Q017
How do you make sure
a transition sticks?
our take .
Here’s a deceptively simple question:
Would the company be better off with more years of you – or more years of your successor?
Set aside ego. Focus on output. Who’s going to get more of the right things done over the next 10 hours? 10 months? 10 years?
Warren Buffett reflected on this exact dynamic when discussing his successor Greg Abel:
“The difference in energy level and just how much he could accomplish in a 10-hour day compared to what I could accomplish in a 10-hour day—the difference became more and more dramatic. He just was so much more effective at getting things done, making changes in management where they were needed, helping people that needed help someplace, but just all kinds of ways.”
Transitions stick when everyone – not just the board, not just the outgoing CEO – can see and feel that kind of effectiveness in motion. Productivity builds credibility. And credibility, over time, earns trust.
That’s true whether your successor comes from inside the building or from the outside. Internal candidates usually have the advantage of cultural familiarity, not to mention physical proximity; external hires often bring a fresh perspective and a bias for action. In both cases, the same question applies: Will they move the organization forward in productive ways that people can see and feel? How can that be communicated?
That’s why timing matters. Waiting too long can dull the edge of a promising successor, while moving too fast can throw them into a role before they've built the relational or operational muscle needed to lead effectively.
Done well, a successful transition allows for runway. The successor gets chances to prove how they operate under pressure, how they communicate change, how they bring people with them. And the current CEO gets time to shift from being the answer-giver to being the backstop, coach, and advocate.
A transition doesn’t stick because it’s been announced. It sticks because people believe the new leader is already getting more of the right things done – and that the company’s future is better for it.
So yes, plan the timeline, shape the narrative, manage the org chart. But to really make a leadership handoff last, measure the shift in momentum. When the next leader is the better engine, the business moves forward – and everyone else gets pulled along.
P.S. This is the last planned installment of our Success in Succession Planning Series. As you approach your own transition plans, we hope you’ll share successes and challenges, as well as any additional questions that come up – we’d love to add more editions to help you (and us) move beyond simply putting a name in an envelope and hoping for the best.
on paper.
character to consider: Howard Schultz
The Danger of Being the Keeper of the Flame
We wrote in a different forum (about Howard Schultz!) that a “successful organization cannot be led by one and only one individual. Nor should an individual believe that he or she is the only one who can lead a specific organization. Because if that’s the case, it’s only a matter of time before the wheels come off.” And yet if you, like Schultz, had taken a company from 11 stores to 35,000 and created not only a brand but a household name, the impetus to step back into the top spot when things seem to be going awry is strong. To their companies, business heroes are both symbols of dreams and aspirations but also the lynchpin for on-the-ground goals. A leader’s vision is critical, but also quickly becomes passe. From Jeffrey Sonnenfeld’s A Hero’s Farewell: “This explains a source of tension between the corporate leader and his organization on retirement: he perceives the corporate community as rejecting his dream and all that he stood for.”
When the Leader Can’t Quit
Schultz initially “retired” in 2000, but came back in a blaze of glory in the wake of the Great Recession to right the ship, leaving again in 2017. But when the pandemic hit, Schultz was back again, boomeranging back as interim CEO in 2022. Even having retired a third time to make way for Laxman Narasimhan (short-lived, and recently replaced by Brian Niccol), the specter of Schultz still lingers. In 2018, the board signed off on a retirement package that made him chairman emeritus for life and allowed him the option to attend board meetings. The back and forth and consistent shadow Schultz throws over Starbucks has, seemingly, been the undoing of many a successor – it’s difficult to find or assert authority with the ghost of CEO past looming over you. Even since Schultz has left (again), transformative strategy is difficult, comments from the sidelines persist, and rumors of his eventual return won’t quite quit.
Great CEO ≠ Great Succession Planner (But Should It?)
Perhaps one of the reasons Schultz’s successors failed at Starbucks is because they were chosen by Schultz. It may be the case that the very traits that make one a fantastic CEO also make one a terrible succession planner – or that an outgoing CEO’s incentives are not always perfectly aligned with setting a successor up for success. Again, from Jeffrey Sonnenfeld’s A Hero’s Farewell: “A boss filled with despair over his or her fading career may be a destructive mentor. Resenting his own lost opportunity, he might neglect to cultivate new leaders, whom he regards as potential threats, and discourage training others for longer term goals by putting a greater emphasis on immediate performance.” It’s worth noting that, after leaving Starbucks for the third time, reports – and actual interviews – document Schultz lambasting the brand that he built, indicating that the “shine” is off it and Starbucks is “drifting toward mediocrity.”
Works Consulted
Succession: four real-life business power struggles that put the show to shame
Starbucks Just Had a Corporate Governance Meltdown. Your Board Should Take Note
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