It's one of those expressions we've heard so often that we rarely stop to consider whether it's actually true.

In retail, I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense. If someone walks into a clothing store looking for a chartreuse blazer with brass buttons, the salesperson's job probably isn't to question their taste. It's to find the blazer, ring it through, and wish them well. Although a gentle intervention might not be the worst idea.

But in professional services, where clients engage lawyers, accountants, consultants, and, yes, search professionals, the proposition becomes more complicated. If the client is always right, what exactly are they paying us for? Our time? Our effort? Our ability to nod? 

Surely, at least some portion of the fee is intended to purchase something less tangible, and considerably more valuable: Our judgment.

For as long as I've been in this business, I've thought of those of us in professional services as something akin to butlers. Not the obsequious cartoon variety, shuffling around with a silver tray, but the old-fashioned, discreet, indispensable kind. The ones who know where everything is, how everything works, who's in and who's out.

We have the ear of the master, but not a seat at the table. We live in the house, but we're not quite of it.

We're trusted with confidences, invited into conversations outsiders rarely hear, and occasionally exposed to the spectacularly dysfunctional. If we've earned our clients' confidence, we're invited to offer an opinion about what ought to happen next.

But eventually, and inevitably, the dining room doors close. We retreat to the butler's quarters, pour ourselves a cup of tea, and return to the crossword. The decisions, after all, aren't ours to make. It's their organization, their money, their reputation, and their risk. We can advise, cajole, challenge, and occasionally plead, but we cannot decide for them.

Nor should we.

There's a humility in that contract, one that becomes easier to forget the longer you've been doing this and the more convinced you become that you know what you're talking about. Here’s the rub: sometimes you actually do. 

Then what?

I've been in this line of work for 26 years.

During that time, I've participated in more hiring processes, facilitated more offer negotiations, warmed more cold feet, and talked more people off the ledge than I could possibly count.

I've watched seemingly impossible deals come together and apparently certain ones fall apart.

Not that this has conferred upon me some mystical ability to predict the future. If it had, I'd have retired years ago, presumably after a couple productive visits to the racetrack.

But experience counts for something.

Patterns emerge. Human behaviour, for all its unpredictability, turns out to be surprisingly predictable. After you've seen enough things, you begin to recognize the warning signs.

Think of a wedding officiant who's presided over countless ceremonies, witnessed the tears, the laughter, and the occasional runaway.

Across from them stand two people who, in most cases, are doing this for the first time. Can someone who's witnessed hundreds of weddings predict which marriages will succeed and which will fail? Of course not. But I suspect they've learned to recognize a warning sign or two. The point isn't that the one doing the betrothing is smarter than the betrothed. He's just been to a lot more weddings.

And so it is with executive search.

For most of our clients, hiring a senior executive is an infrequent event. For some, it's their first time.

For us, it's Tuesday.

Which is why, when I occasionally find myself saying, "Trust me on this one," I hope it's understood in the spirit intended. It's not ego. It's simply miles on the tires. And every now and then, those miles get put to the test.

Not long ago, we were nearing the conclusion of a senior executive search. After months of work, we'd identified an excellent candidate whom the client genuinely wanted and who was seriously considering leaving a good job to join them.

We were negotiating an offer, and one particular contractual provision had become a sticking point. The client considered its position reasonable and was reluctant to budge.

We understood their reasoning. But that wasn't how we saw it.

We had recruited this person. Persuaded a successful executive to contemplate leaving secure employment for an attractive opportunity that nonetheless carried uncertainty and risk. Now a relatively modest contractual disagreement threatened to undermine months of work.

What troubled me was how the candidate's conduct was being interpreted. Diligence, attention to detail, a willingness to seek professional advice, and an understandable desire to mitigate personal risk were being viewed as red flags.

To us, they were precisely the qualities the client ought to value in its next leader.

We offered our advice, respectfully but unequivocally. We suggested a compromise that was reasonable, commercially defensible, and unlikely ever to cost the organization anything unless circumstances unfolded in a way nobody wanted.

The question wasn't whether the client could hold the line, but whether doing so was worth the risk. The client disagreed. Their prerogative. But negotiations aren't simply an exercise in establishing the minimum terms a candidate will accept. They're an audition. And both sides are being judged.

Every interaction sends a message. Every delay, every concession, every refusal. The experience inevitably shapes a candidate's expectations of the organization they're considering joining.

And momentum matters.

As time passed, positions hardened and relatively routine questions became sources of suspicion. Eventually, the client appeared prepared to contemplate the accommodation we’d recommended at the outset.

Unfortunately, by then the deal was dead.

An excellent candidate had lost a promising opportunity. A client had lost its prospective leader. And a great deal of good work, by a great many people, had come undone.

Unnecessarily, in my view.

These were good people, acting in good faith, trying to do what they believed was best for their organization.

But the client had engaged us not only to find the right person, which I have no doubt we did, but to help them land that person. When the moment arrived to offer the benefit of our experience, they chose not to take it. By the time they did, the cost was no longer theoretical.

There are two ways to get this relationship wrong.

The first is to become the advisor who mistakes being engaged for being in charge. Always the smartest person in their own mind.

The second is to become so deferential that you cease to be useful. Accept the client's instructions, execute them faithfully, send the invoice, and congratulate yourself on another satisfied customer. Nobody gets upset. Nobody's authority is challenged.

And nobody benefits from the perspective they ostensibly hired you to provide.

The best advisors understand that their obligation is neither to agree nor disagree. It's to exercise judgment. To listen, understand the competing considerations and offer an informed perspective, even when it's inconvenient.

Especially when it's inconvenient.

Of course, experience isn't infallibility. I've been wrong before. I remember once, in 1996...kidding aside, experience should make us more confident in our judgment, but also more conscious of its limitations.

There's a difference between being respectful and being timid, just as there's a difference between being confident and being a blowhard.

And sometimes, even when you've found that balance, the client won't agree.

That's okay. It has to be.

Our job is to make the best case we can, explain the consequences, and respect the decision that's made. We don't get to sulk, take our ball and go home, or quietly hope things go badly just to enjoy the satisfaction of having been right all along.

I told you so's don't pay the rent.

The lesson here isn't that I was right. It's that being right, if indeed I was, didn't do anyone much good. The candidate still lost the opportunity. The client lost its prospective leader. And we were left with the disappointment of an outcome we believe could have been avoided.

So, is the client always right? Of course not. Neither, for that matter, is the advisor. But the client is always the client. They have every right to make a decision we wouldn't make ourselves. We, in turn, have an obligation to tell them, with candour and respect, when we believe they're about to make a mistake.

Not because we're smarter. Not because we need to win. But because we've seen enough to know that sometimes the most valuable thing we can offer is the perspective that comes from having been there before. The butler, after all, may know the house better than anyone. But it's not his house.

As for whether I've succeeded in making a pithy point without being pissy?

I'll leave that judgment to you.

Regards,

Adam