I have worked in organisations with ExCo members whose
complaint is that they don’t have anybody available to do a specific
something. They need someone with the capacity to
resolve the problem, but how does the searcher identify someone with the
capacity?
It needn’t even be the six degrees of separation thing. I know that the person with skills is almost at
their fingertips. It’s like they have
their hand in the fish pond but don’t know that their fingers are millimetres
away from the trout.
The interim manager is the trout. Here the analogy falls down, because we want
to get caught. Like most interims, I’ve
been working for a long time. So I’ve
done a huge variety of things. It’s got
to the stage where, frankly, I’m drawing on a large array of skills, but use
them in a different mix each time.
So what’s the value that I, and many interims, bring? In my most flippant moments I have been known
to quote a chap called Woodrow: that I have “the
capacity to attain capacity”. This does
not go down well with junior recruiters; so I have stopped saying it. Although that does not stop me from thinking
it.
What I mean is that if you (ExCo person) throw a problem at
me: I will work out what to do with it.
Then I will roll-up my sleeves and get it done. I don’t need to demonstrate that I have
resolved that particular problem before, but I can show that I have
successfully sorted-out a wide variety of problems.
Last year I had dinner with a potential client and her Mr
Fix-it. After the starter they outlined
their problem. Frankly they were both
woolly when explaining this problem. The
underlying question was how to stop a major client making lots of noise about
something which was distracting everybody up to the board of directors.
She wanted this thing fixed.
I got the job. In the first days
I got to understand the problem, but I didn’t have the faintest idea how to
resolve it. What she and Mr Fix-it had
spotted was that I had the capacity to sort it
out. Which I did. How I got from problem identification to a
set of solutions I do not know. But I did
– and (by the way) I got a substantial follow-on piece of work.
I knew that I had sorted-out complicated things before. I knew that if I thought about it, and talked
it through a few times with the client and her people, that I’d come-up with a
solution and a plan. I also had the
confidence to roll my sleeves up and sell-in and run the plan.
That is what I mean by the capacity to attain capacity. That’s the value good interim managers
bring. In fact, the value that anybody
brings who is any use. So what is it
that enables a hiring manager to identify that you have the capacity to attain
the capacity? A referral? Your CV?
Penetrating interview questions?
What? I’d like to know please.
With thanks to Alan Greenwood, our new guest blogger who will be posting regular insights into various subjects surrounding interim management and the ever changing recruitment landscape.
Alan has over 30 years experience in the Financial Services industry with Citibank in Europe and for various consultancies. For the last 12 years he has been an interim manager and has a track record of delivering significant business transformation projects in the UK and internationally.
To discuss how we can help with any recruitment requirements, please call 01423 704153 or email steven.wynne@macallaminterim.com
