One participant in our succession programme completed a substantial assignment and decided against the position we had envisaged. The individual had performed well, learned about the work and concluded that its daily responsibilities did not suit the contribution they wanted to make. A narrow reading would call the programme unsuccessful for that person: the succession chart still had an uncovered position. I regarded the result as important information obtained before an appointment. The bank had learned something that an encouraging appraisal and a development label had not revealed.
Succession discussions often combine several questions as though they were one. Could this person perform the role? What experience do they still need? Would they accept it? Would they want the work once they understood it properly? A positive answer to the first question does not settle the others. Senior leaders may infer ambition from reliability or from an employee's willingness to accept development opportunities. The employee may also feel that expressing uncertainty will damage their standing. A programme that cannot accommodate a changed preference may therefore produce compliance rather than a considered choice.
The chart cannot ask the whole question
At Neralith, our fictional 2024 review examined twelve critical management positions. Seven had a candidate assessed as ready now and five did not. Several development plans had been carried forward from earlier years with little practical movement. The names were familiar, the language was reassuring and the experience gaps remained. I asked the executive team to describe the actual responsibilities each candidate had yet to encounter. That moved the conversation away from general potential and towards the situations that made the envisaged role materially different from the person's current appointment.
For one position, the gap involved managing through other managers rather than solving problems personally. For another, it concerned balancing competing commercial priorities when there was no technically perfect answer. Those differences could not be addressed solely through a classroom programme. We needed assignments in which participants had enough authority to make decisions and enough support to learn from the consequences. The incumbent also had to resist quietly taking every difficult choice back. An assignment that leaves all substantive responsibility with the existing leader may demonstrate diligence, but it provides limited information about readiness for the larger role.
We defined the assignments without promising the final appointment. That distinction had to be clear to participants, their current managers and the colleagues they would lead temporarily. Otherwise, the organisation could create an expectation it had not actually approved. It also had to keep external candidates in view where appropriate. Internal development should improve the bank's understanding and options; it should not oblige the board or executive team to select a particular person regardless of what the process reveals. The individual deserved an honest account of that uncertainty from the beginning.
Development has an opportunity cost
Four nine-month assignments required S$780,000 for temporary backfill, travel and assessment support. The participants' ordinary remuneration was not the purpose of that allowance. The expenditure made it possible to release people from work they were already doing well. Two business heads initially proposed that their colleagues complete the assignments alongside their existing responsibilities. I did not think that was a serious test of the proposed role. It would have tested endurance and the willingness of their teams to absorb neglected work, while making it difficult to distinguish a capability gap from an unreasonable workload.
The disagreement was understandable. A manager losing a capable colleague for nine months faces real delivery pressure. Asking that manager to support succession without funding cover invites a conflict between the bank's long-term need and the unit's immediate commitments. The executive team must own that conflict rather than turn it into a criticism of managers who are reluctant to release people. We delayed one assignment by six weeks to complete the replacement handover. The delay was preferable to starting on schedule while relying on the participant to remain unofficially responsible for two positions.
Participants also paid an opportunity cost. They moved away from familiar expertise, accepted a period of visible learning and exposed their limitations to a different group of colleagues. The process therefore needed feedback that was specific enough to be useful and private enough to permit honesty. I did not want a ceremonial review in which every comment was positive because nobody wished to damage a promising person's career. Equally, a development assignment should not become an unannounced competition whose criteria change as senior leaders form impressions. The purpose and assessment approach needed to be understood before the work began.
A changed ambition is useful information
The results were mixed. Two participants were assessed as ready for broader responsibility. One required further commercial exposure. The fourth decided against the envisaged position. We did not turn that decision into a character judgement or remove the person from all future development. We discussed what had been learned and which kinds of work still interested them. The bank retained a capable colleague whose preference was now clearer. Had we treated the assignment as a promise that must culminate in promotion, the individual might have accepted a role poorly matched to their motivation and the bank's needs.
That outcome also challenged our assumptions about the attractiveness of senior roles. Leaders can presume that more scope, status and remuneration make a position an obvious aspiration. The daily work may involve less technical involvement, more conflict, greater travel or a kind of public accountability the person does not want. None of those preferences automatically indicates a lack of commitment. A bank needs people who choose important specialist and management contributions at different levels. Succession practice becomes less credible when it implies that the only respectable answer to a larger title is immediate enthusiasm.
The nomination committee still needed to know that the position remained uncovered. We kept the gap explicit and considered other development and search options. I would not improve the appearance of the chart by retaining a name after the person had expressed a considered lack of interest. Nor would I describe the programme as a complete success simply because it generated useful learning. The expenditure and the remaining exposure both belonged in the account. The value was that management now had a more accurate understanding of its options and could act on it before a vacancy became urgent.
My preferred succession question is therefore broader than who could do the job. I want to know who has encountered enough of its reality to make an informed choice, what the organisation has done to prepare them and what uncertainty remains. Development should create the conditions for a better appointment decision, including a decision not to proceed with a particular match. When a participant changes direction thoughtfully, the bank should be able to hear it. Otherwise, its process may preserve reassuring names while making it harder for people to tell the truth about the work they are actually willing to take on.