Interim Executives acheive goals twenty times faster than permanent senior manaagers

Board level interim executives achieve crucial goals on average twenty times faster than permanent company directors and senior managers.

That is one of the key findings from research carried out by management transition consultancy Corporate Insights Limited following in-depth interviews with interim managers and executives on the database of service provider Boyden Interim Management Limited.

Corporate Insights received questionnaire responses from 650 interim managers and executives, and conducted extensive one-to-one interviews with 20 of them.

For most permanent appointments, senior or board level executives have the first 100 days to manage their transition and prepare for action - typically, interim managers and executives do it in five days, said Anton Fishman of Corporate Insights Limited.

An interim executive - who has joined a business at perhaps as little as a weekís notice - will learn 90% of what he needs to know in his first day in the job. By the end of the first week, that interim would have learned 99% of what he or she needs to know.

They possess an innate ability to employ forensic discovery. They will not make assumptions. They will establish credibility, they will kill rumours about why they are in a business, they will build relationships and engage key staff - all in the first few hours of their assignment.

By day two they will be deep into the process of diagnosing the issues a business may have, identify the root causes and scope the issues. By mid-week they will be clarifying the way ahead, will be seen to be making a difference and will be identifying and delivering quick wins.

And by the end of their first week they will more than likely be re-writing their own brief and going through íthe flipí from analysis to action.

Interim executives do not see themselves as being special or different in operating in this way, they simply cut through, focus and make things happen.

But what enables them to hit so hard and fast?

Nick Robeson, Chief Executive of Boyden, said: A lot of business people simply cannot absorb the new. Interims can. They go out and learn fast, they arrive at their assignments massively well-researched in the market, the audience, the competition, the influences, the product or service - and that business and its people as well.

They learn with alacrity, and they get to the heart of the matter rapidly, with no guesswork. They remain independent from politicking whilst being acutely politically aware - they have the skills, but donít use them.

They have intense toughness and resilience, but great authenticity and self-awareness - being themselves and not playing a part is a crucial marker for observers and participants in their assignment.

But the most striking trait is the sheer pace at which they get things done.

Businesses hire interims because they have - for any of a number of reasons - simply run out of time and need a rapid rate of change to address a challenge, a problem or an opportunity.

Of more than 620 respondents to a question relating to how crucial to the success of an assignment were an interimís actions on his or first day, 582
(93.12%) said those actions were vital, very important or must be well done. 99.2% said getting the first week right was vital, very important or needed to be well done.

However, 70.68% of respondents said that clarifying or re-contracting their brief from the business to which they had been assigned was vital or very important to the overall success of the assignment.

Anton Fishman said: We conducted this research after noting the wide variation in the speed at which senior managers and directors change or progress when presented with new challenges, new roles or new opportunities.

What was deeply noteworthy was their ability to analyse, and then mentally flip into action mode. Those are two very different mental states, with very few business people having the ability to operate in both ways.

Interim executives are much misinterpreted as a business and management talent - but there are many businesses and organisations who are dragging their heels through their decision making: an interim could make a difference to their business in the time it takes that businessí management to come to the conclusion that they need to act.

Corporate Insights Limited is a capability and talent management consultancy working both in the UK and internationally. It integrates business psychology with Change Management. Services are both tactical - resolving immediate individual and team issues - and strategic: ensuring policies, processes and organisational capabilities are in place to manage and leverage the talent pipeline.