I feel very fortunate that on many occasions I am invited to be a technical assessor for senior director roles across local government, most of these focused at ‘transformation' or ‘service turnaround'. Over the last year I have also spent time back on the shop floor helping clients deliver difficult change programmes.

While there are many lessons I could share from these experiences, I think there is one above all else that needs to be considered by senior executives – how we select individuals to perform new and difficult roles needs to change.