Some of you are, some of you will want to be, but for those who aren’t imagine that you are the founder of a young practice. You have done well and your practice has completed projects and won awards. You and your business partners, if you have them, are wrestling with your growing business and a world of opportunity stretches before you. At this moment, the last thing you will be thinking about is succession. But you should.

Planning for the future is a critical business activity, but for many in architecture it doesn’t appear to be important. Many practice leaders seem reluctant to discuss or disclose their plans for succession, though it should be at the top of everyone’s agenda. I have always considered that identifying your successor is your most important job. It doesn’t matter what level you’re at, having someone good to step into your shoes allows the ambitious to move on in their careers. The reluctance for some leaders to do this could be because the act of identifying your successor is acknowledgement of your professional and creative mortality – we can’t all be Oscar Niemeyer and practice into our nineties. Whatever fuels this reticence, the untimely deaths of Jim Stirling and Zaha Hadid illustrate why plans are necessary.

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