GainInstantExperience
19 December 2009
With many young companies now facing unfamiliar problems, taking advantage of experienced interim managers might be the solution, writes Deirdre O’Shaughnessy...
A notable trend of late has been the appointment of seasoned executives to senior corporate roles – recognition, perhaps, from the business world that experience and a few grey hairs have a pivotal role to play in guiding us through choppy and uncharted waters.
Because, after years of virtually uninterrupted economic growth and expansion, we need people who have been through the bad times, remember what it was like, and know how to react. Just as importantly, we need people with the sagacity to recognise that even the deepest recessions have a turning point and that we should actively plan for the upturn even as we struggle with present hardships.
A young economy
A defining characteristic of Ireland’s recent growth surge was the role played by young technologies, young companies, and young managers; operating with boldness and vision in a benevolent climate of growing demand, strong investment, low inflation, historically low interest rates, and almost permanent all-round optimism. A sizeable proportion of our managerial class is now typified by youthful attitudes and attributes that delivered during the good times. But how appropriate are these qualities for the darker climate facing us now?
There are no accurate figures on how many of our present crop of managers were around in the early 1990s, but for many companies it is probably a minority – particularly in IT/communications and certain branches of the financial services sector.
One indicator came last year from the United Kingdom, where the online business school, Pentacle, polled 10 organisations to ask how many of their senior staff held key management positions in the early ‘90s. Some two thirds replied that only a quarter were in office at that time. In other words, a sizeable majority – some 75% – of these companies’ managers have no direct experience of trading through a recession such as this.
The (justifiable) fear from an Irish perspective is that the corresponding figure here is at least comparable with Britain’s, given our relatively younger population and the explosive growth in our employment levels generally. And doing business in a downturn demands a different mindset compared with the steady growth and expansion we’d become accustomed to.
There is a significant psychological element to all this. Those unfamiliar with an economy in reverse gear may be too slow to react to contracting markets and nervous investors, thus worsening the effects of external factors on their organisation’s performance. Or, conversely, they might panic, adopting ‘slash and burn’ tactics in the face of rising costs and harming their longer-term prospects in return for limited short-term gains.
The need for experience
One vital ingredient necessary to steer a measured course through a downturn is the insight that comes with experience. This cannot be applied like an IT ‘fix’. Nor can managers be trained for it, no more than a pilot can ‘learn’ about flying by reading about it. But experience can be bought in as necessary, in the form of living, breathing human beings who have, literally, walked this path before and hence know the route.
This does not have to mean adding more non-executive directors to the board, nor is it a recipe for permanent hiring of new blood (at the very time when you’re trying to cut overheads). The solution lies in availing of an existing pool of highly qualified and experienced interim managers; people with extensive track records who can be called upon for as long as needed (and no longer), and who’ll work flexibly according to the needs of their client. In short, these are people who can operate at executive level – but at a fraction of the cost and with a degree of flexibility that accommodates the needs and objectives of virtually any organisation.
Interim managers
Interim managers are mature, highly qualified, widely experienced individuals with the confidence, knowhow and people skills to work in unfamiliar settings and environments. They are usually over-qualified for the roles they take on, so they hit the ground running and make a net contribution from the outset.
Most of all, many of these managers have honed their skills in ‘pre-boom’ Ireland, a time of recession and underinvestment when survival was the main priority of many corporate entities.
Those with a few grey hairs won’t have suffered the same culture shock of the past 18 months as many younger executives, especially in those companies that were founded and grew up during the mid 1990s and later. The challenge for younger companies and young management teams is to emerge from this recession strong and lean enough to take advantage of the recovery as it arrives. Many will lack the life experience and accompanying breadth of vision necessary for this, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t go looking for it. ‘Instant experience’ is out there: multidisciplined, motivated, capable, affordable, and on standby for those that need it.
From Business and Finance. December 2009