The Interim Manager, a Conduit of Knowledge – an opinion piece by Adélaïde Panhard, Associate Director at Grant Alexander – Executive Interim for Focus RH

A true story: two worlds, two atmospheres. What could a former executive from the automotive industry possibly bring to a craft-based company operating in the world of luxury?
This company, faced with a delicate situation following the sudden departure of its Chief Financial Officer, chose not to rush the recruitment process. Instead, it decided to call on an interim manager. A choice that quickly proved successful, precisely thanks to the latter’s profile and career path.

If this interim manager initially played the role of “firefighter”, able to extinguish the blazes caused by the vacancy of the CFO position, he above all established himself as a strategic facilitator of lasting change, and, more importantly, as a transmitter of knowledge – of both know-how and interpersonal skills – that the teams made their own. This last facet of the mission remains too little known.

A temporary intervention, a lasting impact

Wrongly, many still reduce the role of the interim manager to that of mere crisis management. Admittedly, his or her intervention often takes place in an emergency situation and in response to a specific problem: following the unexpected departure of a senior executive, or in a critical context such as a restructuring. One of the expected outcomes is then to help the company overcome a challenging stage.

But in every case, the primary objective is much broader: it is to ensure the company’s long-term sustainability and performance. This assumes that, if there is a crisis, the leadership should not view it as a short-lived episode to be closed quickly, but rather as a warning signal, a call to make the organisation more resilient. From this perspective, resorting to interim management stems from the decision to seize an opportunity for profound transformation – not a brutal one, but one thought out over the long term, focused on quality and lasting results.

It is therefore time to move beyond the image of the crisis technician, or worse, the fixer of wrongs: the interim manager is a partner, an ally, a craftsman of sustainable collective change. He or she builds solid foundations and supports the organisation in gaining maturity.

From transformation to transmission

The interim manager is chosen for his or her seniority, which manifests itself both in expertise and experience. At times, this may seem “oversized” compared with the company’s immediate needs – and yet this “overqualification” is a considerable asset. It allows him or her to be rapidly effective on operational matters.

Above all, he or she puts all the skills acquired over the course of a career at the service of the teams, strengthening them in their areas of fragility, with the sole objective of achieving collective empowerment. He or she does not adopt a vertical stance: they operate at the same level as the employees, in order to engage them more effectively. They do not seek to impose a pre-defined model: they respect the company culture in order to design a tailor-made framework that enables organisational maturity. They do not come to give a theoretical lecture: they act in a very hands-on way. They do not give lessons: they share best practices, expertise, methods, attitudes, reflexes, technical proficiency, and situational intelligence.

Drawing on experience and an ability to take perspective, the interim manager establishes himself or herself as a vital vector for knowledge transfer. Within a few months, they transmit valuable interpersonal and technical skills, whether in industry or in craftsmanship. They become the generous guardian of a memory that, without them, would be at risk of disappearing.

Read the full opinion piece on the Focus RH website.(in french)