Growth and bringing order are two different sports. And yet many companies write the vacancy as if both objectives were the same.
When you are growing, you need people who are comfortable with ambiguity: able to prioritise, test, learn quickly and make decisions with incomplete information.
When you are bringing order, you need people who can turn chaos into a system: define processes, set the pace, reduce variability and control risk.
The problem appears when the brief mixes both without deciding which one takes priority. That is when a company hires an excellent person… for a job that nobody has properly defined.
A practical way to avoid this is to write the mandate in a single sentence:
• For growth: “I need to increase X without breaking Y.”
• For order: “I need to stabilise Y and turn it into a system.”
In 2026, with efficiency under greater scrutiny and more pressure to justify every hire, one clear trend is emerging: less hiring by inertia and more hiring with intent (profitability, operational resilience, disciplined execution). And that requires a clear distinction between the phase the business is in.
Sources:
- Our own experience, built over 17 years in Executive Search.
- https://www.bamboohr.com/uk/blog/uk-employment-outlook-2026 (bamboohr.com)
- https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/corporate-america-continues-job-cuts-2026-efficiency-push-2026-02-25/ (Reuters)
- https://www.thetimes.com/business/companies-markets/article/interim-management-job-transformational-r2h3f9bfd (The Times)
- https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functions/people%20and%20organizational%20performance/our%20insights/the%20state%20of%20organizations/2026/the-state-of-organizations-2026.pdf (McKinsey & Company)
