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Leadership in critical situations
during a company transformation

Leadership in critical situations
during a company transformation

Ivana Olivová

Ivana Olivová is an interim CHRO.
Her core competence is active coordination of processes in the area of human resources with focus on crisis communication and change management during crisis, restructuring or M&A.

Ivana supports companies of all sizes, from small and medium to global corporations mainly in the manufacturing and automotive area.

“To be a successful interim manager you have to work hard, approach your limits in dozens of critical situations and repeat it for many years in various companies.”

Areas :

  • Change Management
  • Cultural Transformation
  • Human Capital Strategy
  • Organizational Development

Ivana Olivova and Bohuslav Lipovsky Live Summary

Leadership in critical situations during a company transformation

Crisis Communication

Key Recommendations and Take Aways from Ivana
during COVID 19 crisis

  • Yesterday’s leaders are not ready to deal with current crisis
  • Let the communication flow in both directions
  • Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”
  • After weeks off, employees will have to adapt to the change quickly and accept the fact that they are not indispensable and, they can be made redundant
  • Keeping the pace together with 100% quality will be essential, if not a must be for survival
  • Discipline today is more important than ever
  • Crisis Communication is a learned skill

Top Management Decisions that need to be taken quickly

Flight –  interim manager prepares the company, optimally and most painlessly on financial and human level, to be sold, to an investor input, to failure.

Fight –  there is no time to waste and it is essential to be the first one ready on the starting line. It is necessary to grab the greatest experts and jump on the Shinkansen.

Staying in tranches is no longer possible

How does Ivana define an Executive Interim Manager

  • needs minimal time, thanks to his experience, to understand how the company works;
  • an experienced interim has done dozens of projects, which means he/she can get orientated quickly in the place, in the process of the company, in the team energy;
  • he/she is not blinded with operational blindness and he brings an impartial view. He/she is result oriented, not inside excuses and games, who with whom and why, oriented;
  • he/she is not paid from hour but from his performance = he/she accelerates the rescue steps.
  • His/her aim and ambition is only the success of the project, not earning enough money to pay the mortgage;
  • an Interim does not work with assumptions but with facts and data, he/she can generate analysis from great aggregated data and make forecasts for future tactical steps;
  • he/she is practical, does not theorize, he/she goes into action and takes the team along;
  • a performance curve of a new hired permanent manager does not grow before the 9th month in position. An Interim brings visible solutions and provable results from his/her first month by setting an action plan of little improvements (Kaizen steps) which “crank” people up the optimistic way;
  • he/she has cross-industry, cross-branches and cross-commodities experience – he/she knows different scenarios and he can choose the best practices straightaway from his/her “drawer”. The company does not apply the trial and error method which it cannot afford these days

  • thanks to his experience, he/she has a battery of the most efficient modern tools for both vertical and horizontal lines of the business and he can use them efficiently (BSC, VSM, Lean, Hoshin Kanri, Root Cause 5S, Kanban etc). He/she knows when to use these and he is long-trained to know which data to get from those;
  • an Interim works in teams with other interims. He/she does not have to wait for an (unsure) recruitment. He/she knows where to go and he will choose the best possible buddy to succeed in the project fast and painlessly;
  • an Interim is not a substitute when the company cannot find the “PERM” Manager. An Interim is always the first choice for professional project of process management, where there is a need for a permanent manager, he/she always joins the company after the interim has led the project to the phase of evaluating the implementation of the best solution;
  • his/her contribution is not in money but in the added value boosting the company by doing the things faster, in high quality with long-term positive impact on the company and things are done cheaper thanks to an interim. Cheaper from the point of efficiency of partial steps and savings in all parts of the company (people, machines, inventory, operative purchase, finances). Interim´s remuneration (fee) is only a partial monetization of the value he/she brought to the company.  

We at EIM would be happy to support you by finding the right executive interim managers who, based on their diverse experience, can quickly take on the challenge and deliver rapid results. Thanks to our Nurtured Knowledge Community of reputable Executive Interim Managers, we can provide you with professionals who are experienced at very short notice and selected according to strict criteria.
With us, you can expect exciting, hands-on, and intensive international assignments, drive forward future innovations and provide your own ideas for the success of your projects.
We give our best when Clients need rapid solutions, transformation or out-performing results, anywhere in the world.

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