Remote or in-person coaching for a successor?

Both work, for different reasons. Remote coaching makes a steady weekly rhythm possible, fits around a successor’s real calendar and keeps the coach out of the office. In-person coaching gives a fuller read of presence and suits moments with several people in one room. For most successors the best answer is regular remote sessions, with the moments that bring the family together held in person where possible.

The question is not which format is better in general. It is which format serves the specific work: weekly preparation for real meetings, or a single conversation where two generations need to sit at the same table.

What does remote coaching do well?

Frequency and rhythm. Preparing a successor to lead is built through repetition: a new skill tried, then used in a real meeting, then reviewed. That depends on regular contact. A weekly video session is far easier to keep than a weekly meeting in person, especially for a successor who travels, runs a site or has a young family.

Timing around real events. The most useful session is often the one just before a board meeting or a difficult conversation. Remote sessions can be placed where they are needed, rather than where a coach’s travel allows.

Discretion. A coach walking into the office every week is noticed. People ask who they are. For many families, keeping the preparation private is part of the point, and remote sessions make that simple. More on this in is successor coaching confidential?

The coach is not limited by geography. A family can choose the coach who fits, not the one who happens to live nearby.

Recording is natural. Rehearsals on video are easy to record, replay and compare. Watching yourself is one of the most direct ways to see what a room sees.

Video is part of the job. Many successors already lead some of their meetings on video: with banks, investors, remote sites, the board. Practising on the same medium is not a compromise for those moments.

What does remote coaching lose?

It would be dishonest to pretend nothing is lost.

The full picture of presence. A camera shows the face and shoulders. Posture, movement and how someone takes a room are only partly visible.
The feel of a large room. A company address to a hall of people is different from speaking to a laptop. Volume, pace and pauses behave differently in space.
Small signals. Some of what a coach reads in person, such as tension before a hard question, is easier to miss on a screen.
Fatigue. A successor who spends the day in video calls may find one more harder to give full attention to.

How can remote coaching make up for that?

Most of the losses can be reduced with simple choices. These are general practices, useful whichever coach a family chooses:

Stand up for rehearsals. A company address or a board update delivered standing, with the camera further back, shows far more than a seated call.
Rehearse in the real space when possible. A successor can record a run-through in the boardroom or the hall where the event will take place and share it.
Treat the session as a meeting, not a call. A closed door, a fixed time, no other screens.
Use recordings between sessions. Short clips or voice notes from real meetings give the coach material a session alone cannot.

When does in person matter most?

In person earns its cost when the work involves several people in one room, and when the room itself is part of the message.

A conversation between generations. When parent and successor sit down to agree which decisions move, how they disagree and how the parent steps back, being in the same room changes the conversation. People interrupt less, listen more, and find it harder to leave a hard topic unfinished.

Signing something together. An agreement written and signed in the room carries a weight that a shared document on screen does not quite match.

Family meetings. Wider family conversations involve many relationships at once. A facilitator can read the room better when they are in it.

None of this makes video unworkable for these moments. It means in person is worth arranging when it can be.

What about cost and time?

In-person coaching generally asks more of everyone involved, in time and in cost. A weekly in-person rhythm can also be harder to sustain over six months, and a format that cannot be sustained tends to lose its regularity. A family weighing the two should ask a simple question: would we keep this format every week for six months, including the busy ones?

How does Second Chair™ do it?

The 24 weekly sessions in Second Chair™ are one-to-one, sixty minutes, and remote. The first half of each session introduces something new and tries it cold. The second half applies it to the next real event on the successor’s calendar, with delivery coached live. Between sessions, the successor can send voice notes on anything that cannot wait a week, answered within one business day.

The facilitated handover session at the end of month six, with the successor, the parent and anyone the family chooses, is held in person when possible. Otherwise it is held on video. What happens in the handover session describes it in full.

The reasoning follows the trade-offs above. Weekly preparation for real meetings benefits most from rhythm, timing and discretion. The single conversation where two generations agree the handover benefits most from being in the same room.

How should a family decide?

Look at the calendar. If the successor travels or the business has several sites, remote is often the only way to keep a weekly rhythm.
Look at the work. Individual preparation suits remote. Conversations between several family members suit in person.
Think about discretion. If the preparation should stay private inside the company, remote makes that easier.
Ask how the coach handles the losses. A good remote coach will have a clear answer about recordings, rehearsals and full-room practice.

The wider question of how to choose a coach is covered in how to choose a coach for your successor.

In short

Remote coaching makes a weekly rhythm, good timing around real events and discretion easier to keep.
It loses part of the picture of physical presence, which can be reduced with standing rehearsals, recordings and run-throughs in the real room.
In person matters most when several people need to agree something at the same table.
Second Chair™ sessions are weekly and remote; the handover session is in person when possible, otherwise on video.

The full format of the six months is set out on the method page.