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In research we published last year, over 80% of senior executives we spoke to claimed that they had, in their recent working life, been dissatisfied with the outcomes of a cross functional project or had identified a failure to deliver on project objectives at least once. In a separate piece of research, published in his PhD, Dr Chris Mason of Mindshop separately identified that as few as 30% of organisational change initiatives succeed. From different sources, the two studies say the same thing: change is difficult!

Dr Mason identified that there were three major factors at work: Readiness, Capability and Beliefs.  Capability represents 40% of the “change success” equation based on his deeper work with the high performance, marker companies that achieved almost 80% change success.

Taking the capability issue and looking at our own research, executives identified that quite often they felt that their existing teams did not have the skills and resources to implement the change and worse, often their performance in their core area of responsibility also declined.  So, how can organisations best address this individual and collective capability in the short and long term?

In the long term we have seen in our advisory practice, as has Mindshop around the world, a move to outcomes focused, just in time learning tha

t delivers improved results by learning while working individually and collectively on real business issues via a blended learning solution that includes workshops, coaching/mentoring and online delivery of solutions.

In the short term though, talent just has to be imported. This leads many organisations to, rightly, shy away from expensive permanent hires to address a specific issue – however critical it may be. Selecting top talent remains volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.

Interim Management provides a viable alternative. Differentiated from contracting by a higher level of knowledge, wisdom and experience Interim Managers should really be overqualified for a project task. They should have done it before and be able to hit the ground running motivated by their confidence in their own ability to produce a result faster than a cross functional project team ever can.

The direct and opportunity costs missing out on necessary change are enormous, too high to ignore! Having someone in your organisation to turn to when you want to ensure a project meets objectives does bring the peace of mind that only comes from results.

Australia actually has some of the best conditions for Interim Management to thrive as an alternative without some of the taxation, healthcare and risk management issues that beset this model in the USA and to a lesser extent, Europe. However, we have one of the lowest adoption rates of Interim Management in Western economies, despite a thriving and sometimes overused contracting workforce.

Interim Managers are cost effective, have crucial experience, provide more flexibility and deliver a level of assurance that business leaders seek.

We’ll happily share research with you that explains how/why, along with compelling ROI modelling on how Interim Managers deliver superior results in critical change projects.

Get in touch if you’d like to know more about our research.

Call us on 03 8617 8100

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