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#37 JooBee's newsletter
TL;DR
đ Succession planning in start-ups: Focus on impact, not process
đ Succession planning made simple: Get visibility on critical roles
â Your views on succession planning
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You can now âLISTENâ to the newsletterIâve used GoogleNotebookLM to turn my newsletter into audioâfor those of you who love listening on the go. Presented by two AI podcasters (yes, really!), itâs still in betaâso let me know what you think! | ![]() |

Question: We need to create a succession plan for the entire organisation. How should I approach this?
Succession planning in start-ups: Focus on impact, not process
When I get asked, âHow do I do succession planning for the whole organisation?â my first response isnât a detailed how-to guide. Instead, I ask the critical question: âWHY do you even want to do this?â
In the world of start-ups, time is a luxury you donât have. There are endless fires to fight and opportunities to chase. So before jumping into any major HR initiative, especially one as resource-heavy as succession planning, you need to be crystal clear on the problem you're solving and the impact it will have.
Start with the WHY
Succession planning isn't just an HR checkbox. Itâs about safeguarding your business against risk. But unless you know exactly where the biggest risks are, youâll waste precious time planning for roles that are not at risk to business continuity.
Hereâs a conversation I had with a VP of People (VoP) that highlights this:
Me: Why do you want to do succession planning?
VoP: Because we want to ensure business continuity. If someone leaves, there will be a massive gap.
Me: Whereâs your biggest risk?
VoP: The exec team, tech team and the sales team.
Me: Is it every role in those teams?
đ¤VoP thinkingâŚ.
VoP: No, just two roles in the exec team, a few in tech and a couple in sales.
Me: Great. Can you focus on those roles first, have a mitigation plan and wrap it up in two weeks?
VoP: Yes.
This is the difference between busy work and impactful work.
Focus on the biggest risks for maximum impact
Succession planning for every role might sound thorough, but in a start-up, thatâs a three-month project you donât have time for. And hereâs the reality â even after all that effort, the biggest risk to business continuity might still be tied to just a few roles.
Pareto Principle it! Focus your effort on the 20% of roles that, if left uncovered, could create 80% of the risk to your business. Thatâs the kind of efficiency start-ups live and die rely on to survive and scale.
Speed and focus win every time
In start-ups, speed is a competitive advantage. If you focus on the roles with the highest impact, you can complete a high-stakes succession plan in two weeks â not three months. Thatâs how you mitigate risk quickly and free up your team to tackle the next big challenge.
A bloated, organisation-wide succession plan may look impressive on paper, but itâs not what your start-up needs right now. You need fast, focused, and impact-driven solutions.
Delivering 10x business impact
Stop doing HR for HRâs sake (or if you prefer, People/PX/P&C for People/PX/P&Câs sake). Your role as a strategic HR leader isnât to tick boxes â itâs to drive the business forward. That means:
Asking the hard questions before diving into projects.
Prioritising initiatives that directly impact business continuity, growth, or risk mitigation.
Moving fast and iterating, instead of aiming for perfection out of the gate.
Succession planning should be a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. Get in, identify the critical risks, create targeted plans, and move on.
The goal? Solve the biggest problems with the biggest impact â quickly.
Because in a start-up, thatâs how you win.

Succession planning made simple: Get visibility on critical roles
In the section above, I emphasised why succession planning should never be treated as a HR checkbox exercise. In start-ups, you need to focus on impact and urgency, not bloated HR processes. The scope of your succession planningâwhether highly targeted or more expansiveâshould always reflect what the business truly needs.
Now, letâs get tactical. Iâll walk you through how my team approached the succession planning initiative, which was led by Maxine Peetz â not as the only way to do it, but as a framework you can adapt to fit your business context. (đBelow, youâll find a sample of our worksheet and a video briefing for managers to spark ideas and guide your approach.)
Our purpose was simple:
Protect business continuity as we scale rapidly.
Mitigate risk by ensuring critical roles are covered.
To keep things lean and actionable, we focused on 2 core phases:
Phase 1: Get visibility into critical roles (those essential for business continuity and success).
Phase 2: Create a plan to mitigate risks tied to those roles (to avoid surprises that could derail the business).
This newsletter focuses on the Phase 1, getting visibility into the roles that could make or break your business.
Phase 1: Getting visibility for the next 12 months
Step 1: Identify âCritical Rolesâ based on business impact
We started by assessing the roles, NOT people. We want to identify the positions that, if left unfilled, would create major business disruptions. Itâs about protecting continuity, not evaluating individual performance.
We used 4 key criteria (aligned with our business priorities) to rank roles as high, medium, or low priority:
Impact on revenue â Does this role directly affect revenue generation within the next 12 months?
Impact on company goals â Is this role essential to achieving critical business objectives in the next 12 months?
Specialised skills â Does the role require rare or hard-to-replace expertise that could disrupt operations if lost?
Availability of talent â If the role became vacant, how easy is it to find a replacement within 12 months?
We kept it tightâonly 10% of roles should be classified as high-priority. Prioritisation forces you to focus on the real risks instead of spreading efforts too thin.
Step 2: Assess âFlight Riskâ
Now that you know which roles are critical, shift focus to the people in those roles. Are they likely to leave?
Hereâs what we look for:
Loss of productivity â Have they disengaged or started delivering less?
Attitude change â Any signs of frustration, decreased motivation, or cultural misalignment?
Market demand â Are recruiters actively poaching talent with their skill set?
External network â Are they attending events, updating LinkedIn, or subtly signaling job hunting?
High-priority roles + high flight risk?
Thatâs your red flagđŠ.
Step 3: Identify potential âSuccessorsâ
Next, identify who could step in if a critical role suddenly became vacant.
Donât limit your search to the immediate teamâlook company-wide for hidden talent.
Consider successors who could take on the role with development support if needed.
And if thereâs no one, thatâs okay too. What matters is having the awareness to recognise it.
This step is all about proactive planningâknowing whoâs next in line before youâre forced to scramble.
Step 4: Assess âReadinessâ
Not all successors are ready right now and thatâs okay. The goal here is to assess how long it would take for them to fully step into the role.
Immediate â They could take over today.
3-6 months â They need some coaching and exposure but are close.
6-12 months â They require structured development.
12+ months â They have potential but need significant growth.
When assessing readiness, consider:
Technical & business expertise â Do they understand the roleâs core functions?
Breadth of functional experience â Have they had exposure to all key responsibilities?
People & leadership skills â Can they lead teams and influence peers?
Motivation & confidence â Do they actually want the role, and do they believe they can succeed?
The golden rule: Never do this in a silo
As this phase of Talent Mapping is all about getting visibility, one managerâs view isnât enough. While line managers kick off the process by completing a worksheet based on the criteria above, calibration is critical.
Within departments: Ensure thereâs alignment and shared understanding of priorities.
Across the company: Cross-department discussions help spot company-wide patterns and potential successors from outside immediate teams.
Why is this important? It eliminates bias, surfaces hidden talent, and ensures youâre making decisions based on a complete, accurate picture.
Move fast, stay focused
Talent Mapping (a.k.a. succession planning) isnât about complexityâitâs about getting visibility and taking action. When done right, it prevents last-minute scrambles and ensures your business keeps moving, no matter what.
Start-up survival isnât about having a perfect process. Itâs about solving the biggest risks with the biggest impactâfast.
â ď¸P.S. Itâs important to rememberâsuccession planning is not the same as performance management.
![]() | Talent Mapping example We call our Success Planning initiative Talent Mapping. Below are a couple of our assets from Phase 1: Getting Visibility of our process:
These examples reflect how we approached succession planning based on our business needs at that time. Use them as a guide, but adapt them to fit your own business context. |
What do you thinkâWould you like me to run a workshop about Succession Planning? (No promisesđ
âjust gauging interest for now.) |