Interim Management

Interim Management provides practical advice on how to succeed as an interim manager.

Using his own first-hand experiences, Dennis Russell has written this practical and essential guide for those interested in interim management as a career choice. From how you tailor your CV and market yourself, to case studies and profiles of thirteen interim managers in action. Russell provides a complete and honest insight into interim management.

Interim managers are most definitely not 'between jobs', but are a new breed of 'portfolio worker'. They are trained, professional, temporary managers, hired by organizations that need to increase their management strengths for a short period.

Unlike consultants, they take on full responsibility for the process and the outcome — they manage and do, rather than analyze and recommend. They become part of the client team.

• Part One: The World of the Interim Manager
  1. The world about us
     • A reasoned optimism
     • Nature and definition of interim management
     • Rationalizations create both the opportunity and the resource
     • A human solution to a business problem
  2. Is it for me?
     • 'Permanent employment' is now a myth
     • What are the options?
     • Family, health, psychological and financial considerations
     • Plan to survive — with contribution from John Webster FCIB, ACIS
  3. You as a business
     • Calculating the risk
     • 'Everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much'
     • Thinking commercial
     • Focusing a CV on a tight niche
     • Making a plan
     • Balancing optimism with caution — with contribution from John Webster FCIB, ACIS
  4. Marketing
     • 'A way of delivering delight to clients'
     • The need for instant performance
     • Competition
     • Choosing a niche where you can excel
  5. Selling — and how to enjoy it!
     • Don't talk to strangers — NETWORK
     • Not hunting but farming
     • Turning FEATURES into BENEFITS
     • Never attend interviews
     • 'Been there, done that, got the stripes'
  6. Pricing for profit
     • You are valuable because you are available, flexible and effective
     • The true cost of employment as a daily rate
     • The '1 per cent' factor
     • Pricing consultancy
     • Beginners' discount
     • Pricing agency v. Direct assignments
  7. Negotiating —and when not to
     • Calculate and know what you need
     • Choosing a RANGE
     • Agency v. Direct negotiation
     • Avoid haggling
  8. The interim agency — from the inside
     • What do agencies do?
     • Criteria for entry
     • Stick with members of ATIES
     • Registration and your niche position
     • Database structure and search methods
     • CV updating
     • Know your value
  9. Interim managers — some self-portraits
     • Hugh Davies
     • Tony Robinson
     • Ron Cockings
     • Peter Perry
     • Nick Morgan
     • John Banner
     • Ben Alexander
     • David Bullock
     • Ian Campbell
     • Roger Naylor
     • Mike Smith
     • Jan Scrine
     • Dawn MacQueen
     • 13 totally different people with successful interim manager careers
  10. Doing the work — the easiest part?
      • Six ways in which interim work differs from employed work
      • Making a success of every assignment
  11. Selling, the very idea
      • A credible, useful, cost-effective resource
      • How employers choose an interim and manage the assignment
  12. Assignment briefs, candidates and outcomes
      • Short studies of real assignment briefs, profiles of the interims selected, summary of outcomes
  13. Future imperfect?
      • A selection of currently visible trends in the economi — and their possible impact on the future for interim managers
• Part Two: Appendices
  14. The professional touch
      • Suggestions for choosing and using a bank, an accountant, a pension adviser, an insurance broker, a solicitor
  15. Outplacement — is it worthwhile?
      • What is it?
      • Who pays?
      • How to choose an outplacement service — a 'menu' of services in order of importance — with contributions from John Webster, FCIB, ACIS
  16. Useful contacts and further reading
      • ATIES (the Association of Temporary and Interim Executive Services)
      • Agencies in Holland and the USA
      • Useful reading and contact addresses
  17. Just CVs
      • Elements of a good CV
      • Examples
      • Get it right — and keep it right

Describes in painstaking detail the interim management business.

Not what you really do, or how, but how the industry works and some simplistic advice in how to sell.