One of the more useful projects we've worked on recently started with a leadership vacancy.

It would have been very easy to turn it into an executive search.

Instead, the vacancy raised a bigger question. The organisation was already going through change, the executive structure had evolved over time and the Board wanted confidence that the roles themselves were right before deciding who should sit in them.

That changed the assignment completely.

The vacancy wasn't really the problem

Rather than writing a search brief, we looked across the executive team.

We spoke to the people doing the jobs. We reviewed the role descriptions against the reality of the work. We looked at scope and accountabilities. We benchmarked remuneration against relevant external markets. And we helped shape a selection approach that would give the Board proper evidence for its decisions.

The important point was that external recruitment wasn't the assumed outcome.

The organisation had good internal people. The Board's preference was to use them where that stood up. What it needed was an independent view rather than a recruiter arguing that the answer happened to be recruitment.

Search firms have an obvious conflict

This is something I think our industry should be more open about.

If you only get paid when a client runs a search, every leadership problem has a tendency to look like a search problem.

I'm not suggesting search firms deliberately create vacancies. But the commercial model naturally starts the conversation after a decision has already been made: here is the role, please find somebody.

There is often more value upstream.

Is the role right? Is the structure right? Is there somebody internal? How does that person compare with the external market? Is the package competitive? What selection process will give the Board confidence?

Answer those questions and the search, if there is one, becomes much easier.

Sometimes not winning a search is a good outcome

For the client, definitely.

If independent evidence shows an internal person is the right appointment, that's a successful project. The organisation keeps someone it knows, creates a succession story and avoids an unnecessary external process.

If the evidence says the opposite, you can go to market with a much clearer brief.

Either way, the decision is better.

This is where we're taking re:find

We will continue to do executive search. It's a big part of what we're good at.

But I don't want re:find to be defined by recruitment.

The more interesting position is helping a Board or CPO work out what it actually needs, giving them evidence from inside and outside the organisation, and then helping execute the answer.

Sometimes that answer will be a search.

Sometimes it won't.

I'm increasingly comfortable with that.