Interim Management – Life at the Rapid End of Business – IEC LLC

Today, Cyril Moreau, our CEO, shares his experience as Interim Manager. This insightful view gives you interesting and useful tips on how to prepare for the client company’s expectations and interim assignments.

Not for the faint hearted:

For the past 20+ years I have been working as a Management Consultant and Interim Manager in the USA and other continents such as MEA, Asia and Europe. Therefore, it is a practitioner’s view of change management in interim management situations, typically in dire situations.

When you work as an Interim CEO you essentially end up working for companies that have had a problem or two, either their profits and liquidity went south – sometimes over years, sometimes quite rapidly – they have an obvious leadership problem or, in the best case scenario, a vacancy due to illness or accident that has to be filled immediately for a limited period of time.

With substantial experience in the health care sector and the pharmaceutical industry, I liken the company’s position to a patient sitting in a consultant’s hospital surgery, awaiting diagnosis and treatment. Of course the difference is that the company speaks with multiple voices and what’s more, most of those voices have their own hidden agenda. A patient usually has seen a GP before being referred to a doctor specialized for their illness. Therefore, sometimes there is already a diagnosis even if it is wrong. The company also has group of GPs, i.e. auditors, banks and sometimes a strategy consultant who needs a person implementing the strategy change by doing some surgeries. And, the quality of early diagnosis varies widely. Whatever metaphor you use to describe the situation, you need to be a quick adaptor and have a keen survival instinct.

Before the first day:

Preparation is paramount. Apart from gathering information about the situation, there are several issues that need to be clarified:

• Set-up of assignments. This is important not only because it defines how employees see you and the impact it will have on you, but also because of your legal risk. Not surprisingly, the higher the hierarchy, the riskier the position for the Interim Manager.
• Understand the expectations of the stakeholders. Banks, shareholders and management may have differing views about what should be done depending on their particular stake in the company.
• You need to get an accurate picture of the situation as detailed as possible. So, talk to as many parties as possible beforehand to know the expectations and more importantly, the motives behind them.
• Be careful about the employment law regulations and procedures. Your case must be indisputable.
• As everyone can imagine, time is the essence. This is always important, but even more if a company is in financial trouble or is in a complete disarray. So you have to get your facts together real quick and speed up the pace all the way.

International Executive Consulting LLC guides the mid- to large sized organization in instituting best management and strategies to improve their growth and scale new heights of success in future.