If a desk or division is not growing, the market deserves the first look. Are competitors experiencing the same thing? Is the proposition genuinely competitive? Are clients buying? Is pricing right? Does the team have the resources it was promised? Has the business actually provided the technology, capital and support required to execute the plan?

If the answers to those questions are broadly positive and performance is still disappointing, the diagnosis becomes harder. Is the strategy being translated into action? Are decisions happening quickly enough? Are opportunities being followed through? Are good people being developed and weaker performance addressed? Is somebody genuinely driving the plan, or is the organisation waiting for the strategy to produce results by itself?

This is where leadership teams can find themselves confronting an uncomfortable possibility. Perhaps there isn't a fundamental problem with the business, the proposition or the market opportunity. Perhaps what is missing is somebody who can make all of those things work together.

Technology is an obvious example. Financial services firms have spent considerable sums on systems, data and increasingly AI, and sometimes disappointing results mean the technology was wrong. In other businesses the system itself is perfectly capable but the operating model around it has barely changed, so old processes survive, spreadsheets continue to run alongside the new platform and the expected productivity gains never arrive. At that point it is worth asking whether another technology investment is really the answer, or whether the business needs somebody who has successfully delivered this kind of change before.

The same applies to growth. A business can have an attractive proposition without having the commercial leadership required to extract its full potential. Equally, making a leadership change because growth has slowed in a market where almost everybody is struggling would be a very different decision. Good management requires enough curiosity to distinguish between the two.

Even then, suspecting that leadership may be part of the problem is not the same as knowing it is. One way of testing the hypothesis is to understand what exists outside the business before reaching any conclusion.

A confidential search does not have to begin with a decision that somebody is leaving. It can simply begin with a desire to understand whether people exist in the market with the experience your business may need. What backgrounds are relevant? What capabilities should you be looking for? What calibre of person might realistically be available, and how does that compare with the experience already inside the business?

This can be particularly useful where a business has not recruited at that level for several years. The talent market may have changed considerably in that time. Roles evolve, new skills become important and people emerge with combinations of experience that may not have existed when the current structure was put together. Understanding the available talent does not commit a business to changing anything, but it does give management a better basis on which to assess the capabilities it may need.

A carefully managed market mapping exercise can start answering those questions. Sometimes it will highlight a genuine capability gap. On other occasions it may reinforce the quality of the person already in the role and point management towards a different problem entirely. Perhaps the existing leader needs additional expertise around them, a different reporting structure or an experienced interim to deliver a particular project. There is considerable value in discovering that before making a permanent decision.

Confidentiality in this context should be professional rather than secretive. Senior market mapping is often sensitive because firms do not want to create unnecessary speculation among employees, clients, investors or competitors while they are still considering their options. Candidates deserve discretion too. The strongest executives are frequently employed and performing well, and an exploratory conversation about another business should not compromise their existing position.

A well-run confidential process therefore involves a limited number of carefully selected conversations, clear control over what information is disclosed and an understanding on both sides that exploration is not the same as commitment. It also gives leadership teams time to think.

Management decisions involving people should rarely be made in frustration after one poor quarter or because a particular project has taken longer than expected. Looking externally can provide perspective, but the purpose should be to improve the quality of the decision rather than manufacture justification for one that has already been made.

There may ultimately be a better person available for what the business needs, or there may not be. The right answer could be to invest further in the existing leader, change the structure around them, introduce specialist project capability or simply give a sound strategy more time to work.

The point is to know rather than assume.

Some of the most valuable conversations about senior talent happen long before a formal recruitment process exists. They start because a leadership team wants to understand the market, benchmark what it already has or establish whether different experience could make a meaningful difference.

Those conversations require discretion, but they also require empathy. Good people will not have every experience a business might eventually require, and disappointing performance does not automatically mean somebody needs to be replaced. Equally, a good strategy and a strong operating model cannot deliver themselves.

When the model is sound, the strategy remains convincing and the business has put the other pieces in place, it is reasonable to ask why the results are not following.

Sometimes the answer is the market. Sometimes it is simply a question of time. Sometimes it is something inside the business that can be fixed. Sometimes, after everything else has been examined, the question is whether you have the right person to make it all work.