Succession planning has lengthy had a branding downside. It sounds stiff. Formal. Like one thing you do the 12 months earlier than handing over the keys and driving off right into a golf course sundown.
However in actuality, it usually arrives underneath very totally different circumstances—an sudden sickness, a shift in ambition or the creeping realization {that a} enterprise constructed totally round one particular person is a fragile factor.
The neatest leaders don’t look ahead to a disaster or a sale to consider the longer term. They design for it. Not as a result of they’re determined to go away however as a result of they need the corporate to thrive after they do.
That form of planning doesn’t begin with a handoff. It begins with methods. With grooming the appropriate folks. With documenting what’s in your head earlier than it turns into a legal responsibility. It’s a gradual shift from “what occurs if I depart?” to “how do I be certain it runs with out me?”
Some leaders vanish and let chaos kind it out. Others white-knuckle the reins for many years. After which there are those who plan. Who construct groups that don’t want babysitting. Who write issues down. Who don’t simply dream of a enterprise that runs with out them—however really make it occur.
This story is about these folks.
Not the proper ones. The good, strategic, scrappy ones who found out methods to cross the torch with out lighting themselves—or their firm—on hearth. Typically they did it slowly. Typically they did it as a result of they’d no alternative. However all of them constructed one thing that might final.
After which, they began letting go.
Roof Maxx
Succession by design, not default
When Michael Feazel and his brother bought their first roofing firm in 2013, they realized the exhausting means how fragile a enterprise will be when it revolves round its founders. “Though we had constructed a robust model and workforce, we hadn’t systematized sufficient of our day-to-day operations,” Feazel remembers. “It taught us that for a enterprise to thrive post-exit, methods—not folks—have to drive the machine.”
That realization formed how they constructed their subsequent enterprise, Roof Maxx, a sustainable roofing therapy firm with a community of 350+ franchise companions. From day one, succession planning was embedded within the enterprise mannequin. Feazel and his workforce targeted on figuring out and mentoring rising leaders throughout operations, supplier assist and advertising. Autonomy was key. “Throughout a significant provide chain disruption in 2024, I used to be largely out of the loop—and the workforce dealt with it utterly on their very own,” he says.
Nonetheless, there have been missteps. “Some noticed Roof Maxx as only a product firm, whereas others—like me—seen it as a mission round sustainability.” That disconnect pressured the workforce to decelerate and outline a shared imaginative and prescient, aligning progress with goal.
In 2023, Feazel briefly stepped away for household causes. The enterprise stored rising, onboarding new sellers and launching campaigns with out lacking a beat. “That was the second I knew the succession plan was really working,” he says.
“The neatest leaders don’t look ahead to a disaster or a sale to consider the longer term. They design for it.”
Seely-Butler
A decade-long plan executed to the letter
Nancy D. Butler started planning her exit from Seely-Butler, Pellish and Associates a full 10 years earlier than her goal retirement date. After constructing the monetary planning agency from the bottom up with $200 million in belongings underneath administration, she needed the transition to honor all the things she’d constructed—whereas defending her purchasers, workers and firm popularity. “I’m the form of one who’s both 150% in or I’m out,” she says. “And I needed to go away the enterprise at its peak.”
Her first step was to start out quietly bringing in different advisers, observing their values, work ethic and consumer interactions over time. Ultimately, she recognized somebody she trusted—however as soon as contained in the enterprise, it grew to become clear he couldn’t handle it alone. The complexity of operating a bigger follow with workers, compliance calls for and consumer quantity proved overwhelming. A second successor was added to stability the load, and Butler spent a number of years coaching each leaders aspect by aspect.
Butler’s strategy to consumer transition was equally considerate. She hosted two large-scale retirement occasions at high-end venues, inviting all 1,200 purchasers to have a good time and meet the brand new management workforce. “I informed them how a lot I valued their belief—and that I wouldn’t depart them in something however nice fingers,” she says.
As a result of she financed a part of the buyout, Butler retained oversight rights and required life and incapacity insurance coverage to safeguard the deal. “I by no means needed to step again in,” she says. “The enterprise thrived, the workers stayed and each fee was made on time.”
LegalOn
Turning a management hole right into a succession engine
When LegalOn’s CTO fell significantly sick, CEO Daniel Lewis confronted a nightmare state of affairs: a mission-critical chief gone, and no succession plan in place. “It was like dropping the conductor mid-symphony,” Lewis says. Engineers paused work. Shoppers skilled delays. A Fortune 500 associate continued emailing the now-inactive CTO’s tackle for months. “The ability vacuum was speedy—and visual to our purchasers.”
The disaster uncovered a dependency on what Lewis calls “tribal information.” Documentation for key methods lived in Slack threads and private notes. A simulated management shift revealed this threat when the appearing CTO couldn’t reply a fundamental consumer question. “That was our wake-up name,” Lewis says. “Succession can’t be an summary idea—it needs to be operational.”
LegalOn’s response was swift and tactical. They constructed “information pods” that paired senior leaders with rising staff, ran quarterly management simulations and moved towards a “dwelling wiki” mannequin to seize evolving processes in real-time. The shift required cultural buy-in—and a reframe. “Our excessive performers feared being changed,” Lewis says. “We reframed knowledge-sharing as legacy constructing.”
Not each plan labored. Early documentation efforts stalled underneath the load of perfectionism. “Unfinished plans don’t shield you,” Lewis says. “Progress beats polish.”
For Lewis, the most important lesson was this: Succession planning will not be a security web—it’s a aggressive benefit. “What began as a scramble for stability grew to become a system for innovation.”
Clay Coyote
A stepwise shift to shared possession
When Morgan Lee Baum purchased her household’s rural Minnesota pottery enterprise in 2016, she stepped into extra than simply possession—she took on a legacy. “The enterprise had been constructed over 20 years by my mother and her associate, who labored all hours to maintain it going,” she says. However with retirement approaching and wealth tied up within the firm, Baum noticed firsthand how difficult it may very well be for beloved native companies to cross to the subsequent technology.
That’s why, almost a decade into operating Clay Coyote, she started actively planning for succession—not after she was able to step away, however whereas she nonetheless had time to organize her workforce. “If I waited, the individuals who needed to take over wouldn’t have the ability to afford it,” she says. “So I made a decision to construct a runway as an alternative.”
In 2024, Baum invited longtime potter Zachary Chilson to affix the possession workforce with a ten% stake and a imaginative and prescient for extra worker possession forward. It was an emotional shift—handing over books, opening decision-making—however it was additionally intentional. “I’ve watched him develop. He believes in our mission. And he’s bringing power and concepts which are already bettering the enterprise.”
The transition has been supported by the workforce, clients and even her retired co-founder. It’s additionally introduced readability to Baum’s long-term aim: to create a succession plan that doesn’t simply hand over a enterprise—however invests in its future stewards. “I need this legacy to stay on,” she says. “Meaning placing possession within the fingers of the individuals who consider in it.”Â
This text initially appeared within the July 2025 problem of SUCCESS+ digital journal. Photograph by Gorgev/Shutterstock.
