In our line of work each brief with which our client entrusts us starts with a briefing session: a kick-off. At these meetings, the executive team or board of directors discusses their goals and strategy with us – and sometimes their joys and woes as well. These moments are invaluable, as they allow us to better grasp the scope and context of an assignment while also providing the opportunity to connect with those responsible for making the final decision.
Recruiting a senior executive is invariably a significant milestone in the life of an organisation: it is a process which blends ambition and looking to the future with risk management. It frequently has a direct bearing on the reputation of the selection panel in the eyes of the shareholders, clients, competitors, and, of course, the company’s own staff team.
It is therefore incumbent upon boards of directors and executive teams to carefully balance competing interests when considering the profiles of the executives they intend to bring on board, balancing tradition with innovation, administrative and business expertise, and continuity with the need for a fresh approach. Determining these parameters is all the more challenging: they need to be balanced against market realities, the available talent pool, and, most importantly, candidates who are genuinely interested in joining the organisation. And it is sometimes the candidates themselves who set the parameters: a choice made by default rather than by design.
In these recruitment scenarios selection panels often express very ambitious goals during the initial meeting (and rightly so!). As an executive search firm, we aim to provide our clients with a range of possibilities through varied and creative shortlists, allowing them to make an informed choice that aligns with their goals and constraints. At the same time – let’s be honest – this approach also helps safeguard our processes and ensure that our clients are ultimately able to make a hiring decision.
In our experience, though, the final choice of candidate is often more conservative and significantly less ambitious than what was discussed in the initial stages. Indeed, the very idea of change, originality and novelty is appealing – energising even – but is often tempered by the risks touched on above.
These few lines might suggest that we are accusing decision-makers of suffering from a lack of courage or boldness. That isn’t the case at all. Making choices is difficult; making choices which affect the lives of hundreds, or even thousands, of employees, even more so.
And yet… what if, when it comes to it, it is the riskiest choice that actually delivers the most reassurance?
