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Season 1, Episode 87 · Dig Deeper

[Solocast] Answer the Question, Not the Brief

28 Sep 2026 · 6 min

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When one of your people brings you work that's accurate, well researched and clearly argued, and it still goes nowhere, where do you look for the reason? At the decision maker who ignored the evidence? Or at what your person couldn't see from where they were sitting? In this solocast, I start with a CFO placement I lost early in my career as a recruitment consultant. I had the strongest candidate on the shortlist and still missed, because I'd answered the brief without asking what the client was really trying to solve. From there I look at research from Gerald Ferris and colleagues showing…

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Dig Deeper

Digby Scott · Business · English

There's no one way to lead. Yet we need to find a way. Our own way. And it can be hard to get right. As we find our way to lead it can be useful to listen to how others found theirs. Each fortnight, I’ll share a rich, unhurried conversation with someone who’s leaned into and learned from the cha

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