Solutions / Succession planning
Do you know which departures would actually hurt?
Identify key-person risks and build the documentation and cross-training to protect against them.
Every organization has a handful of roles where one person’s departure would genuinely hurt, and most leaders cannot name them with confidence. We identify your key-person risks and build documentation, cross-training, and contingency plans that protect the business from single points of failure. Resilience your board will thank you for.
Signals you have this problem
- One person is the only one who understands a critical system or relationship.
- A long-tenured employee is approaching retirement and nothing is written down.
- A vacation reveals work that simply stops.
- Client relationships live with an individual rather than the organization.
What the engagement looks like
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Find the single points
Roles and individuals whose absence would materially disrupt operations, revenue, or relationships.
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Rank by exposure
Likelihood of departure against severity of impact, so effort goes where it matters.
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Reduce the concentration
Documentation, cross-training, and deliberate relationship transfer.
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Plan the contingency
What happens in the first week if that person resigns, written before it is needed.
Common questions
How is this different from succession planning?
Succession planning looks at leadership roles. Key-person risk often sits well below the leadership layer, in the person who is the only one who knows how something works.
Will documentation make people feel replaceable?
Framed as risk management for the organization rather than an audit of the individual, it is generally welcomed. People with concentrated knowledge often cannot take a holiday.
Where should we start?
With the roles where you cannot immediately name a backup. That list is usually shorter and more alarming than expected.
Related work
This engagement frequently runs alongside our assessment work.
Map your key-person risk.
A short conversation is usually enough to tell whether coaching, training, or assessment is the right starting point.