Succession does not start with whoever takes the chair

Have you ever seen a succession plan, perfect on paper, fail to survive the owner's office?

When the owner says the successor is not ready, he is describing himself.

2007, a tire distributor. The owner fell ill and the doctors treated the case as terminal. Weeks later the diagnosis fell apart. Recovered, he was persuaded to hire a succession consultancy.

The consultancy executed the playbook without missing a line. It mapped the family, named the successor, divided the areas among the children and reserved for him the chair of the Board.

No Corporate Governance design survives the absence of whoever still signs the decisions: the org chart changes, the power stays where it always was.

They presented his retirement ready-made, on a slide. Nobody had sat down with him beforehand.

He paid every remaining month of the contract, without asking for a discount, and gave them five minutes to leave the room.

Succession does not start with whoever takes the chair. It starts with whoever is going to leave it.

• A plan closed without the owner stalls at the first decision that goes against his will.
• A successor with a title and no mandate teaches the team to keep asking the father.
• The bill is paid in full, the contract ends in months and command stays where it always was.

The owner may be paying for the process without agreeing with it.

Until the conversation starts with him, succession keeps being decided. Only by illness, by the calendar or by the estate inventory.