The situation
This one started in a fairly familiar way, in that there wasn’t really a plan.
There was no clear definition of what “stepping back” meant, no agreed timeline, and no real sense of what the founder wanted their role to become, just a growing recognition that they didn’t want to be doing this forever and that at some point something would need to change.
The business itself was in a strong position, it had grown well and had a capable team around it, but as with many businesses at this stage, more and more seemed to rely on one individual, and there was a sense that while the idea of stepping back had been raised, nothing in reality had shifted.
At some point that naturally turns into a question of succession, but in this case it wasn’t really clear what that meant or what the business was actually preparing for.
What wasn’t obvious
What sat behind it didn’t really present itself as a straightforward succession question, and it wasn’t just about identifying who might come next.
It was more a question of what would actually change, how decisions would be made if they weren’t all flowing through one person, and what the business would need to operate in a slightly different way, none of which had been worked through in any real detail.
That’s often where things become less clear, because the instinct is to start shaping a role or thinking about successors, when the role itself is still dependent on something that hasn’t quite been settled.
The result is that you can end up describing something that feels right in theory, but doesn’t quite match how the business actually works.
What we focused on
Rather than moving straight to defining the role or going to market, we spent time understanding how the business really operated day to day, how decisions were being made, and where it was too dependent on the founder, as well as what they were actually looking for from the next stage.
That meant working through what stepping back might look like in practice, what would stay with them, what might move across, and how that could evolve over time, alongside speaking to others in the business to understand how things worked from their perspective.
Once that started to come together, the shape of the role became clearer, not as something fixed, but as something that reflected how the business really operated and could adjust as things shifted.
That then changed the nature of the search, because we were no longer working from assumption, but from something that had begun to take shape in a more grounded way.
The outcome
The appointment worked because of that alignment.
Not because it matched a predefined role, but because there was a shared understanding of what the founder would and wouldn’t be doing, and what the business needed from its leadership as that changed.
The transition itself wasn’t immediate, and it didn’t need to be, but over time there was a shift in how the business operated, with less reliance on one individual and more consistency in how decisions were made.
The founder was able to step away from parts of the role in a way that felt comfortable, and the new leader was able to take on responsibility without uncertainty around where they stood.
The TWYD view
Where this tends to go wrong is that “stepping back” is treated as a single decision, when in reality it’s a series of smaller ones that need to be made consciously.
What to let go of first, what to hold onto for longer, and what may never fully transfer are all different questions, and when they aren’t separated out, everything stays bundled together and nothing really moves.
In this case, progress came as those decisions were taken one by one, which allowed the role to form around something real rather than hypothetical.
That’s often the difference. Not a big moment of change, but a sequence of smaller shifts that the business can actually absorb.