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The Science of Cognitive Load Has Been Established for Forty Years. The Executive Assessment Field Has Not Applied It. Don L. Gaconnet, CSE III Founder & Principal Investigator, LifePillar Institute for Structural Identity Sciences

The Recursive Reliability Effect (RRE; Gaconnet, 2026a) predicts three specific structural properties of self-assessment under load: (1) performance observation cannot distinguish structurally degraded systems from structurally healthy systems because degraded systems compensate to maintain output; (2) the cognitive function most degraded under structural load is metacognition — the self-assessment function itself; and (3) the structural condition is detectable only through i

If the Assessment Keeps Missing the Same Thing, the Problem Is Not the CEO. The Problem Is What the Assessment Measures. Same board. Same executive search firm. Same behavioral assessment methodology. Same personality tests and structured interviews. Three CEOs in seven years. Each one passed the assessment. Each one produced strong results in the first year. Each one degraded in the second. Each one was replaced. The board is not making bad selections. The board is select

The Coach Asks What the Executive Wants to Work On. The Executive Answers From Inside the Problem the Coaching Is Supposed to Solve. The executive has been through coaching. More than once. The first engagement produced clarity and momentum that lasted three months. The second produced a framework the executive still references but no longer follows. The third was a somatic approach — body-based, breath-centered — and it produced a different quality of relief, but the execu