What should we prepare before the private diagnostic?

Very little formal preparation is needed before the private diagnostic, but some thinking in advance makes it more useful. The parent and the successor can each reflect on what they want from six months and what worries them, consider who might give an honest view of the successor, and gather the dates of the high-stakes events ahead. The recorded baseline is the one part best left unprepared.

The private diagnostic is the first two weeks of Second Chair™. What happens in the private diagnostic describes its five parts. This article looks at the same parts from the other side: what is worth thinking about before each one, so that the time is spent on substance rather than on recalling basic facts.

None of what follows is a requirement. It is simply what tends to make an honest conversation easier.

Before the parent intake

The parent intake is a 45-minute conversation about the business, the timeline, what the parent fears and what success would look like in six months. Those four topics are worth a quiet half hour beforehand.

The business, briefly. Not a full history. The few things an outsider would need to understand the rooms the successor will lead: who sits on the board, who the senior people are, where the business is under pressure.
The timeline. When the transition is expected to begin, and how firm that date really is. A rough or uncertain date is still useful. Saying it may move is more helpful than presenting it as fixed.
What you fear. This is the part parents most often soften. It may be that the senior team will not follow, that a sibling will feel passed over, or that you will not be able to step back. Fears said plainly shape what success looks like.
What success would look like in six months. Try to describe it in terms of things you could see: the board engaging with your successor’s recommendations, managers bringing problems to them first. “More confident” is a feeling. “Leads the board update without looking at me” is something to recognise.

Before the successor intake

The successor intake is a separate 60-minute conversation about their goals, how they see the handover, and where they feel least credible. It is held apart from the parent’s on purpose, so that each can speak freely.

Three questions are worth thinking about in advance:

What do you want from the next six months? In your own words, not your parent’s.
How do you see the handover? What you expect to change, what you are unsure about, and what you have not yet said to your parent.
Where do you feel least credible? A particular room, a particular person, a particular kind of question. The more specific, the more useful.

The answer to the last question is often uncomfortable to say. It is also where much of the work begins.

Thinking about who might be interviewed

The diagnostic includes three to five confidential stakeholder interviews, thirty minutes each, with people the successor will lead: senior executives, a board member, sometimes a sibling. Underneath every interview sits one question: what would make you follow them? What a stakeholder interview is, and why it matters explains the practice.

Who is asked is something the family and the coach discuss. It still helps to arrive with a few names in mind, and to think about what makes a useful interviewee:

People who see the successor at work. Those who sit in the meetings the successor will lead, not only those who know them socially.
A range of views. An interviewer learns more from a mix of supporters and sceptics than from a list of allies. A director who has doubts is often the most useful voice.
People whose following matters. The executives and board members the successor most needs behind them in the next few years.
Family, with care. A sibling can add a view no one else has, and can also bring tensions into the process. Whether to include one is worth thinking about honestly.

Parent and successor may suggest different names. That is normal, and it can be telling in itself.

It also helps to think about how the people chosen will hear about it. A short, honest explanation from the parent or the successor, that the conversation is confidential and part of the successor’s preparation, usually makes people more open.

Gathering the leadership calendar

The written diagnostic delivered in week two includes a leadership calendar: every high-stakes event in the next six months, which becomes the practice plan. It is built from what the family knows is coming, so it helps to gather the dates beforehand.

Board meetings, and any updates or proposals the successor is expected to bring.
A company address or other moments where the successor will speak to the whole company.
Family meetings and gatherings where the handover or roles may come up.
Investor, press, bank and key customer moments.
Difficult conversations already on the horizon, with the parent or a senior executive.

Fixed dates and rough ones both belong on the list. An event pencilled in for the spring is still worth preparing for. Why the work is organised this way is explained in why the work follows the successor’s real calendar.

The one thing not to prepare: the baseline

The recorded baseline is ninety minutes, three scenarios, done cold: a three-minute address to the whole company, a ten-minute board update with hostile questions, and a role-play of a hard conversation with the parent or a senior executive.

“Cold” is deliberate. The baseline is meant to show how the successor comes across when a real board or a real executive surprises them. Near the end of the six months, the same three scenarios are recorded again and placed side by side with week two, so the family sees the change. A rehearsed baseline flatters the starting point and makes that comparison less useful.

So the most helpful preparation here is restraint. A parent does not need to coach the successor for it, and the successor does not need to script anything.

Practical matters

Every engagement begins under a mutual NDA, before any of this starts. Beyond that, the practical side is mostly time: two intakes, the interviews, and the ninety-minute baseline all fall within the first two weeks. Scheduling questions, and anything else the family wants to clarify about how the diagnostic will run, are best raised in the private conversation before the engagement begins.

In short

Little formal preparation is needed, but some thinking in advance makes the diagnostic more useful.
Parents: reflect on the business, the timeline, what you fear and what success would look like in visible terms.
Successors: think about your goals, how you see the handover and where you feel least credible.
Arrive with a few possible interviewees in mind, and gather the dates of the high-stakes events ahead.
Do not prepare the baseline. It is meant to be cold.

The diagnostic’s place in the six months is shown on the method page.