Most organisations have a succession plan. Fewer have a succession review.

The plan is the spreadsheet: a name or two against each senior role, colour-coded for readiness. It gets updated once a year and rarely changes anything.

The review is different. It asks a specific question about a specific role: if this seat became vacant in the next twelve months, who would we appoint, and how do we know?

Start with the role as it will be, not as it is

The first mistake is to assess successors against the job the incumbent does today. Roles change when the person changes. A finance director role held for ten years by someone who also ran IT looks very different once IT reports elsewhere.

So the review begins by writing the future role: the outcomes it owns over the next three years, the decisions that sit with it, the relationships it has to hold. Half a day with the CEO and the Chair usually settles it.

Assess the named people properly

"High potential" and "not quite ready" are not assessments. They are impressions.

A proper assessment looks at evidence. What has the person delivered, at what scale, in what conditions? Where have they operated beyond their current remit? How do they handle a hostile Board, an unhappy regulator, a restructure they did not choose? Structured interviews, a psychometric where it adds something, and 360 feedback from people who have seen them under pressure.

We report against the future role, not against each other.

Compare with the outside

This is the step most internal reviews skip, and it is the one that makes the decision defensible.

Mapping the external market for the role takes two to three weeks. It tells the Board what is available, at what cost, and how the internal candidates compare. Sometimes the internal person is stronger than anything available. Sometimes there is a material gap. Either answer is useful, and neither requires launching a search.

What you should receive

A written report with four parts: the future role definition, an assessment of each named candidate against it, the external comparison, and a recommendation. The recommendation says one of three things: appoint internally when the time comes; develop this person against these specific gaps and review in twelve months; or plan an external search.

If the report does not end with one of those sentences, it is a talent grid with more pages.

Before you search, re:find.