Confessions from the City: The headhunter on the calm before the storm

I love this time of year.

Things are winding down but you know January will be tasty as the blood begins to create nasty stains on boardroom carpets.

In my game, retail, the knives will be sharpening.

There have been fewer excuses for failure this year, with Storm Desmond hardly offering the get-out that Arctic blasts provided in the past.

Black Friday was a damp squib for some but the online boys are happy.

If the sales-growth targets aren’t hit, there’ll be hell to pay after Christmas.

But bosses use some interesting tactics to avoid the boot. I noticed the other day that one out-of-town chain got a new retail director just four weeks before Christmas.

That looks great timing. Get him in and if the stores don’t sell enough festive tat, you can always throw him to the wolves, claiming he was only an interim hire.

A version of Secret Santa rears its head again in January as directors are encouraged to dish the dirt on which of their colleagues screwed up when investors start asking tough questions.

When a chief executive’s back is against the wall, they will display all the loyalty of a Spanish football president.

Me? I charge my iPhone up to 100%, sit back and wait for the calls. The post-Christmas board meeting can be a tense affair.

A few years back, six of the seven directors at one retailer called me on the hunt for a new gig.

The boss had applied the Alex Ferguson hairdryer treatment when faced with the prospect of his own demise.

The investors, as it turned out, were more concerned by the resulting board exodus, and he soon got the chop.

You can usually gauge the performance of a company by the activity of its directors.

Once you get more than a couple of invitations for a Caffè Nero macchiato, you know a profit warning is imminent.

These meet-ups are usually bloated versions of Tinder — we size each other up and swiftly swipe left or right.

The boardroom merry-go-round will be in full swing by March. Shortlists will have been rejected for a third time and a spot of bad weather will be the perfect smokescreen to keep yet more average execs in Range Rovers and second homes.

Some might achieve a stay of execution as their replacement is being kept “warm” while others agree to compromise — committing to a vow of silence as they ready their exit.

By late spring, and to great fanfare, CEOs will announce bombastic, organisational change, laying out their grand vision for the future.

Who will carry it out? Directors with CVs surprisingly similar to those of their predecessors.

And the next set of knives will be carefully tended to in time for Christmas 2016.

Would you like to make a confession? Absolute discretion guaranteed. Send yours to confessions@standard.co.uk