I have often wondered how much e-mail has increased efficiency. But then after about 30 seconds into the exercise I stop and remember the thousands of lost hours of the office typist (pre-word processor), typing and re-typing memos that had been dictated to her by her boss, to be sent to managers who took little or no notice of them.
But last weekend my brother-in-law told me the amazing true story of life in a modern hospital. My brother-in-law works in the technical department ‘Facilities’ as it is sometimes known. He and a colleague had agreed that the only way they could solve the problem they were facing was to shut off the water supply for two hours, while the necessary repair be carried out.
Following the rules of the Hospital an email had to be sent out to the entire workforce informing them of the planned outage. A meeting was set up with those who responded to discuss the impact of the impending outage. 10 people came to the meeting, each representing their department and its interests. The impact analysis debate, including agreement on the best way forward lasted over two hours. The outcome was that buckets of water had to be filled and placed next to every WC. Each department was to have an additional supply of bottled water and every hand basin was to have a 5 litre bottle of water under it for use during the outage.
It took two man days to distribute the water in anticipation. When the outage was over, which lasted 1 hour 35 minutes, the team had to go around the hospital collecting all the buckets and bottles of water. Surprise, surprise, not a single bucket of water was used, neither was the bottled water. During the outage my brother in law’s team received two phone calls asking when the water would be re-connected. Now you might think that being a hospital, this is normal and that perhaps there are important medical machines relying on mains water? But you would be wrong. In this hospital, like all others, machines requiring water have their own sterilized supplies coming from their own sources.
So why all the fuss? Well in the ‘good old days’ before e-mail when the technical team wanted to cut off the water, they just did it. And when people phoned to report that there was no water on their floor, they simply said “Yes, sorry about that but we have a problem down here, we’re fixing it right now please be patient, we are doing all we can”. 45 minutes later everything was back to normal and the technical team were heroes because they repaired the problem! Oh how times have changed…
Personally I love e-mail it’s liberated business and communication beyond all boundaries, but it comes at a cost, just like live news stories and instant stocks and shares prices information.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
What’s your Curriculum Vitae worth?
This week, more than many in recent weeks, has been filled with reading, re-writing and advising on CV’s. I guess it shouldn’t do, but it does amaze me just how bad many people’s CV’s are. I have met many talented and quite brilliant people, but when it came to their CV’s you would not recognize almost anything about them, even their photograph’s are often so bad, you would think they belonged to someone else.
If you imagine that you are worth 200KEuro per year, then I think your CV should match your client’s expectations. So what makes a good CV? What is a good CV Worth?
Good CV’s tell a story about a person. They entice the reader into discovering more about the author. Even if the CV might not be a perfect ‘fit’, it should raise enough interest to want a client to meet a candidate anyway. A good CV can make the difference between being pre-selected or not, it gives it’s author the choice between opportunities, it can add at least 20% more to the author’s day rate.
Anyone who has had to review lots of CV’s will tell you that it is a boring job, trying to select from the criteria of a CV only, is very time consuming. Even a strong personal recommendation followed up with a poor CV can often be enough to dissuade a potential client. Last year I had to almost beg a client to see a candidate of mine, knowing he was good but his CV did not do him justice. I said “John, don’t pay the CV any mind, just see him. If you don’t want him after one hour, I’ll buy you an expensive lunch, to compensate for your wasted time.” But this behavior is ridiculous because normally we have all the time in the world to prepare a CV. After all our CV is our passport through our careers. It’s the full length version of our business cards.
I try to always have a full, short and mini CV ready and up to date at all times. Within 15 minutes my full CV is ready to go out the door.
The lay out of a full CV should have your personal contact information at the top (no mention of children’s or pets names please). The contact details should be followed by a very brief (Six lines max) synopsis of who you are and what you are looking for. In short, what added value you can bring to your prospective employer.
Next your CV should have a brief overview of all your major assignments (if you are over 40 or have had many assignments to mention in an overview, just take the last five years). After the overview, your CV needs to cover your employment history in detail. This section should flow nicely and be informative, with each assignment focusing on a different aspect of your skill sets.
Next comes your education, courses, and relevant trainings, then at the end just a little bit about yourself, who you are your hobbies, and perhaps information about your psychometric profile etc.
A note of caution: in some countries/cultures, the use of a photograph on a CV is discouraged. This is to avoid any possible racial discrimination. People can be too easily dissuaded by a photograph and obviously there is a natural bias for a happy, smiling face. But I guess if you want a book-keeper, who will working mainly on their own all day checking account balances, then a Cameron Diaz smile might not be essential?
If you imagine that you are worth 200KEuro per year, then I think your CV should match your client’s expectations. So what makes a good CV? What is a good CV Worth?
Good CV’s tell a story about a person. They entice the reader into discovering more about the author. Even if the CV might not be a perfect ‘fit’, it should raise enough interest to want a client to meet a candidate anyway. A good CV can make the difference between being pre-selected or not, it gives it’s author the choice between opportunities, it can add at least 20% more to the author’s day rate.
Anyone who has had to review lots of CV’s will tell you that it is a boring job, trying to select from the criteria of a CV only, is very time consuming. Even a strong personal recommendation followed up with a poor CV can often be enough to dissuade a potential client. Last year I had to almost beg a client to see a candidate of mine, knowing he was good but his CV did not do him justice. I said “John, don’t pay the CV any mind, just see him. If you don’t want him after one hour, I’ll buy you an expensive lunch, to compensate for your wasted time.” But this behavior is ridiculous because normally we have all the time in the world to prepare a CV. After all our CV is our passport through our careers. It’s the full length version of our business cards.
I try to always have a full, short and mini CV ready and up to date at all times. Within 15 minutes my full CV is ready to go out the door.
The lay out of a full CV should have your personal contact information at the top (no mention of children’s or pets names please). The contact details should be followed by a very brief (Six lines max) synopsis of who you are and what you are looking for. In short, what added value you can bring to your prospective employer.
Next your CV should have a brief overview of all your major assignments (if you are over 40 or have had many assignments to mention in an overview, just take the last five years). After the overview, your CV needs to cover your employment history in detail. This section should flow nicely and be informative, with each assignment focusing on a different aspect of your skill sets.
Next comes your education, courses, and relevant trainings, then at the end just a little bit about yourself, who you are your hobbies, and perhaps information about your psychometric profile etc.
A note of caution: in some countries/cultures, the use of a photograph on a CV is discouraged. This is to avoid any possible racial discrimination. People can be too easily dissuaded by a photograph and obviously there is a natural bias for a happy, smiling face. But I guess if you want a book-keeper, who will working mainly on their own all day checking account balances, then a Cameron Diaz smile might not be essential?
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Contact Points – Running Projects just like Singapore Airlines
This week I was having lunch with one of Belgium’s captains of industry. After we finished talking about our respective books and careers, my lunch companion told me that he had ‘made a difference’ in his organization by taking on board the Singapore Airlines philosophy of ensuring that every contact his team made with their customers was analyzed, scored for effectiveness and then seen how it could be improved. In his case his customers were his companies employees, all X thousands of them, as he is their HR Director. This got me thinking….
If Singapore Airlines have recognized 150 contact points with their customers, from purchasing a ticket to saying goodbye at the destination airport and if they have optimized each one so that it is better than their competitors, then no wonder ‘Singapore Airlines’ is the most appreciated airline in the world. So why don’t I apply it to my projects?
Obvious points of contact are with:
• Potential team members during recruitment
• Team members once recruited (passing in hallways, meetings, lunches, emails, reports, telephone conversations etc)
• Client contacts (sponsors and project board members)
• Project suppliers
• Project financiers etc. etc.
The idea is that one must improve the experience for the receiving party, so much so, that they always come back for more. For recruitment, I have tried to adopt this attitude for a long time. After all when you interview an interesting candidate you want them to choose you and not someone else.
But this idea can be extended and extended until you go mad trying to flatter and please everyone. For example, apparently Singapore Airlines cabin crew have to look after 10 customers each (I guess this only applies to Business and Premier Plus), and each crew member needs to know their customer’s names off by heart. The idea is that the Steward or Stewardess’s first contact points begins with “oh, you must be Harley Lovegrove?, Welcome on board!” They know my name because on the inside of their left palm they have a little list of names of their passengers with their seat numbers – hence the need for the “you must be line” – because I guess often people are sitting in the wrong seat at first! Although this attention to detail gives the passenger the ‘rock star’ feeling, one can not help feeling cheated by it, it’s all a bit false.
However, I am now beginning to re-examine all aspects of my contact points, especially those that I know could be improved. After all the benefits of obtaining loyalty, can be very beneficial, as long as I do not go mad in the process! I just need to find a place where I can buy sticky labels to fix to the palms of my hands. Mind you I’ll need to fix them to the inside of my jacket too ;-)
If Singapore Airlines have recognized 150 contact points with their customers, from purchasing a ticket to saying goodbye at the destination airport and if they have optimized each one so that it is better than their competitors, then no wonder ‘Singapore Airlines’ is the most appreciated airline in the world. So why don’t I apply it to my projects?
Obvious points of contact are with:
• Potential team members during recruitment
• Team members once recruited (passing in hallways, meetings, lunches, emails, reports, telephone conversations etc)
• Client contacts (sponsors and project board members)
• Project suppliers
• Project financiers etc. etc.
The idea is that one must improve the experience for the receiving party, so much so, that they always come back for more. For recruitment, I have tried to adopt this attitude for a long time. After all when you interview an interesting candidate you want them to choose you and not someone else.
But this idea can be extended and extended until you go mad trying to flatter and please everyone. For example, apparently Singapore Airlines cabin crew have to look after 10 customers each (I guess this only applies to Business and Premier Plus), and each crew member needs to know their customer’s names off by heart. The idea is that the Steward or Stewardess’s first contact points begins with “oh, you must be Harley Lovegrove?, Welcome on board!” They know my name because on the inside of their left palm they have a little list of names of their passengers with their seat numbers – hence the need for the “you must be line” – because I guess often people are sitting in the wrong seat at first! Although this attention to detail gives the passenger the ‘rock star’ feeling, one can not help feeling cheated by it, it’s all a bit false.
However, I am now beginning to re-examine all aspects of my contact points, especially those that I know could be improved. After all the benefits of obtaining loyalty, can be very beneficial, as long as I do not go mad in the process! I just need to find a place where I can buy sticky labels to fix to the palms of my hands. Mind you I’ll need to fix them to the inside of my jacket too ;-)
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Why are there so few women interim managers?
That was the opening question recently posed to me by Erika Racquet, a renowned journalist working for Belgium’s top financial news paper De Tijd. She had read my top ten attributes required of an interim manager and commented that women generally had most of them in abundance, so why were there so few of them?
To share with my blog readers who have not yet read my book, here is the list:
The ten attributes a good interim manager should have are:
1. A strong desire to solve other people’s problems
2. The conviction that they are the best person to solve them
3. Extreme resilience, the ability to bounce back after any setback
4. A high emotional IQ
5. A good memory for faces and names
6. A clear, structured approach to every task
7. A natural ability to plan
8. A strong sense of priorities
9. The knack to sell anything to anyone
10. A willingness to learn from mistakes
I was taken aback by her question. Unlike her, I had not done my research in advance…(it transpired that this has been a re-occurring theme in her interviews for a few years now). I thought for a while and realized that whatever I replied would, or could, be misconstrued and that I was in dangerously hot water. However, I believed the question was seriously posed, and I was hoping that she genuinely wanted to know the answer and not so much my off the cuff opinion. So I gave it my best. The result was a rather weak answer which was on the lines of; ‘I think it is because although women, in general, may be more intuitive and observe the truth and perceive deeper arguments than men, they are more likely to share their observations with a colleague in the hope that their colleague will act on their behalf. i.e. they don’t want to put themselves in a vulnerable position, to make themselves look foolish, just in case they were wrong. Preferring not to stand up and be counted. (Although this last statement can be said of many men).
But since my interview I have been re-thinking the question and indeed, many women have confronted me with regards to my ‘misogynist’ views. I have been re-asking Erika’s question over and over again, and when you think about it, it is not too difficult to invent other questions that lead you in the same direction. For example: “Why are there so few women entrepreneurs?” A senior (female) manager at a client of mine suggested that possibly it could do with the fact that for many (most) women it is purely down to the fact that they don’t feel the need or ambition to become a senior manager or an entrepreneur. While another female project manager I spoke with put it down to the fact that women, in the majority, are not risk takers to the same extent as men.
In defense of my original answer, where I was genuinely trying to get to the nature of the answer, one has to add that no one is promoted to a position of interim manager. Your boss does not walk into your office one day and say “Lovegrove, I want you to be my next interim manager!” Becoming an interim manager, or even an entrepreneur is a life choice.
Interim Managers are (99%) self employed, they are either ex entrepreneurs who have made some cash and do not want the tedious hassle of running the same company day in, day out. Or, they are ex senior managers that have taken (or been given) early retirement who feel they still have some useful business acumen left in them and don’t fancy sitting around at home all day. These people set up their own businesses, they give themselves fancy titles like ‘Managing Director’ and they print some business cards and become interim managers of their own creation. So logically, the fewer the female senior managers and entrepreneurs, the fewer the female interim managers.
At the Bayard Partnership, out of the +/- 20 strong group, we have three female project managers, all of them are really excellent, often out performing their male counterparts at their client side. Each of the three have the potential to progress to becoming interim managers in the classical sense (i.e. stand in directors) but how many of them will remains to be seen. At Bayard, we are always looking for talented female project and interim managers, they are just hard to find, that’s all.
To share with my blog readers who have not yet read my book, here is the list:
The ten attributes a good interim manager should have are:
1. A strong desire to solve other people’s problems
2. The conviction that they are the best person to solve them
3. Extreme resilience, the ability to bounce back after any setback
4. A high emotional IQ
5. A good memory for faces and names
6. A clear, structured approach to every task
7. A natural ability to plan
8. A strong sense of priorities
9. The knack to sell anything to anyone
10. A willingness to learn from mistakes
I was taken aback by her question. Unlike her, I had not done my research in advance…(it transpired that this has been a re-occurring theme in her interviews for a few years now). I thought for a while and realized that whatever I replied would, or could, be misconstrued and that I was in dangerously hot water. However, I believed the question was seriously posed, and I was hoping that she genuinely wanted to know the answer and not so much my off the cuff opinion. So I gave it my best. The result was a rather weak answer which was on the lines of; ‘I think it is because although women, in general, may be more intuitive and observe the truth and perceive deeper arguments than men, they are more likely to share their observations with a colleague in the hope that their colleague will act on their behalf. i.e. they don’t want to put themselves in a vulnerable position, to make themselves look foolish, just in case they were wrong. Preferring not to stand up and be counted. (Although this last statement can be said of many men).
But since my interview I have been re-thinking the question and indeed, many women have confronted me with regards to my ‘misogynist’ views. I have been re-asking Erika’s question over and over again, and when you think about it, it is not too difficult to invent other questions that lead you in the same direction. For example: “Why are there so few women entrepreneurs?” A senior (female) manager at a client of mine suggested that possibly it could do with the fact that for many (most) women it is purely down to the fact that they don’t feel the need or ambition to become a senior manager or an entrepreneur. While another female project manager I spoke with put it down to the fact that women, in the majority, are not risk takers to the same extent as men.
In defense of my original answer, where I was genuinely trying to get to the nature of the answer, one has to add that no one is promoted to a position of interim manager. Your boss does not walk into your office one day and say “Lovegrove, I want you to be my next interim manager!” Becoming an interim manager, or even an entrepreneur is a life choice.
Interim Managers are (99%) self employed, they are either ex entrepreneurs who have made some cash and do not want the tedious hassle of running the same company day in, day out. Or, they are ex senior managers that have taken (or been given) early retirement who feel they still have some useful business acumen left in them and don’t fancy sitting around at home all day. These people set up their own businesses, they give themselves fancy titles like ‘Managing Director’ and they print some business cards and become interim managers of their own creation. So logically, the fewer the female senior managers and entrepreneurs, the fewer the female interim managers.
At the Bayard Partnership, out of the +/- 20 strong group, we have three female project managers, all of them are really excellent, often out performing their male counterparts at their client side. Each of the three have the potential to progress to becoming interim managers in the classical sense (i.e. stand in directors) but how many of them will remains to be seen. At Bayard, we are always looking for talented female project and interim managers, they are just hard to find, that’s all.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Finding the Hidden Agenda
There are project managers and there are good project managers. But you will also come across, only ever so often, really outstanding project managers. This week I gave a key note speech to the Benelux PMI chapter at their annual event in Rotterdam on the subject of ‘Finding the hidden agenda’. Because it was so warmly accepted I thought I would share with my readers the basic outline of the speech.
My definition of a hidden agenda is:
• Something undisclosed that potentially conflicts with the required outcome
• A plan that you don’t know about…
• A plot that you are unaware of…
The principle is this: If you want to get the most out of a team, then you have to get the most out of all of the individuals who make up that team. You have to have them pull together and form a tight knit group that trust one another and compliment one another with their skills, energy and creativity.
There are thousands of books on motivation and most of us have our own techniques that we try to apply. But the question of the hidden agenda is so often over looked. If you know where each of your team members is going to, what their ideals, visions and dreams are, if you can anticipate what their hidden agendas might be, then (in the best case) you are well on the way to being able to motivate them to producing excellence and (in the worst case) you can see that their hidden agendas may well be on a collision course with your desired outcome and thus can begin to manoeuvre a way to avoid to catastrophe and even to enhance the outcome by finding a way to combine the agendas to compliment one with the other.
I find that hidden agendas are often detected by the following:
1. The simple avoidance of a question
2. When all logical arguments fail to impress
3. A proposal from a sponsor or team member sounds unusually crazy
4. Decisions appear illogical or ‘daft’
5. A lack of interest from those you expect to behave otherwise
6. Abnormal bouts of behavior
Of course there are those people who are generally known to be ‘poker faced’ who are almost impossible to read, but most people (luckily for the PM or IM) are not that good at keeping their hidden agendas hidden. There are times when you simply must though, and experienced interim and project/program managers simply have to, especially in times of:
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Immanent Downsizing
• Handling cases of suspected corruption or other illegal activities
Mostly I find that hidden agendas are only covering a narrow range of possibilities, such as:
• A fear of rejection, incompetence, or being replaced
• Ambition or greed
• Guilt
• Insecurity
Hidden agendas on a one to one basis are something usually containable, but sometimes one comes across, multiple hidden agendas, even in a single project, a typical case could be:
• The project manager wants to close the project on time to hide some outstanding issues
• The operations director wants to keep the project open to book extra (non project) costs
• Finance director wants to put the project on hold until the next financial year to spread CAPEX without overspending this year’s budget
• Marketing wants to add new features (scope creep) to the project to cover up for departmental failure
In these situations it can be very difficult for an interim manager to resolve, even assuming that the hidden agendas somehow become ‘unhidden’.
In any case the outstanding project and interim managers are those who have very high emotional intelligence and can read people and situations very well, thus uncovering what is hidden and doing so in a subtle way that allows them to manipulate the situation into a direction that they choose.
Of course this subject deserves much more, but this is only my blog, not a thesis or essay, your comments and own experiences are very welcome!
More on my views on the hidden agenda can be found in my book, ‘Making a Difference’ published by Lannoo Campus and available for purchase on line here
My definition of a hidden agenda is:
• Something undisclosed that potentially conflicts with the required outcome
• A plan that you don’t know about…
• A plot that you are unaware of…
The principle is this: If you want to get the most out of a team, then you have to get the most out of all of the individuals who make up that team. You have to have them pull together and form a tight knit group that trust one another and compliment one another with their skills, energy and creativity.
There are thousands of books on motivation and most of us have our own techniques that we try to apply. But the question of the hidden agenda is so often over looked. If you know where each of your team members is going to, what their ideals, visions and dreams are, if you can anticipate what their hidden agendas might be, then (in the best case) you are well on the way to being able to motivate them to producing excellence and (in the worst case) you can see that their hidden agendas may well be on a collision course with your desired outcome and thus can begin to manoeuvre a way to avoid to catastrophe and even to enhance the outcome by finding a way to combine the agendas to compliment one with the other.
I find that hidden agendas are often detected by the following:
1. The simple avoidance of a question
2. When all logical arguments fail to impress
3. A proposal from a sponsor or team member sounds unusually crazy
4. Decisions appear illogical or ‘daft’
5. A lack of interest from those you expect to behave otherwise
6. Abnormal bouts of behavior
Of course there are those people who are generally known to be ‘poker faced’ who are almost impossible to read, but most people (luckily for the PM or IM) are not that good at keeping their hidden agendas hidden. There are times when you simply must though, and experienced interim and project/program managers simply have to, especially in times of:
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Immanent Downsizing
• Handling cases of suspected corruption or other illegal activities
Mostly I find that hidden agendas are only covering a narrow range of possibilities, such as:
• A fear of rejection, incompetence, or being replaced
• Ambition or greed
• Guilt
• Insecurity
Hidden agendas on a one to one basis are something usually containable, but sometimes one comes across, multiple hidden agendas, even in a single project, a typical case could be:
• The project manager wants to close the project on time to hide some outstanding issues
• The operations director wants to keep the project open to book extra (non project) costs
• Finance director wants to put the project on hold until the next financial year to spread CAPEX without overspending this year’s budget
• Marketing wants to add new features (scope creep) to the project to cover up for departmental failure
In these situations it can be very difficult for an interim manager to resolve, even assuming that the hidden agendas somehow become ‘unhidden’.
In any case the outstanding project and interim managers are those who have very high emotional intelligence and can read people and situations very well, thus uncovering what is hidden and doing so in a subtle way that allows them to manipulate the situation into a direction that they choose.
Of course this subject deserves much more, but this is only my blog, not a thesis or essay, your comments and own experiences are very welcome!
More on my views on the hidden agenda can be found in my book, ‘Making a Difference’ published by Lannoo Campus and available for purchase on line here
Sunday, September 23, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
What’s the ideal age for an Interim Manager?
“But I was so much older then, I am younger than that now” Bob Dylan
When I was a teenager, I could never quite understand that line from Dylan’s song ‘My Back Pages’, but as I grow older it becomes clearer. In my teens and early twenties I thought I knew everything, there was not much that anyone could teach me. I was not ready to listen. Recently I heard a recruitment manager for VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) talking on the BBC World Service and she was saying that today she is trying to recruit doctors and other professionals in their late 50’s rather than their early 20’s. The reason being that in Africa, as in many continents, people are much more likely to listen to someone older and wiser than themselves. ‘Imagine’, she said ‘the trouble that a young female midwife (who has never had children of her own) might have, trying to persuade a woman older than herself, who probably has already had a few children, the benefits of a particular method of child birth or child after care’. Well, I can tell you that the same is applicable to interim management.
Even if you have been to the very best business school and even if you are rich, with cash ready to invest, you can only speak with theoretical knowledge. A brick layer can explain the relatively simple task of laying bricks. But experience will show you just how tricky it is to make the mortar to the perfect consistency so that it does not fall off the header of the brick before you place it on the wall, let alone have all the qualities that it must have to ensure a good bond for many years to come.
An interim Manager needs a blend of knowledge and experience. He, or she, needs to have witnessed as many as possible differing types of company and business cultures. Or they must stay solely in the narrow experience of a particular kind of company and business sector to which they are very familiar. (I personally believe an interim manager can adapt very quickly to differing industries and sectors but, cultures and environments are much harder to adapt to).
So what is the ideal age for an interim manager? It has to be 50. at 50 you are still young enough to run for the train, to be the first in the office. Your children have almost certainly left home, so working late or in a foreign country is never an issue. At 50 you have enough experience to match it to the scores of management books that you read in your spare time. At 50 you still are very much open to new ideas yet you are old enough to inspire younger people, but not so old that they think you are already dead in the water. At 50 you are still looking for that big assignment, the one that is seemingly impossible but you believe you have the resources to handle. At 50 you have enough friends, business contacts and other resources to be able to get yourself out of any mess. At 50, you are ready to perform on the plateau of the performance graph, not getting better not getting worse. At 50 your memory is still ok and the mild aches and pains you may feel in the morning are still only an inconvenience. By the time everyone else has woken up and eventually arrived in the office, they have disappeared completely.
So why do I write this? Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that my book launch party, roughly coincided with my 50th. birthday, it’s just the culmination of a scientific theory that I have been working on and adapting subtly each year for the past ten years.
If you don’t agree, then you better have a damned good argument ;-)
* The launch Party was for my book ‘Making a Difference’, which was published on 14th. of September 2007
When I was a teenager, I could never quite understand that line from Dylan’s song ‘My Back Pages’, but as I grow older it becomes clearer. In my teens and early twenties I thought I knew everything, there was not much that anyone could teach me. I was not ready to listen. Recently I heard a recruitment manager for VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) talking on the BBC World Service and she was saying that today she is trying to recruit doctors and other professionals in their late 50’s rather than their early 20’s. The reason being that in Africa, as in many continents, people are much more likely to listen to someone older and wiser than themselves. ‘Imagine’, she said ‘the trouble that a young female midwife (who has never had children of her own) might have, trying to persuade a woman older than herself, who probably has already had a few children, the benefits of a particular method of child birth or child after care’. Well, I can tell you that the same is applicable to interim management.
Even if you have been to the very best business school and even if you are rich, with cash ready to invest, you can only speak with theoretical knowledge. A brick layer can explain the relatively simple task of laying bricks. But experience will show you just how tricky it is to make the mortar to the perfect consistency so that it does not fall off the header of the brick before you place it on the wall, let alone have all the qualities that it must have to ensure a good bond for many years to come.
An interim Manager needs a blend of knowledge and experience. He, or she, needs to have witnessed as many as possible differing types of company and business cultures. Or they must stay solely in the narrow experience of a particular kind of company and business sector to which they are very familiar. (I personally believe an interim manager can adapt very quickly to differing industries and sectors but, cultures and environments are much harder to adapt to).
So what is the ideal age for an interim manager? It has to be 50. at 50 you are still young enough to run for the train, to be the first in the office. Your children have almost certainly left home, so working late or in a foreign country is never an issue. At 50 you have enough experience to match it to the scores of management books that you read in your spare time. At 50 you still are very much open to new ideas yet you are old enough to inspire younger people, but not so old that they think you are already dead in the water. At 50 you are still looking for that big assignment, the one that is seemingly impossible but you believe you have the resources to handle. At 50 you have enough friends, business contacts and other resources to be able to get yourself out of any mess. At 50, you are ready to perform on the plateau of the performance graph, not getting better not getting worse. At 50 your memory is still ok and the mild aches and pains you may feel in the morning are still only an inconvenience. By the time everyone else has woken up and eventually arrived in the office, they have disappeared completely.
So why do I write this? Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that my book launch party, roughly coincided with my 50th. birthday, it’s just the culmination of a scientific theory that I have been working on and adapting subtly each year for the past ten years.
If you don’t agree, then you better have a damned good argument ;-)
* The launch Party was for my book ‘Making a Difference’, which was published on 14th. of September 2007
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