Icebreaker to open up their change management CPD program
Change has become a business imperative: Most businesses have a change program underway, or postponed like a rabbit dazzled in the headlights. We find these organisations often consider they implement change poorly, yet during these times of change the majority have continued to use only their own staff.
“A successful business is about change, if it is not changing – it is dying” Sir John Harvey Jones
The Icebreaker Style The innovative Icebreaker style of executive interim management has been proving particularly successful in the past two difficult years for industry. Their self liquidating proposition, ability to rapidly delivering results, transferring skills and leaving legacies, is resonating with CEOs contemplating previously competent executive teams struggling to keep pace with rapidly changing environments.
“An Icebreaker Assignment is a high return investment in our Business, just like cap ex.” Healthcare Client MD words 2009
Professional Development Key to the Icebreaker “style” is the professional development program that ensures their executive interims complete assignments having developed the permanent staff to better cope with future changes. In response to client demand, Icebreaker have decide to open up the formal elements of their CPD program to all, with the next event being held In October the content was derived from an award winning assignment, learning’s rolled out with CEOGB and now has been relaunched with Ashridge Business School. The content, whilst counterintuitive is simple; people focused and provides the opportunity to vastly reduce unnecessary stress often incurred during a site closure for example. The residential CPD event is over 2 days delivered using action based learning, rather than just imparting information.
“Successful executive interim management should be seen by businesses, and those who invest in businesses, as a necessary and valuable investment; a positive, proactive business resource that can offer substantial ROI and be so much more than just crisis management” asserted Tom Pickering, Icebreaker CEO, who adds “By opening up our CPD program we can significantly increase our client’s return even further and enable a client to build the capability retain the value on an assignment”.
Hiding behind uncertainty This initiative is timely as banks appear to have coined a new phrase to capture the moment: “good business, bad market”. In reality this can disguise the need to address fundamental change, with economic uncertainty as the reason to delay. Now is the time to be honestly self-critical about performance, to ask the difficult questions and, if necessary re-model the business and review supplier and customer relationships to make them stronger for the future. Businesses need to take firm action now, if they are to emerge from the current recession in a strong competitive position, by committing the investment necessary to achieve innovative and adaptive change.
Interim Management the Misconception In a downturn, successful change management is the vital key to ensuring the benefits of business re-modelling investment generate ROI. Interim management is not just about filling a management gap in times of crisis, or replacing management. Utilising the knowledge, experience and skills of a senior interim manager at an early stage will make the difference between stumbling at the first hurdle and successfully delivering a project or key business need.
A Self liquidating solution to support SME Owner/Manager Businesses As we target cash returns that vastly outweigh the cost – we have a solution that quickly improves liquidity from a cash strapped start. As a result we are finding a growing interest from smaller companies whose resources would benefit from support to undertake business reviews and change management programmes. In order to be more accessible to these types of businesses, show our commitment and to check the fit, we are offering a one day evaluation using our shared risk and reward solution.
What retains the value is the way a change manager works with the client’s team.
More information on the Icebreaker CPD program and full details of their unique style can be found on their website.
