Lord Digby Jones shares his thoughts on the economy and interim management.

On the 2nd February Impact Executives hosted a fantastic leadership event which was attended by over two hundred business leaders and managers.

As guest speaker, Lord Digby Jones of Birmingham shared his views on the economy, interim management, and what attracted him to become a senior advisor to Harvey Nash Group.

Watch the video below or read his full interview at the end of my blog post.

Interview Write Up

Impact Executives: "Lord Jones, a warm welcome to the Impact Executive's leadership event. We've got over two hundred business leaders and interim managers gathered here in West London to hear you your insight on the business and economy.

Can you very briefly tell me what you will covering this evening?"

Lord Jones: "Yes it's about how businesses, as the economy moves into its recovery stage, can actually take advantage of the recovery and what they should watch for.

And we're not actually on to the summit uplands of economic good fortune. What we're doing as an economy is bubbling along - it's not getting any worse, but you're not going to see unemployment appreciably drop, you're not going to see GDP go up to 2 - 3 %.

This is a year for battening down the hatches and doing what we do well. This will be a year where there will be great calls for working capital and a lot of businesses will think whether they can pull the levers on more investment in kit etc and they've got to watch that they do get the working capital they need.

And of course it's a time for being innovative, it's a time for investing in overseas markets, it's a time for thinking about those ideas and trying to make money out of them.

Probably more than anything else it's a time to carry on training and skilling people. And following what ever date the general election is, it's a time for making sure we get a government of either party, whichever it is, that works with the grain of business and not against it."

Impact Executives: "You've gained a lot of experience of what works within business both through your executive and non executive roles, what advice would you give an interim manager brought in to bring major change within a business right now?"

Lord Jones: "When an interim manager arrives [in a company] of course everybody working there fears the worst - they're human beings, they feel insecure, they feel worried. But although people like good news they actually prefer bad news to no news.

And more than anything else what an interim manager should do is communicate, communicate, communicate and then go and communicate some more.

Keep people informed - even if it's bad news. And at the same time work hard at ensuring that why you've been brought in - which is change -- actually takes place. The forces of conservatism - with a small 'c' - will be everywhere. People don't like change, you don't, I don't, it makes you feel worried, you're used to what you do, you don't like people coming in telling you how to do it differently, "what do they know about my business?"

And so there's a lot of resistance, probably a lot of it unspoken. It is important that you drive change through, be firm to your ideals, set your objectives, make them clearly understood by everybody and then make sure the behaviours of both yourself and others are consistent with the change goal... and communicate why you're doing things [in a way that is] consistent with that change goal.

And that, probably more than anything, is the most important thing. And you can't start that early enough, start it day one and never ever stop it."

Impact Executives: "Why are Interim Managers important right now?"

Lord Jones: "Actually the market at the moment for... interim managers has got to be good as you come out of recession - there's a bit more activity, you want some change, but you are not certain that the market's there ...so you don't really want to go committing big investment in a big ticket manager. To have an interim manager for a short period of time to affect some real serious quick change can be a very, very cost effective solution to an immediate problem."

Impact Executives: "Last year you became senior advisor to the Harvey Nash Group which includes Impact Executives. Can you tell me about what attracted you to Group?"

Lord Jones: "I've known Harvey Nash for many years. When I was at the CBI they were a sponsor of many of the events and they worked with us on producing quality events in various parts of the world.

Both Paul Smith and Albert Ellis, I have known them for many years, I liked what I saw, I felt comfortable and the brand is well known

..As I go around the world working advising various businesses I like those businesses to have a British base, I like them to have a brand that's recognisable and I like them to operate in overseas markets as well.

Of course [Harvey Nash] is a people business and people are kind enough to say that I work well in people businesses and so there was a meeting of both minds and culture, but also I think there was a meeting of brands...

I'm learning all the time. So I hope that I learn and can add a bit to the knowledge bank in myself as well, I hope, to the bottom line of Harvey Nash."