Originally when an organisation needed external senior level help to help with transition or change, the only option was to engage experienced management consultants. Typically the consultant’s role was to advise, guide, recommend or facilitate and most importantly to persuade the client to accept their recommendations. Implementation of these recommendations was not in their remit, this was the responsibility of their client team. To this end consultants are utilised by the client to help their management decide between a number of strategic options; either to :- acquire or divest; expand or consolidate; centralise or decentralise; outsource or integrate or perhaps to validate a number of alternative strategies.
During the last ten years or so a different phenomenon has emerged – board level ‘Interim Management.’ ‘Interims’ were utilised initially as turnaround managers, often in high profile rescues. The recession during the nineties opened up this market further, generating candidates and furthermore ‘opportunities.’ During this time a new breed of ‘Interim’ was being recognised - the senior professional ‘Interim Management Executive,’ specialising in change and transition management. This group is motivated by the challenge of change. They are often financially independent and are not between jobs, rather choose to move from assignment to assignment. Given the right opportunity and if very carefully selected, they can add value to the business very rapidly.
‘Interims’ are required for various roles and are preferred choice over consultants.
Where a client has a critical vacancy pending recruitment. For instance if a client requires a Senior Executive, this can often take around six months or more and often the client cannot afford to wait.. The primary requirement in this instance is continuity of day-to-day line management to ensure business momentum is maintained. Candidates must be immediately available and suitably over-qualified to be credible and effective from day one; thus enabling the client to be presented with an outsider’s view of the business and to achieve some rapid deliverables. The ‘Interim’ has no career aspirations with the client, they’re able to think and act quite objectively and take unpopular decisions if necessary.
‘Interim Executives’ have ideally been used for crisis management or turnaround situations. This is where the ‘Interim Manager’ can offer an ideal solution – as they are an – ‘outsider’ and as such are able to focus solely on the problem at hand and can also be a heavy hitter, specialising in turnarounds. Time is vital as the business would, inevitably, be running out of money and be in imminent danger of being put into receivership. There is almost no time to review the situation. Immediate action is required to save the business. The ‘Interim’ will review and then plan and implement, while at the same time achieving ‘quick wins’ wherever possible. The approach would be pragmatic, focused on short term cash flow and day-to-day survival, whilst building a medium-term plan. A very ‘hands-on’ approach is required; this is definitely not a typical role for a management consultant.
There are many planned change situations in which the client recognises the need to import additional management skills and experience. Until recently this would have been the exclusive domain of the management consulting firms. Consultants would inject their expertise and clients would have the added security of making decisions, backed by ‘blue-chip’ recommendations. The management consulting firms have tailored their expertise accordingly and would offer a broad spectrum of services, from the totally strategic to the more highly technical. Employing the brightest graduates and generating much of the ‘thought leadership’ behind new business methods. Unfortunately few of their employees would have had line management experience and the firms would have been critised that their clients were left with little more than a detailed report, responsibility being left with the client for making the changes recommended and for acquiring the necessary skills.
Meanwhile ‘the pool’ of ‘Interim’ talent has increased in size and quality, a large number of U.K. business leaders realised that professional ‘Interim Managers’ can be used for much more than filling a critical vacancy. Clients have found that ‘Interims’ are an effective strategic weapon to gain competitive advantage, through rapid and lasting change. They bring in a refreshing degree of objectivity and prove to be excellent at building and leading internal teams and managing external suppliers – including consultants! ‘Interims’ work from within, leading the business team and achieving much greater ‘buy in’ to changes. Changes introduced
In this way are far more resilient than those of an outside agency. Importantly, therefore, management is not outsourced to a third party. Finally, ‘Interims’ are available at a fraction of the cost of management consultants. ‘Executive Interims’ are no longer viewed as a distress purchase of last resort, rather as a valuable new resourcing option for accelerating the rate of change. This is selected to champion the change process and to focus single mindedly on delivery.
The attributes of ‘Interim Management’ and consultancy differ enormously, both in style and content. If the client is seeking a practitioner to ‘make things happen’ winning co-operation of staff, then an ‘Interim’ would be far more appropriate; rather than a consultant who would provide analysis and ideas. A combination of both services could provide the ideal solution. Nowadays ‘Interim Management’ is increasingly displacing consultants in their key markets. Highly skilled ‘Interim Executives’ offer clients a ‘fast track’ method for achieving real and substantial change, based on ‘hands on’ experience. Results are achieved quickly and for less cost. Having an ‘Interim Manager’ you receive what you pay for – with a consultant you buy from the experts, but then have a trainee doing the job.
Clients are beginning to realise that it is possible to hire an excellent ‘Interim Candidate’ for a few months on highly competitive terms, in order to manage a programme of transition or to accelerate change, rather than for mere usage of ‘plugging a gap’ in an organisation, while recruitment proceeds. It falls on the client to select an ‘Interim’ provider very carefully. A specialist provider who should hand-pick the right ‘Interim Executive’ who is able to deliver more than the basic brief. The client should then feel confident that they have an advantage with ‘Interims’ as they gain the benefit of having an outsider with a great deal of experience in handling change, coupled with the fact that it is roughly half the cost of having management consultants.
J Hadley writes on behalf of Executive Interims - Supply Chain Practice. See: http://www.executive-interims.co.uk
