The Shape of Interim Management To Come
Posted by Bernie Ritchie & Dr Peter Wolf on Dec 10, 2009

In November 2009, the CBI in the UK released a highly important trends document entitled The Shape of Business: The next ten years. They predict that "the business environment of the next decade will be significantly different to what might have been expected just two years ago". In response, businesses, they say, will respond across the organisation, "moving to a more flexible, collaborative and leaner model". This drive towards flexibility will see a significant number of businesses move to a new employment model. From now on, most businesses will reduce the core of their permanent staff and boost their usage of a greater number of freelancers, consultants and temporary workers. The opportunity for skilled interim managers could not be more acute, but the interim roles will by no means be easy.

In this guest blog post for Management Sushi, Dr Peter Wolf kicks off a mini-series of blog posts looking at the Sharp End of Interim Management. In his first piece, he looks at the significant amount of preparation required before the First Day. His next piece will look at the implications around the First Week. As he says in his piece, interim management is certainly "not for the fainthearted"!

Before we get started, here a few useful links that give you a wider sense of interim management practice. Nick Robeson, CEO of interim management provider Alium Partners talks about their approach to interim management solutions provision while Practicus Interim Management provide a useful insight via a case study of a typical and challenging interim management remit. Finally, Simon Berry of Interim Assignment gives some tips on what to think about when considering a career in interim management. Check out also the latest Schumpeter column in this week's Economist [Talent on Tap : 11 December 2009] which shows how the fashion for temps has now reached the executive suite.

OK, so without further ado here's Peter Wolf with the first of his Interim Management Sharp End series. Take it away Peter ..... !

INTERIM MANAGEMENT - LIFE AT THE SHARP END: PART 1

Not for the fainthearted .... !

For the past thirteen years I had been working as a management consultant and interim manager in Switzerland, France, Germany and the UK. Therefore, this is a practitioner's view about change management under aggravated conditions typical in interim management situations.

When you work as an interim manager you inevitably end up working for companies which have a problem or two, either their profit and liquidity had gone south - sometimes over years, sometimes quite rapidly - they have a blatant leadership problem or in the best case scenario, there is a vacancy due to illness or accident which has to be filled immediately for a limited period of time. In any case, it is bit like parachuting into the jungle, not knowing which of the swamps and wild beasts you read about will expect you. A union lady once asked me: "Now that you have been flown in here, what are you going to do about it?" and a manufacturing director in France, with French eloquence: "Eh bien, monsieur, est-ce que les choses vont changer du brut au brutal?" In both instances a mixture of fear and reservation was tangible.

With ample experience in the health care sector and pharmaceutical industry I compare the company's situation with a patient sitting in a consultant's hospital surgery, waiting to be diagnosed and treated. The difference of course is that the company speaks with many voices and what's more, most of those voices have their own hidden agenda. A patient has usually seen a GP before being referred to the specialised doctor for his disease. Hence, there is already a diagnosis albeit sometimes the wrong one. The company has its bunch of GPs, too, namely the auditors, the banks and sometimes a strategy consultant who needs a guy implementing the strategy change by applying some surgery. And, the quality of the initial diagnosis differs widely. Whichever metaphor you use to describe the situation, you need to be a quick adapter and to have a keen survival instinct.

Before the First Day

Preparation is paramount. Apart from information gathering about the situation there are a number of issues which have to be clarified:

• 
  Set-up of the assignment. This is important not only because it defines how the employees view you and the clout you will have but also because of your legal exposure. Not surprising, the higher up the hierarchy, the riskier the situation for the interim manager. You will need to build in some safeguards in your contract (financial authority and type of decisions which need board approval) and the company needs to cover you in their D&O insurance policy. To your dismay you will sometimes discover they do not have one, but that is another story.
• 
  Know the expectations of the stakeholders. Banks, shareholders and management can have quite different views about what should be done depending on their particular stake in the company.
• 
  You need to get a picture of the situation as detailed as possible. So, speak to as many parties beforehand as possible to know the expectations and more important, the motives behind them.
• 
  Layoffs: Careful about employment law regulations and procedures. Your case has to be watertight.
• 
  Communication! I cannot stress enough the fact of a communication strategy with clear statements and an unambiguous language about the situation of the company, the objectves to be achieved with the interim manager. Part of this strategy is a script which details at length the actions of the days immediately before and after your start in the company. If the funds of the company permit it, the help of a communication consultant is recommended.
• 
  As everybody can imagine, time is of the essence. It's always critical as Deanne Earle quite rightly wrote in her recent blog on Management Sushi - but never more so than if a company is in.

Next time about we'll talk about the first week and the confirmation of diagnosis.

 
Peter is an interim manager, management consultant and entrepreneur. After an international career in life sciences industry working for Swiss and US multinational groups he started his own company, Management Support, in 1996 in Basel/Switzerland. Since then he had consulted with numerous clients in industry, the health care sector and services. As an interim manager he helped change organisations in difficult circumstances, optimised business processes as a project manager and consultant and co-founded companies in the biotech and service sector, with successful trade exits and an IPO. He holds a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Berne and an MSc in Business Studies from Warwick University.

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