The Interim: You’ve accepted a fantastic job. The problem is that you’ve been told — and everyone knows — that it’s a temporary position, and things quickly start to get awkward.
Interim appointments are becoming a more common feature of organisational life, especially at senior levels. The speed that ambitious and talented individuals move onwards and upwards results in key appointments forever needing to be filled – and if the organisation’s performance is not going to suffer unduly, then filling the vacancy quickly is important – but not as important as making the correct appointment.
The hunt for the best talent available is not a quick or easy feat to achieve. The best talent is usually employed elsewhere -– and not sitting around waiting for a phone call. So the organisation needs someone to take on the role temporarily while their talent spotting process moves into action. Working as an interim has some advantages, but there are nevertheless significant disadvantages when you have to work with the inbuilt political dilemma that is The Interim.
Adrian’s Dilemma:
“I’m doing my best but I have to work with one hand tied behind my back all the time. The Vice President of Business Development should have all the clout and credibility to make things happen, but only being The Interim Business Development VP is a tougher call than I imagined. People just don’t seem to accept me in the same way.”
“Who should care if I am permanent or not? What difference should it make? The substitute in the ball game doesn’t try less hard when they get their chance, and I certainly aim to give this my best shot. To me interim means everything to gain, a great opportunity. But there is still this ambiguity.”
“Until yesterday there had been nothing tangible, nothing much in the way of direct push back or refusal – and perhaps I was imagining some of this – but I had noticed less urgency and support for my decisions and actions, indeed some lower down on the totem pole seem to have more clout than me.”
“But yesterday threw me. I found myself in the Executive Briefing -– its one of those usual monthly updates -– I put forward two proposals which would have really advanced the whole business development agenda, but much to my surprise the resistance from my colleagues was fierce. But what really shook me was the outright rejection I got from my boss. No discussion, no justification, just a straight “no”, and the meeting moved on. Why would my boss deliberately undermine me like that? Do they want this business to develop; in which case allowing the Vice President of Business Development to do his job is surely the way forward?”
Adrian Sanderson, VP Business Development
Consider:
- What has Adrian done wrong?
- Why does this kind of thing happen?
- What should Adrian do next?
Answers
No two people look at politics in an identical way. The critical thing is that you exercise your thinking on these case studies and practice thinking things through and planning the action that you would take, if you were to face this situation. This is a key aspect of our Mastering the Politics course. When you are on this course, we will take you through all the steps you need to take to handle the politics with ease. Included in this, you will get comprehensive answers to all of these case studies.
Mastering the Politics
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