Why Search Goes Wrong

“The Misfire” — A Cautionary Tale of Executive Search Gone Wrong in 3 Acts

(A summary of my recent conversations )

🚩Act I: Search Starts Fast, but the Foundation Is Fragile

There was a surface-level kickoff that failed to uncover deeper misalignment in expectations between the investors and the leadership team.

No in-depth strategic diagnostic. No pushback or deep challenge. Misalignment wasn’t surfaced. No structured team capability review. Mostly high level head nods.

Everyone was working from their own mental model of what “great” looked like.

>> The search launched on a shaky foundation.

🚩Act II: The Illusion of Momentum

The search firm moved fast—presenting slates weekly. The team was presented a conga line of okay spec candidates in pursuit of “calibration”.

Each one sparked debate. Which felt like progress. Candidate flow is used to mask problems.

The partner wasn’t involved in outreach and the best candidates weren’t interested because the story wasn’t right. 

But the real problem wasn’t the candidates.

The search started with misalignment—

There was:

 • No unified view of what “great” looked like

 • Lack of a shared understanding of how to interview candidates

 • No clarity on what was non-negotiable

 • No read on how each profile mapped to the company’s gaps 

What should’ve built momentum created confusion.

📍The sponsor grew frustrated.

📍The CEO disengaged.

📍The SLT got tired of talking in circles.

Meanwhile, candidates sensed the inconsistency.

Top outreach candidates pulled back.

Others pushed for higher comp—because the process felt reactive and uncertain.

🚩Act III: The Cost of Compromise & Lack of an Integration Strategy

After 4 months of spinning, the pressure to hire mounted.

They extended an offer to the least controversial candidate. Not the best—just the one who hadn’t triggered any strong objections.

She accepted—with aggressive comp and equity asks.

She was thrown into the fire with little thought to integrating her into the senior team. 

But the fit was never right.

 • She didn’t gel with CEO leadership style

 • She didn’t align with the GTM strategy

 • She moved slower than the business could afford

 • She never earned the trust of the team

 • She didn’t mesh with the sponsor 

By month 6, the sponsor was 2nd-guessing. 2 months later… gone with collateral damage everywhere. 

❌Epilogue: What Really Went Wrong

This wasn’t a “market” problem or a lack of candidates.

It was a strategy and execution failure—driven by weak alignment, a superficial kickoff, and no shared framework for evaluating leadership fit against the company’s operating model and transformation curve.

If you’re interested in an approach based in strategic alignment, 100% market coverage, fast loop execution & integration to reduce time to hire and increase to speed to impact - we’ll share with you a fundamentally different approach.