle. But it also can't be "we need to get her more exposure." Pick a specific assignment, name the date, make the move. Development happens through movement. Not intention. Not vague language. Movement.

SCOTT: The word you didn't use is process. Ascension is a process of getting them the experience that reduces your uncertainty about the factors that matter. Number four: for one role on your succession plan, honestly assess whether you have a viable internal candidate. If the answer is no — say that out loud. Then identify three external targets and start building relationships.

JACKSON: If you're a sitting CHRO and you don't know the peers of your C-suite at your biggest competitors — now is the time to start. Those should be your first calls. You may not be able to recruit them, but knowing them gives you a sense of the talent on their teams. Maybe you can recruit the assistant coach even if you can't get the coordinator.

And the number-five play I'd run: the tabletop exercise. Start with baby steps — all love and admiration to Bill Murray in What About Bob. Start small. Pick the CFO and say: "The CFO resigned this morning. Walk me through the first week." Look for hesitation. If you see it, dig in. That discomfort is the data. And it unlocks action — because otherwise someone looks at 10 names and feels fine. Are you really putting any of those 10 people into the top job if the person leaves? No? Good. Now we know. Now we need to do something.

SCOTT: And as a corollary — the last action step: get one name off the succession plan if they don't really belong there. To the story you told earlier — that's the hardest one, because you have to call it out. But every name that shouldn't be on that list dilutes the credibility of the entire exercise. Fewer names, more honesty, more action.

JACKSON: You're exactly right. But it's scary. Removing a name feels like admitting a failure — like saying, "I was wrong before." But if you keep them on, that's the actual failure. You end up with 10 people on a succession plan with no real successor. And you're back in theater.

SCOTT: If people listen to the earlier advice about thinking in terms of outcomes and not people, the exercise gets easier. We're not saying the person is bad. We're not saying they don't have potential. We're saying we don't see the evidence that they can ascend into that role — and we want to help them get there. But they can't be on the list until they have it.

JACKSON: I'd just say: we know the person shouldn't be on the list — so we're going to take them off the list. If you keep them on, that's the failure. Not removing them.

Okay, senior leaders — it's time for the Talent Sherpa summary. And as Scott always says: the best succession plan is a laminated binder that no one has opened since the last board meeting.

SCOTT: I've literally never said that. But I do love lamination. Here are the takeaways.

One: succession planning without defined outcomes is just theater. Start with what the role requires — not who's available.

Two: readiness is a confidence function, not a calendar function. You need evidence, not elapsed time.

Three: ascension plans beat development plans. Specify the gaps, name the experiences you want them to get, and engineer that movement.

Four: honesty creates urgency. When you don't have an internal successor, say it. That's where the real work begins — both internally and externally.

JACKSON: The takeaway for me is this: the value of succession planning isn't the plan — it's the conversation the plan forces you to have, the specificity it demands, and the honesty it requires. If we want to elevate the altitude of human capital, we need to stop producing binders that add no value. Start managing risk. And do that with a forcing mechanism that requires you to act — not hope you don't have to act.

That's it for this week. Thank you so much for tuning into the Talent Sherpa Podcast, where senior leaders come to rethink how human capital really works. I want to give a quick shout-out to one of our favorite listeners — Christine in New York City. Thank you for being part of the Talent Sherpa community. And thank you to everyone listening, whether that's in Calgary, Alberta, or Bengaluru in Karnataka — that's a major India tech hub. I just want to say it's great to have you listening. Sorry for any butchering of city names. That's the downside of having an international show.

SCOTT: If you enjoyed today's episode, hit the like button, subscribe, and leave us a review on your preferred platform — Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. It activates the algorithm and it's what shares the pod with other senior leaders. It's free. A small favor to us, potentially a big favor to someone else.

JACKSON: We have about 10,000 listeners and six reviews — so even a handful of you taking a couple of minutes to do it will help us grow. And if you're a sitting CHRO or CEO wondering where to start your AI journey, check out getpropulsion.ai. They're running a team of AI teammates that help human capital leaders focus on what matters most. Scott, what do you help people with?

SCOTT: We use AI coaches to help translate value creation plans into actual EBITDA. And don't forget — if you're an early-stage or new CHRO, Jackson has been helping people just like you through personal coaching, the CHRO Ascent Academy, and his best-selling Substack. You can find access to all of those at mytalentsherpa.com.

JACKSON: Thanks, Scott, and thank you to everyone listening. Until next time — keep raising the bar, keep focusing on real talent outcomes, and keep on climbing.