Occasionally, I host roundtable debates between chief executives. They like to show off, which is tiresome, but eavesdropping on their high-level exchanges is almost always useful.

Last week, I led a working dinner for a different and more interesting group. Each person was leading digital transformation for public or private sector groups, from finance to telecoms to media. Among them were an inventor, a former television producer, a venture capitalist and a couple of computer scientists.

As the only layman, I had expected an evening of forbidding tech talk. Unlike their bosses, though, this group wanted to be frank about the managerial challenges they faced. One described the off-the-record discussion as like a therapy session: Managers Anonymous, perhaps.