Promotion readiness
Know where your internal successors stand before the seat opens.
An independent read of one or more serious internal successors against a future role, with a clear conclusion about readiness and what should happen next.
Discuss the decisionWhen to call
The best time to begin is 18 to 24 months before the seat opens.
That gives the organization time to define the role, assess one or more successors, and use the findings to shape real assignments, exposure, and development.
The vacancy does not need to be announced. The organization only needs enough confidence that the seat and the possible successors are worth preparing for.
Closer to the transition, the work can still clarify readiness and conditions. It has less time to change them.
The distinction
Performance, potential, and readiness are different questions.
Performance
Describes success in the current role.
Potential
Speaks to capacity for broader leadership over time.
Readiness
Asks whether this leader can meet the demands of this seat within the time available.
Important capabilities may already be demonstrated. Others may be present but untested. Some may still need deliberate development. The work is to tell the difference.
Define the future seat
The future seat sets the standard.
Before we assess anyone, we define what the role will require next.
Not simply the current job description.
In a working session, we clarify the authority the role will carry, the business and cultural demands ahead, the critical relationships, the risks, and the leadership behaviors the organization cannot compromise.
Build the evidence
The evidence is built around the readiness question.
We do not begin with a standard instrument or a fixed sequence. Assessments, structured interviews, business context, and stakeholder input are selected based on the questions the organization needs to resolve.
When stakeholder input is useful, the questions are not pulled from a standard 360. They are written from the Role Success Profile, the organization’s values and changing demands, and what the earlier evidence made important.
The readiness conclusion
The conclusion should tell you what to do next.
We bring the evidence together and reach an independent conclusion about where each leader stands against the future seat.
Readiness has a clock. A condition that can be addressed through time and deliberate experience is different from one that cannot be resolved before the role opens.
Ready now
The evidence supports the move. Any remaining needs relate to transition support, not readiness for the seat.
Ready with conditions
A credible path exists, but specific experience, behavior, or evidence must still be built or demonstrated. Those conditions become the development plan and the proving grounds for progress.
Not yet
The evidence does not support the move within the available timeframe. The conclusion explains the gap and whether reconsideration is realistic.
The appointment decision remains with the organization. Our role is to make the evidence, conditions, and available paths clear.
Develop without promising
Prepare the leader without promising the seat.
An organization can invest seriously in someone’s readiness without guaranteeing the role. Doing that well requires separate decision and development materials.
Role Success Profile
Establishes the standard for the future seat.
Readiness Brief
Gives the sponsor and agreed decision team the readiness conclusion, conditions, risks, and available paths.
Readiness Development Brief
Gives the leader clear priorities, proving grounds, and observable measures of progress.
The sponsor owns the development plan. We write it, provide advisory checkpoints, and reassess at agreed points. The organization creates the assignments, exposure, feedback, and accountability that make the development real.
What changes
Readiness becomes visible before the title changes.
The decision no longer rests on one person’s confidence in the successor.
Development is tied to the demands of the next seat and to progress people can observe.
The organization has evidence to support the move, define the conditions, or make another plan while time remains.
When the leader moves, they enter the role with credibility already built.
Before the seat opens
The work starts before the vacancy.
You do not need an open role to begin. You need a future seat, one or more serious successors, and enough time to act on what the evidence shows.
Discuss the decision