ONE TO ONE · CONFIDENTIAL
EXECUTIVE SEARCH
A 4-month programme to lift origination, conversion and conversations.
THE PROGRAMME · THREE PARTS
01
Who you are
The story behind your choices. The patterns in how you perform at your best. What switches them off.
02
How you work
Numbers, clients and firm versus your story. Fostering your edge. Why good intentions don’t stick.
03
Where you’re going
Concrete experiments, a 90-day plan. What to stop and start. What success will still matter in ten years.
II
They share the first four sessions and the sixth, and differ where your questions differ.
FOUNDATION
For consultants and principals building their practice.
Which sectors and functions you want to be known for, which mandates suit you, where opportunities slip away, and what your firm actually rewards.
PARTNER
For those up for partner, or recently made up.
Which sectors you want to own, how solid your client relationships really are, who will speak up for you, and how your promotion case is being read.
III
STARTING POINT
A Quick Scan: 30 minutes, two actionable takeaways
THE PROGRAMME
8 sessions of 60–75 minutes, with preparation in between that gives real data to work with
RHYTHM
Usually every two weeks, about four months in total; tailored to you
WHERE
F2F or video call; English or Dutch
CONFIDENTIALITY
Yes, 100%.
FOUNDING-CLIENT RATE
Now available. Please inform.
THE APPROACH
In return: show up, and be willing to be appropriately challenged.
IV
Our work is informed by years of practice inside top-tier executive search. Alongside that, a number of foundational thinkers shape how we work. You’ll feel them throughout, rather than hear about them.
The red numbers show the sessions where each support in shaping the program.
PERFORMANCE
Jerry Fletcher: You get better by building on how you already work at your best, not by copying others [1, 3, 4, 5, 7]
Julie Gurner: How top performers think about standards, focus and sustained intensity [3, 5, 7]
Marc Effron: High performance is a choice: focus on the few things you can change, and on what your firm will value in two to four years [4, 5, 7]
Dorie Clark: Your reputation and positioning are built deliberately, over years; optimise for interesting [5, 7, 8]
Antonio Damasio: Feelings aren’t noise; they’re data in every good decision [2, 4, 6]
THE SYSTEM
Yves Morieux & Peter Tollman: Behaviour is a rational answer to the context people work in; change the context, and behaviour follows [5]
Laura Empson: Professional services firms, like executive search, are run by autonomous experts, power and politics are part of the work [4, 5]
Manfred Kets de Vries: Firms take on the inner theatre of the people who lead them, and we replay old patterns inside them [2, 4, 5]
Transactional analysis: Eric Berne and others. Firms run on recurring games between people, fed by the scripts we each bring in (“be strong”, “try hard”) [2, 4, 5]
CHANGE
Robert Kegan & Lisa Lahey: We don’t change because a hidden commitment protects us from something [6, 7]
Herminia Ibarra: You don’t think your way into a new identity; you act your way into it, through small experiments [4, 6, 7, 8]
Marshall Goldsmith: What got you here won’t get you there: the habits that made you successful can hold you back [4, 5, 6]
Richard Boyatzis: Lasting change starts from a positive vision of who you want to be, not from fixing weaknesses [1, 2, 4, 7]
RELATIONSHIPS
George Kohlrieser: High performance needs a secure base: people who both care for you and dare you [2, 4, 6, 8]
Derek Draper: Real change starts with making room to think, about yourself and with others [1, 2, 4, 7]
Brené Brown: Courage and connection both start with being willing to be seen [2, 4, 6]
David Brooks: Truly seeing another person, and being seen, is a skill you can learn [2, 4, 8]
CAREER
Bill Burnett & Dave Evans: Treat your career as a design problem: prototype, test, iterate [1, 7, 8]
Helen Tupper & Sarah Ellis: Careers aren’t ladders anymore; know your strengths, values and options [2, 4, 7]
GROWTH
Robert Kegan: Growing from meeting others’ expectations to setting your own course: the real step to partner [4, 6, 8]
Scott Barry Kaufman: Growth needs a sturdy hull (security) before a big sail (exploration and purpose) [4, 7, 8]
MEANING
Arthur Brooks: Success alone doesn’t give life meaning; purpose comes from love, a calling and something bigger than yourself [1, 4, 8]
James Hollis: At some point the question shifts from “what do I want?” to “what is my life asking of me?” [2, 8]
Adam Phillips: The lives we didn’t live shape us as much as the one we did [2, 8]
Douglas Hofstadter: The self is a strange loop: a pattern that perceives itself, and can change by looking at itself [4, 8]
ETHICS
Simon Critchley: Others make a claim on us before we choose; we can never answer it completely, only as fully as we can [6, 8]
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Start with a Quick Scan: 30 minutes, two actionable takeaways. Just get in touch.
RAISE YOUR GAME