A key person leaves. Then the whispers start: is something wrong here?
Then one or two more follow, and now everyone’s asking out loud.
It looks sudden. It never is.
There’s a question that has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with readiness: if your best person left tomorrow, what would actually happen? Not what you’d hope would happen. What would actually happen.
Most leaders don’t have an answer. That’s the real problem, not the departure itself.
Succession planning gets treated like something you’ll get to eventually, right after the next launch, the next hire, the next fire you’re putting out. But eventually has a way of arriving as an emergency.
The plan isn’t complicated. It’s three questions, asked early and revisited often: what needs to happen, when do we start, and who owns it.
Avoiding this conversation feels responsible somehow, like planning for an exit is disloyal, or worse, like inviting one. It’s the opposite. The organizations that handle a departure with grace are the ones who did the unglamorous work months before anyone gave notice.
So here’s the question, and it’s for you, not someone else.
If your key person walked in tomorrow and resigned, would you have a plan, or would you be starting from scratch?
