Moving On Up: A More Professional Face

I've recently completed the Clearpath Consultancy website, where I'll be blogging from now on.

Follow me there.

Interim Management: Broadening the Skillset

I attended the Interim Management Associations Induction course on Tuesday. It was a very helpful one-day seminar, covering all major aspects of the interim management industry.

The good points:

• Slide number 57 (see below)- a great way to summarize an individuals value proposition.
• Getting clarity on the gray area between consultants and IM's.

The weak points:

• I was the youngest person there.
• Too much time spent on recruiters when only 25% of IM assignments come from them.

Here's the days presentation, thanks to Simon Berry and Ian Daniell.

IMA Interim Management Induction

View more presentations from Adam Park.

Executive Coaching: Learning a New Skill

A friend approached me with a request for help. He is looking for his next big job and trying to sort out his personal life. He asked me if I would act as his Executive Coach- to help him set priorities and keep him on track with the changes.

After agreeing some preliminary guidelines, I agreed to help.

This started 3 weeks ago- pre redundancy. We've met weekly and things are on track- he's making progress and I'm learning a new skill.

Over the coming months, I'll write more about the methods we use and results we achieve.

Stop the Presses: Back to Square One

One day a peacock; the next day a feather duster.

Last Wednesday, I was made redundant. A bit of a shock since I was offered the permanent role of Director of Operations back in June. The reason has to do with the financial constraints The NEA is facing now.

There are two reasons why this is gutting:

First, I really enjoyed the job- the scope of work, the latitude, and the people I was working with.

Second, when The NEA gets through this tough phase, I won't be part of the team.

No hard feelings, just a lot of disappointment on both sides.

Plans vs Reality: Managing the Tension

At the NEA, we work closely with a few regional development authorities (SEEDA and NWDA) in the UK. They supported us financially in the early days based on our original business plan.

As with any start-up, reality has now taken over our business plan projections.

So now there is some tension between what the RDA's funded and where we're going in the real world. We're iterating new products and services, while the RDAs think we should be educating the numbers of students we talked about 2 years ago.

This means that I spend a lot of time keeping them on-side; making sure that they still support our original vision (which hasn't changed) while allowing us to find the best business model for sustainability.

Increasing Capacity: Getting More from the Same

As a general manager, my job is about getting things done. Many times that's with the help of others.

Today I developed a simple training plan to help one of my staff. It will teach her to more effectively manage one of her direct reports. I use the Manager Tools concepts- the first element is "one to one" meetings with each report, once a week.

We're going to work through it in September. Results to follow.

Mergers and Communication

It's now common knowledge that The NEA is looking to merge with Enterprise UK. The marriage needs the blessing of ministers, but that should be forthcoming.

So, the next steps revolve around how to fit the two organisations together.

Fortunately, we occupy separate areas in the enterprise space- EUK campaigns and the NEA delivers. So, in that context, there are great synergies.

Unfortunately, EUK has just gone through a very tough restructuring process- cutting the organisation down by more than half. There is still some confusion and bruises within EUK.

So, over the next few months, we need to put two cultures together, and move forward.

To do that, we'll need to clearly articulate the new vision AND implementation to a diverse set of stakeholders- most importantly staff.

To do that, we'll need to spend a lot of time and effort communicating what their contribution is and how it fits with the vision.