There is often a lot of confusion about the meaning of the phrase Interim Manager.

It’s still relatively unknown compared to ‘consultant’ and consultant has probably become the generic word for people who help organisations improve performance and can mean anyone from a solicitor to an accountant.

However, for many, the word consultant carries a lot of baggage. Here are a few not so complementary descriptions about them: “They borrow your watch and tell you the time”, “They’re long on theory but short on practice” They work with you to build solutions, but don’t hang around to see if they work”.

Seriously though, thousands of companies do benefit from both interims and consultants; however, there is a difference.

Any performance improvement project usually has four phases:

1. Analysis: Firstly we need to work out what the real problem is and what the root causes of that problem are.
2. Design: An understanding of the problem will lead us to look for potential solutions and then select the most appropriate one.
3. Implementation: We now need to implement the solution, gaining the commitment of those involved and making all the necessary changes.
4. Maintenance: Finally we need to embed this as the ‘new way’ of working whilst still looking for ways of continuously improving performance.

So perhaps the real question to the client is “where they are in the above process and what input/advice/guidance do they need to make it work or speed things up”.

Only then can the right decision be made on the correct person to get involved based on their own knowledge, skills, experience and preferences.

Research recently conducted confirmed there are interim managers/consultants who may only specialise in consulting, interim management or gap management (e.g. there are some interim managers who only work in the maintenance phase and take on ‘gap’ assignments where for example they may be filling a role whilst the incumbent is on maternity/paternity leave), others may work potentially in all four phases.

So you see, it’s often down to individual choice versus actual requirement. If you’d like to speak to me about an interim or consulting assignment, contact me now.