The hire can be right and the pairing still grind.
A search can find the strongest Chief of Staff on the market and still produce a partnership that fails inside a year, because the fit that matters is between how two people actually operate, and no interview reads that. Friction is not a character flaw in either of them. It is information, and it is available before the offer goes out.
When the leader’s and the candidate’s profiles are both in hand, Fit & Friction maps the two against each other: where the pairing creates lift, where it grinds, and what makes it sustainable. It asks whether the two of them can read each other, which matters a good deal more than whether they will like each other.
Built on two profiles.
- Profile both sidesThe hiring leader through the Leadership Operating Profile; the candidate through the CoS Readiness Assessment or an equivalent read.
- Map the pairingThe two profiles set against each other across the behaviors that decide whether a partnership works under pressure.
- Make it sustainableA joint read and debrief: what each side needs from the other, where the grind will show up first, and the watchpoints for year one.
The most sophisticated output we produce.
Where the pairing creates lift
The strengths each side amplifies in the other.
Where it grinds
The specific patterns that will show up under pressure, named before they cost anything.
What makes it sustainable
The operating agreements that keep the partnership working, and the conditions the client organization has to set.
Language both sides can use
So the leader and the Chief of Staff stop decoding each other and get to work.
For the firm, the read does two things: it informs the final decision, and it gives the placed Chief of Staff and their executive a shared vocabulary from day one. Placements hold when the fit was read before the offer.
By invitation, scoped to the search.
Fit & Friction is currently offered by invitation and is scoped on a call. It requires a profile of each person, so it is usually commissioned alongside the Leadership Operating Profile for the hiring leader and the Readiness Assessment for the finalist. Both people are informed and consent before their profiles are mapped against each other.
Most useful when the client has a preferred finalist and wants to know what the first year will feel like on both sides, or when two finalists are close and the pairing is the deciding factor.
The two reads it is built on.
Leadership Operating Profile
How the hiring leader operates under pressure, and the environment the person you place is walking into.
See the diagnostic →CoS Readiness Assessment
A practitioner-reviewed verdict on the candidate, with a dual-report output built for search.
See the assessment →What partners ask before commissioning.
Do we need both profiles first?
Yes. Fit & Friction maps two existing profiles against each other. If the leader has not been profiled, the Leadership Operating Profile comes first; if the candidate has not, the Readiness Assessment does.
Who sees the pairing read?
The commissioning firm, and the client when the firm chooses to share it. Each person’s underlying profile stays their own. Both consent before the mapping begins.
Can it be run after the placement?
It can, and it is often more valuable then, as the basis for the first year. Before the offer it informs the decision; after it, it gives the pair a working language.
Is there a fixed fee?
Not published. Fit & Friction is scoped on a call because the configuration depends on which profiles already exist and what the search needs from the read.