The Succession Readiness System
Five stages that define the capability your strategy needs, build it in your leaders through real work, and prove to your ExCo that it moved.
Most succession work stops at the plan: a talent review and a nine-box grid built on a thin slice of subjective impressions. It rarely uses evidence to show who your top talent really is, what would make them ready, or whether your leadership development spend is moving them any closer. It solves a governance problem, but leaves the business exactly where it was in strategic capability.
This is different. We identify the two or three core capabilities your strategy depends on, find out how strong your bench really is in them, and then build them – through guided experiences designed to transform how your leaders think and act, rather than theory that stays in the classroom. Then we have independent experts measure how capability, behaviour, readiness and ROI moved.
Succession readiness is evidence that the people on your plan can do the job your strategy will need – not just that their names are on it.
Before stage one, a number.
Your CFO will fund talent development once they can see two things: what the capability gap is costing the business now, and what return an investment would make.
So we start there. In sixty minutes we build that number with you – in your figures, with every assumption written down for finance to test. There’s no fee and no obligation.
Most L&D budgets are defended in the language of activity. This session gives you the language of return on investment.
Five stages · select one
Define your talent, and the capability your strategy demands of them.
Your ExCo’s time is the most precious resource the business has – and who you put in the room with them is either career-limiting or career-enhancing. That’s why David runs every Talent Readiness Diagnostic himself. He has stood in billion-dollar boardrooms in front of executives who are not easily impressed, and come away with perfect feedback scores.
David walks your ExCo through a process that uncovers the leadership capabilities your strategy depends on, and how strong your bench is at them – anonymously, on their devices, ranked live in the room, with a graphic illustration produced in real time. Because your executive team identify and agree the strategic competencies that are important but weak themselves, they own it, buy into it and champion it – rather than receiving it as one more L&D initiative to be reluctantly tolerated.
What your ExCo agrees before they leave
The capability mandate – which capabilities are both critical to the strategy and weak in your leadership bench, ranked in their own order of priority. The behaviour that has to change: what you want to see more of, and what you need to stop rewarding. And the beginnings of the problem set – the pressing business challenges your talent should be put to work on, surfaced by the executives who own them, and who are therefore invested in seeing them succeed.
What gets built next, in the pre-accelerator phase
The cohort for the accelerator, nominated against explicit criteria and assessed against the standard your ExCo has just set. And the problems they take on, selected from what your ExCo surfaced: real, unsolved, sponsored by an executive, and demanding the capabilities your strategy requires them to develop.
Where you need it, we also develop a succession architecture with you. This is a role-criticality map, with success profiles written in observable behaviour, and capability definitions for the specific roles. This is specialist work, built with specialist partners, and scoped separately – because some organisations need the full architecture, and some only need their high potential talent made succession ready.
“Feedback praised his energy, adaptability, presence, attentive listening, and ability to lead discussions... The results were very positive for the organization, and at the end the C-Suite [of a $bn organisation] gave David a perfect score.”
Larissa Takayama
L&D Lead · WellhubAssess the gap between your bench and what your strategy needs.
Once the talent pool is agreed in Define, we assess it in cohorts – typically twenty to twenty-five people each – against the capability standard your ExCo set, rather than a generic competency model bought off a shelf. Larger organisations run several cohorts, and several accelerators. Nine behavioural competencies, rated by the candidate, their managers and the teams who actually see their work. The gap between those views is where development starts.
The Readiness Engine: criterion-referenced 360, potential predictors and derailer indicators, and a manager-readiness interview – so what you hold is evidence-based rather than a subjective opinion.
ExCo receives a one-page capability and readiness profile for every person in the pool, measured against your own standard. Together they map who needs precisely what to close the gap. That map shapes the design of the accelerator and the support each delegate receives – and becomes the baseline we measure against at Prove.
Accelerate the capability that closes the gap, in the flow of work.
See the Talent Readiness Accelerator – six months, from scope to the Dragons’ DenClassrooms build knowledge. Real change involves the head, the heart and the hands – which is why each Talent Readiness Accelerator puts your talent to work as internal consultants, solving real problems your ExCo assigns them, with expert guidance and support to set them up for success. Ultimately, the teams are tasked with generating a tangible return on your L&D investment, which is what gets next year’s budget signed off.
Your talent learn by doing – which is the only reliable way transformation happens.
Over six months the cohort is taught and applies the principles of high performing teams, learns how to design a pilot, launches it in the business, and pitches the impact of their work to your executives, Dragons’ Den-style. They implement – we provide the immersion, the coaching, the guidance, the roadblock support and the independent impact measurement.
ExCo sees its highest-potential talent solving its real problems, culminating in a Dragons’ Den-style pitch – and a behavioural baseline that is measured, and moves.
“What’s unique about David is the speed and efficiency with which he combines theory with practical application to ensure a platform for behaviour change is delivered.”
Jennifer Arendse
GM Marketing · DiscoveryLand them – set the organisation up to receive the leaders you built.
Executive coaching at the inflection points – for the individual leader making the moveCultures and teams reject new senior leaders the way bodies reject donor organs. Heidrick & Struggles, reviewing 20,000 executive searches, found that around 40% of senior hires are pushed out, fail or quit within 18 months (reported in the Financial Times, 2009). The leader is capable, the appointment is right – but the immune response happens anyway – and the cause is often political and cultural rather than a question of competence.
Development is wasted if the system rejects what you grew. This stage prepares the receiving environment.
Leader Landing
For a key hire or promotion into a senior seat.
The first hundred days designed as a process, with the sponsor aligned before day one. One of the few places coaching’s effect is visible: within six months, everyone can see whether the leader landed.
Repair and Re-contract
For a team after restructure, merger, or a leader who broke trust.
Rebuilds alignment and working agreements so the team returns to high performance. Often bought on its own, because the need arrives suddenly.
ExCo sees key promotions and hires that succeed, and teams that accept the leaders you developed and return to high performance after rupture.
“His content on cultural transformation and leadership is real, relevant and immediately usable. As I step into an Executive role, David’s guidance has been invaluable.”
Kenny McDonald
Chief Operating Officer · The Co-opEvidence for ExCo of who is ready to step up, and what is still missing.
What was at stake was sized before the work started. Capability uplift, behaviour shift, business impact and ROI are tracked throughout and re-measured at the end – not by us, but by Game2Change, an independent measurement practice contracted separately from our design and delivery team. The difference is reported in capability and in currency.
ExCo receives an evidence pack showing the business impact created and who in your bench is ready for what – meeting both the strategic need and the board’s governance obligation.
“Measurably better outcomes than previous business-school solutions – delivered at less cost and in less time.”
Yuleesha Naidoo
CHRO · Discovery
Where you enter
- “Our talent bench isn’t ready to step up” → Define, then Assess
- “We spend a fortune on leadership development and we can’t prove it works” → the value-at-stake session, then Define, Assess and Prove
- “We reorganised, and half our leaders inherited teams that didn’t choose them” → Land, with Define where the restructure changed the strategy
- “The board asked for our succession plan and it isn’t where it needs to be” → Define
The commercial terms
You’re only ever committed to the stage you’re in.
You pay for each stage before it begins, with its output agreed up front. When it ends, you decide whether to go on. If you’re not satisfied, for any reason, you stop there. The six-month accelerator is gated the same way, phase by phase.
Most firms need the whole programme signed up front, because that protects their revenue forecast. We don’t carry a utilisation target, so we’d rather earn each stage than lock in the next one.
“The value received far outweighs the cost of working with David.”
Anrico du Plessis
CEO · Multimedia
Start with a conversation.
Twenty minutes on what your leadership bench looks like, what your strategy is about to ask of it, and how you want to prepare your talent to close the gap.
No deck and no pitch. Just a clear view of where your bench is today, and what succession readiness looks like from here.
