Interim Manager: Let’s Bust the Myths! – Antoine Grenet, Partner, Grant Alexander – Executive Interim, for Les Echos

At a time when we lament the fragility of our industrial fabric, the case of this beautiful French mid-sized industrial company (ETI) should make us rejoice.

The challenge it faces is that of hypergrowth, which crowns the vision of its founders, the strategy of its leaders, and the work of its teams. A source of lasting instability, this situation requires an essential scaling-up.

A transformation that calls for numerous adjustments, in particular the revision of processes in both management and communication. Not to mention that premises must also be adapted, the regional factory expanded or renovated, and equipment and IT tools upgraded.

Recruitments follow one another, and the demands for training and integration increase. With an IPO on the horizon, a new chapter is to be written.

Deep Change in a Few Months

Large French SMEs and ETIs, which support the vitality of our economy and experience such pivotal development periods, are more numerous than one might think. To evolve successfully, they cannot rely solely on advice, however sound it may be. They rather need to turn to a professional experienced, on a recurring basis, in transformation situations.

Through their talent, expertise, operational experience, as well as their analytical sharpness, foresight, and temperance, the interim manager brings a unique added value. Their strengths make them capable of instilling deep change in the company within a few months, affecting its organization, processes, and sometimes even its culture. This is far from the clichés surrounding this profession.

“Augmented” Management

Restructuring, closure of a site or subsidiary, vacancy of an executive position following a sudden departure… For many, even today, the interim manager – a “firefighter” executive at the end of their career – would somehow only do the “dirty work” before leaving. This restrictive vision of their mission does not reflect its full scope and diversity.

By adding complementary skills, the ability to connect with teams, listen, transmit, mobilize, take a step back, and project forward, the interim manager becomes the lead climber of an “augmented” management.

Their intervention helps energize governance at a crucial moment in the company’s life, eager to implement one or more ruptures, reinvent itself, or adapt its business model.

Increasingly Proactive Missions

Innovations and changes, notably technological and societal, drive organizational transformations. The development of remote work, for example, requires thinking “connection” before “workplace.” The quest for greater freedom, coupled with a better work-life balance, becomes a requirement. And the search for productivity is thus replaced by that for “effectiveness” or “efficiency.”

All companies face competitiveness challenges. Immutable and closed organizations give way to a more agile “project” approach, articulated around a powerful ecosystem and better suited to a changing and unstable context where immediacy prevails.

In full (r)evolution, the use of an interim manager – a real one! (one does not improvise as an interim manager) – with a hybrid profile, a fresh perspective, and freelance status, takes on full meaning and strategic dimension.

Especially since their mission is no longer only reactive; it is increasingly proactive. And the assessment of their intervention is no longer solely quantitative, but also qualitative.

The question is therefore no longer which companies use an interim manager, but rather which ones can still do without one.

Tribune published in the Leadership & Management section of Les Echos, July 22, 2024.