Succession
Succession is the act of one person taking over a role, office, or responsibility from another, especially the transfer of leadership when an incumbent departs.
Succession, in an organizational sense, simply means one person following another into a role: a new CEO succeeding the last, a director stepping up when their manager retires. The word carries no promise that the handoff goes well. That is the job of succession planning, the deliberate work of making sure a capable, ready successor exists before the succession actually happens.
So the distinction worth keeping straight is between the event and the preparation. Succession is the moment of handover. Succession planning is everything done in the months and years beforehand to make that moment a transition instead of a scramble.
The word also appears in law and family business to describe the transfer of ownership or estate, which is a different question from who is ready to do the job. In a corporate talent context, succession is almost always about the role and the responsibility rather than the equity, and that is the sense succession planning software works in.
A concrete example makes the split clear. When a CFO retires, the succession is the day the new CFO takes over the role. The succession planning is the two or three years beforehand spent identifying a candidate, scoring them against what the job requires, and closing their gaps so the handover is a non-event. The first is a date on a calendar. The second is the work that makes that date safe.
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