Prior to my career as an interim manager, while working as a management consultant, I learned by practical experience that there can be three honest reasons for a company to bring in an external consultant:
- To acquire or at least utilise specialist knowledge that they do not have or do not want to maintain internally,
- to supplement insufficient capacity, in particular to enable change activities and
- to obtain an unbiased external view of the internal situation, possibly combined with the added value of positioning in the market compared to others
And then there are a number of not-so-honest, not-so-decent reasons to use external expertise to fuel clandestine underground activities in internal turf wars, to cover up one's own inaction in emergencies, to throw a competitor out of the race for the top ... There are more such cases that even a sick mind can imagine.
To be honest, I had no idea at first, but I had to learn quickly.
Then, when I entered the arena of interim management, I came across a similar dualism of perception and reality that I would like to share with you.
1 Unpleasant discoveries
Managing the programme to centralise 25 regional instances of an outdated core banking system and replace it with a new and modern system was a daunting but prestigious task. Good thing they hired some additional, qualified resources. It should be doable, I thought.
Beneath the visible surface, however, the iceberg had an enormous base of invisible challenges that were waiting to be solved as a prerequisite for success.
- The 25 instances were in a widely different shape, of various versions, were used in a variety of different ways according to very distinct processes. As customers in den regions had diverse preference regarding the consumed banking products, different functionality was prevalent there too.
- Availability and security, while not great and often bemoaned, were tolerable due to distributed risk - but a significant boost was required with centralisation. Business continuity management, standard operating procedures, cyber security all required a substantial improvement.
- My assignment, I learnt, was not the first. A few predecessors had tried before me - and failed. Nurturing the hope of joint success in the now exhausted team turned out to be no easy task.
In short, it turned out that there would be a decent chance to have some fun.
2 Brilliant numbers – hidden debts
After a few years had passed, I had a second chance to shine - or fall into the trap ...
A manager of a professional services department with around 60 employees at a software provider for public transport suddenly threw in the towel and resigned. Very soon, a new, promising next-generation product was due to be launched on an impatiently waiting market. All the financial figures reported to the head office looked good to excellent, perhaps a little too good.
Only a few final tests needed to be carried out before the company's new pride and joy could be released into the wild.
This time I insisted on a 6 weeks analysis. Also, I demanded to add two more colleges, who were experienced seniors but have kept up with newest methodologies at the same time – a rare combination. A gut feeling at the beginning told me that, if there is more to it than meets the eye, I alone will not be able to cope with the challenges of all those hidden layers.
And, as it turned out, there indeed was more to it.
- Those “few final tests” were dramatically understaffed regarding team size and skills. This critical phase was squeezed into a ridiculously tight schedule,
- No one had any ideas about how many flaws were to expect nor how to estimate them, the application of error models was unknown,
- As development was usually behind schedule, necessary refactoring steps were postponed or skipped altogether, resulting in a now flawed architecture. As a result, a huge amount of technical debt had accumulated over the years.
- As if this were not enough, recriminations and mutual accusations within the team had led to distorted communication and, in some areas, a toxic culture of cooperation,
- Almost superfluous to mention that outdated methods were used in development, maintenance and project management,
- Customers had also adjusted their sensitive antennae. They now felt increasingly uncomfortable, as on-site visits revealed.
The list could go on, but the top management had no idea: mistakes happen, no software is free of ‘bugs’. Why can customers never be satisfied?
3 Operations eats up your time
In my 3rd interim assignment, I was tasked with market research, evaluation, selection, purchasing and introduction until go-live of a major new infrastructure software. I was more experienced now, was well-equipped with my seven-steps procedure at hand and in a good mood.
And yet, as my predecessor in that role had left the company all in a sudden in a kind of panic mode, I found there a great confusion under the heavens. Of course, as a minor side-task, hardly worth mentioning, operational business had to be supervised meanwhile.
I turned out that a lousy data quality combined with non-existent process definitions and subterranean skills of the understaffed team the BAU (Business as usual) or business operations took up to 80% of my available time. Hasty implementation of some makeshift semi-automation through scripting and office software accounted for another 15%, leaving a mere 5% for the obligation I was contracted for.
Meanwhile however I had learned that an interim manager is internal, means he may act from inside, influencing decisions about budget, goals and resource allocation in general. In the end playing this card saved me by allowing me to contract a consultant to support me in the more generic and hence outsourceable tasks.
4 Those experiences left me wondering.
What had happened there? Was I deliberately lied to about the true nature of the job? Did my clients intend to lure you into a trap? Or did they themselves truly and sincerely believe what they were telling me about the current situation? Did they only see the tip of the iceberg and didn't even recognise the threats lurking beneath the surface? Or did they prefer not to look so closely? After all, everything has always gone well so far, as the figures ‘prove’.
When it comes to interim management, the prevailing narrative is ‘bridging a vacancy’. It is generally assumed that a manager of an important company function suddenly drops out for some reason. It may take some time for a new manager, the right one, to be appointed and for him/her to quickly familiarise with the new role. Meanwhile the gap needs to be filled. This capacity-related need is seen as the main reason by those who have less to do with these circumstances - and in some rare cases this general understanding even corresponds to reality.
The expertise argument like in the consulting business also applies here, but in conjunction with the expectation of execution. And finally, sometimes it even happens that the willingness to do the work differently this time, e.g. changing management practices to Lean or Agile, leaves no choice but to hire the right person for this difficult task to lead through a turbulent time - until the dust settles.
More often than not, however, it quickly becomes apparent that there is more to it.
The ignored debts, the hidden layers, which also need to be worked on, do indeed exist. Rarely is it the case that nobody has seen them. In most cases, colleagues have a good idea of the capabilities and possibilities of their own organisation. They may just underestimate the size and impact.
But the prophets are not well received in their own organisation. Every bearer of bad news is accused of being secretly self-serving. They deliver uncomfortable truths anyway, which would usually lead to significantly more effort, higher costs and later deadlines. Management would prefer not to hear any news at all, unless it is good news. So, a kind of ‘court reporting’ creeps in: The figures that are reported upwards look good. But underneath, the problems continue to smoulder - until at some point they can no longer be hidden.
The conclusion is: Nobody wants to lure you into a trap or is deliberately lying to you. Rather, self-deception, cosy illusions and distorted or even muted communication or traditional ignorance often lead to an unpleasant surprise.
So you better be prepared for a surprise once you dig a little deeper.
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