Reflections on the Watermark Interim Executive survey 2023
Great report, I love that Watermark invests the time to do this report annually. It sends some strong signal flares for how work is changing, and some mixed messages that reflect changing times. Opinions follow:
Interims add value in challenging the status quo
…in answer to the question, “What would be the biggest issue to influence or disrupt business strategy in the coming year?”, a new answer raced into the top four this year (chosen by 32% of respondents): “Fear of change and ‘old way of thinking’ by leaders”. (p15)
This feels like a ‘Millenials have entered the chat’ moment — I still see leaders who can’t create a PDF or share a googledoc. Later, in the required skills section,
New (and not surprisingly) this year was problem solving at 31%, the ability to analyse a complex situation with incomplete information and find creative solutions. (p20)
Together, these reveals a paradox in the Interim market. The ‘old way of thinking’ forms barriers, with a key reason to hire interims being for tried and tested domain knowledge and functional experience (p16). So while nimble generalist skills are valued, they will find it hard to be hired through categories of CFO and COO, etc. I was a valuable COO interim last year because I could do all the COO stuff but also manage change, risk and systems improvement.
It would seem to me an interim is a perfect way to cary out an experiment with new thinking— without the costs and risks of a permanent hire. How about the Chief Shake It Up Officer and the Chief Finding Creative Solutions Officer?
Yikes aren’t we past this with ‘Digital’ yet?
Ah, you say, what about Chief Transformation Officer?
Chief transformation officer / change director was a close second functional skill requirement at 32%, which is down 9% from last year (41%). We attribute this change to organisations transforming and redesigning their businesses to be more digitally enabled and moving more functions to online-first, which allows them to meet the customer online (for example, retail, services and customer support). (p14)
That the surveyed community talk about the role this way makes me very frustrated. It’s 2023 and ‘digital’ has been around for a generation. This speaks to the above point on out-of-touch leadership.
A so-called digital transformation is no different from building something. It’s tough, complex, has its own methodologies and needs a great leader and team, delivers a strategic goal for the organisation and needs operationalising through people and culture. To earn the name ‘transformation’ it really has to be radical — from the root. It’ll encompass a digital thing as part of a big culture/function/system change. I’d suggest bigger ambitions for what a Chief Transformation Officer should be delivering. This is hinted at on p28, “One third of organisations (31%) accessed Interim Executive talent to assist with the program management of transformation initiatives”, suggesting there is an awareness of transformation being far more than digital implementation.
Egos remain a blocker
The report cites a barrier to interim approaches that blew my mind:
Often the hiring manager can be intimated by a good Interim Executive for fear it will expose them, put their job at risk, or they will have difficulty managing them. This results in this insecure hiring manager and the organisation missing out on the coaching, mentoring and independent advice on offer. Interim Executives are there to help and are not interested in permanent position pro-regression in that organisation — they want to get in, deliver and move on. (p21)
I’d love to see a gender/age/role split on this, because it sounds really old-leader fragility to me. Hire the best you can get, always
Wellbeing should be the foundation, but is seen as problematic
Another tension indicated in the report is between the need to deliver change (growth, customers etc) and fatigue
organisational change fatigue post pandemic is playing into organisational readiness to absorb and embed the change Interim Executives are often brought in to execute. (p21)
We have to recognise cost-of-living / climate emergency / pandemic impacts on people. No interim should be hired unless their approach starts with wellbeing. Because they’ll fail and probably do harm along the way. It is terrifying to me that this hasn’t come up explicitly, though it’s implied in many places (for example, ‘Clear Values’ being desired by 40% of respondents (p31)).
This is a useful diagram, but just like preparing a pitch in consulting, it’s the underwater elements that need to be sought / promoted. I’ll never win a role — and wouldn’t want to — based on domain expertise. I want to be hired by someone who values the EQ, fresh eyes and mentoring etc
Meta-thinking about people in organisations
To conclude, these three segments need to be read together.
…a BANI (brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible) environment (p13)…
With the general trend of decreasing job tenure in Australia, we predict more respondents will continue to place more importance on the nature of work higher than the contractual engagement method. (p12)
We’ve always maintained the Interim Executive resource works well in a growth market, but really comes into its own in a crisis or uncertain market. The skills, experience and traits of an Interim Executive are the antidote to this ambiguous environment. If your organisation isn’t leveraging the talent in this plentiful pool then you are missing at least half of the market right now. (p35)
So much of the ‘old ways’ of thinking runs…
strategy — > structure — > executive hires — > execute
… and is centred on permanent long-term hires. Ossification as a feature. But now the calibre of people who want to work as interims, consultants, contractors and so on offer an approach more like the apps on your phone. Get one, use it (maybe a Travel guide to Tokyo?) delete it: you can move on without it, the enrichment or ease that it brought you remaining. And don’t forget the ‘features’ in the staff you already have — internal promotions, sideways moves reaps rewards in outcomes and in talent dev and retention.
“A lot of employers don’t think about using the Interim workforce, they are transfixed on finding the permanent person they want to love and hold onto, but they just aren’t there”. p37
The leadership the modern workplace needs involve meta thinking about the organisation. Considering how you bring together people to do the thinking, the dreaming and the delivering is the real leadership. How you get work done isn’t a dichotomy between staff/not-staff. Digital/not digital is as dead as netscape.
Conclusion
The most interesting thing about the report overall is the changing picture is paints of organisational responses to challenging circumstances. It speaks to organisations increasing the flexibility with which they think about their salary model and budgets (salaries vs operation budgeting categories get in the way of responsive action). And it highlights that perfection in structure, roles and skills in not only unobtainable but conceptually flawed as a goal.
There is not correct internal staff structure. There is no correct model of what’s a a staffer vs a consultant vs an interim vs a contractor. There’s just what you can do, now, ethically, to advance your purpose. Use the tools and materials you have and can easily get, don’t lament the one you wished you had.
And heed the early signals that flexibility is more valuable than permanence. At the risk of bringing up bad memories of 2020, we will all, always, need to pivot.
Postscript
Can i also give a shout out to the person who got the page numbers to flow correctly in the report pdf? ily.
