Maximising impact; Hire new leaders in peak. Every September the same questions come up with customer leaders who experience a type of winter peak. Is the contact centre resourced. In 2026 the questions have moved on. Will the systems hold? Is the AI we put into the service layer going to help or hurt? Have we moved far enough since last peak to measure it? Peak has become a proof question. And most businesses are still hiring for it the wrong way round. The old assumption: Don't bring a senior leader in during peak. Too much noise, too late to feel the benefits. Let them start in the new year when it's calm and they'll be ready for next time. Recruit in the slow period, impact in the fast one. Sounds sensible... Yet it’s the option that easily means impact needs to wait 12 months. Measurable impact for senior leaders has shifted from 9 down to 6 months, and in some cases as little as 3 months (the benefits of fresh eyes and board backing!) so there's no longer a need for a 6 month pre-peak integration for leaders. The bigger risk is waiting 6 months for impact that can be felt in 3. A September decision: Brief the search now, gain clarity on what you need and commit to the hiring process, and you could see someone join ready to experience peak first hand and start building on impact immediately. Transformational leaders can be available on short notice and be in time to impact your business performance. One leader put it to me in an interesting way last week: the value is in being there while it's happening. The question for September: Who do you need in the customer function to be there, and actively transforming, through this peak and into the next? If you haven't hired them yet, decide now, while the pressure is visible and the learning is free. Waiting for calm moves the risk a year down the road.
I spend my days talking to senior people in customer functions who are working out what they do next. This is what it sounds like: "After 15 years I feel like I've hit a ceiling. It's been amazing, it's just time." "We've had too many restructures. I can't actually get anything done." "My role is becoming more office based and my commute is 90 minutes. It just isn't sustainable." "I'm not looking, but your role excited me." Step one in understanding the person behind a CV is always the same three points, in the same order. I ask every leader the same things in the same way because it keeps the assessment fair, and it means I am comparing what people tell me rather than how well they interview. Where are you now. What made you update your CV. Your role and your experience. Remit, team, business, achievements. What next. Goals, market, timelines, non-negotiables. Salary comes up in that third conversation, and 92% of the time it is followed by a but. "...but that's not the most important thing." That is the real turning point. It is where everything else we have discussed gets tested. When someone is moving for more money alone, it usually tells me we have not got to the depth of the motivators yet. People rarely upheave a whole career for a couple of grand when they are happy, and at leadership level that would surprise me. Someone who has been underpaid for years and knows it is different. That is a correction, and it is overdue. Moving for less needs the same test. If you are happy, why leave for less. A drop will solve the immediate problem, the commute, the restructures, the lack of ownership, and for a while that feels like relief. Then the other frustrations start arriving and there is less in the role to absorb them. Less money usually means less responsibility, and less responsibility shows up in ways people do not plan for. Smaller decisions. Fewer of the rooms you are used to being in. A typical version of this came up recently. A 15k drop against 90 minutes of daily commute. Personally a good trade off. In practice the role was ill suited, the remit smaller than expected, and the friction showed up in what they could own. Back on the market inside the year, with two offers on the table. Unless intentional 'taking a step back' is often a hard adjustment for a leader who is used to operating at a certain level. Most people underestimate it. Being paid under what you are worth mostly feels like being undervalued and that you are measured against things you might not have done in a while, and only rarely doesn't. Salary is a measure and it works in both directions. Right role, wrong number. Smaller job wrapped in a bigger title. The number shows you a balance before the job description does. What a business pays tells you the remit it expects and the level the job really sits at. 92% of leaders tell me it is not the most important thing. Yet, It is still the most reliable measure they have.
People ask me how's the market. The question should be who's getting jobs.