You only get one chance in Interim Management

Some people have been complaining to me that the competition in ‘Making a Difference' is far too tough because you can only submit your advice to the David CEO once! There are some situations in life when you get a second chance (in certain sports for example) but I fail to understand why anyone can imagine that you can listen to someone’s dilemma, read lots of background information and then have the ability to ask an additional question and then expect that if, after a period of time, you are dissatisfied with the advice you gave that you can somehow go back and say ‘sorry David’ I have been thinking about it, the advice I gave you, well I have changed my mind, I think you should do something different!

It’s like a Doctor prescribing an operation and then afterwards saying, ‘oh dear, I think we should have done something different’. I have heard of surgeons amputating the wrong leg, but I can not imagine that trial and error could ever been adopted as a possible way forward.

In life, Interim Managers also only get one chance. The difficulty is that they have to come up with advice that not only makes sense, it also has to be possible to implement and sound attractive to the dominant coalition. That is why the job is so tough!

Obviously the CEO’s dilemma in my book, offers very little information, but the question and answers should give the readers of the blog some additional insight. However the blog readers who have not read all the books nine steps may also be argued as being at a disadvantage.

Tip: The answers to the dilemma that come in early on, are judged less critically as those submitted later in the competition. This is because, as the competition progresses, there is every week more and more information on the situation being published on the blog. The judging panel will be taking this into account.

It might be tough, or even considered unfair by some, but quite frankly, life is like that! When my children were young they sometimes used to complain to me ‘Daddy that’s not fair!’ I always replied ‘You are right, life is not fair and if you go around this planet of ours expecting it to be so, you will always be unhappy and disapointed’. This does not condone cheating, not at all, this does not mean that they should be rude or act antisocially, not at all. All it means is that the challenges that life throws at us, should be seen as just that. Challenges, either we take them on, or we walk away, possibly to return another day, when we are better prepared and in the right frame of mind to deal with them.