How Engagements Operate
What this page is (and is not)
This page describes what it is like to work together once a decision to proceed has been made.
It does not explain a hiring methodology.
It does not outline a search “process.”
It does not attempt to persuade.
Those questions are addressed elsewhere.
What follows is a practical account of how responsibility is shared, how decisions are sequenced, and how work unfolds once momentum is no longer theoretical.
For senior leadership roles in China, the difference between a good decision and a fragile one is rarely visible at the outset. It shows up later — when expectations collide with reality, when authority is tested, and when early assumptions either hold or unravel.
This page exists to make that working reality explicit before commitment.
How engagements begin
Engagements begin only after there is shared clarity on what is at stake. That clarity does not come from a job description.
It comes from an explicit discussion about expectations, constraints, and the consequences of getting the decision wrong.
Before any formal work begins, time is spent aligning on three things:
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What success must look like twelve months into the role
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What conditions would make that success unlikely
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What cannot be left implicit once the hire is made
This is not a validation exercise.
It is a test of readiness.
In some situations, this alignment reveals that proceeding would be premature or misdirected. When that happens, the engagement does not move forward.
When it does proceed, the work begins with a shared understanding that decisions made early will shape what becomes possible later.
Once commitment is made
Once commitment is made, the nature of the work changes.
The objective is no longer exploration or alignment.
It is execution under known constraints.
From this point forward, the engagement operates as a shared operating environment rather than a vendor relationship. Decisions are surfaced early, assumptions are tested in real time, and responsibility does not shift simply because a milestone has been reached.
Interaction follows a deliberate cadence.
Not to create activity, but to prevent drift.
At each stage, there is clarity on three questions:
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What decisions are being made now
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What information those decisions are based on
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Who remains accountable for the downstream effects
This structure is intentionally simple.
Its purpose is to keep attention on judgement rather than motion.
How accountability is maintained
Accountability cannot be sustained unilaterally.
For this structure to hold, certain conditions must be present on both sides of the engagement.
In practice, this means:
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Success criteria are agreed in advance and treated as authoritative
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Decision ownership is explicit and consistent
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Engagement pace reflects alignment readiness rather than external pressure
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Early concerns are addressed directly rather than deferred
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Intervention remains possible after the hire begins
When these conditions are not present, accountability mechanisms lose meaning and are not offered.
This is why Palio engagements are selective by design.
What this way of working avoids
This way of working is deliberately constrained.
It avoids creating momentum for its own sake, even when speed is available.
It avoids fragmenting responsibility across multiple parties once commitment is made.
It avoids substituting activity for judgement when uncertainty appears.
There is no parallel delegation of core decisions.
There is no reliance on goodwill to resolve misalignment.
There is no assumption that early success guarantees later stability.
Under pressure, the default response is not to accelerate or to simplify the narrative.
It is to return to the original decisions, the assumptions behind them, and the consequences they were meant to prevent.
This is not always comfortable.
It is, however, predictable.