Most people spend the beginning of the year trying to keep the New Year’s resolutions they’ve embraced alive until at least the end of the month. Because most of us fail at this endeavor – including me – I’ve decided to take a pass on New Year’s resolutions for 2016 and share my predictions for what will happen in the coming year instead. And, to demonstrate the degree of my misguided confidence, I promise to report back next January on my batting average.
Here we go.
- The US stock market will go up, down and sideways. However, it will have almost no correlation to the health of our economy and will leave us with the impression that the people and institutions that make the markets move have all of the judgement, patience and emotional maturity of a spoiled 13-year-old.
- Approximately 50 percent of the country will awake on November 2nd completely panicked and appalled by the voter’s choice for our 45th President. The Republic will survive.
- I will meet with over 100 executives in transition as a favor to a client, friend or other member of my network. Every one of the 100 executives will tell me they are being completely ignored by the people they know in large global search firms and will express genuine gratitude that I took the time to meet with them.
- When those 100 executives eventually find employment and need a retained search firm to help build their team, 97 of them will engage the large global search firms who ignored them when they were in transition. The other three will call me.
- The vast majority of our clients will allow us to form a true partnership on the assignments we complete together. This means they will actively communicate with us, give us regular positive and negative feedback and will let us know what is going on in their businesses that could impact our work together.
- A small number of our clients will behave in such a way that we will consider opening a chain of dry cleaners and getting out of the search business altogether.
- I will meet a large number of new people at social and business events. When I tell them I work in retained executive search, about one-third of them will share their utter surprise that our industry still exists given the fact that companies can hire as many quality people as they like for free through LinkedIn.
- Then, they will ask if I can find a job for their brother-in-law who just got fired because of “philosophical differences” with his boss. Because that’s what “headhunters” do.
- By the end of 2016, I will be happy to have made it through another year, grateful for the loyal dedication of my colleagues and indebted to the clients who put their trust in us.
And then it will start all over again.
