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A major French logistics group
The challenge: to recruit a Senior Manager for
a key West African operation
Background
This company's broad range of activities
includes extensive operations in Africa. As peace began to return
to this particular large, war-ravaged West
African country,
the opportunities for business expansion were considerable.
An essential factor in achieving growth
would be finding someone
who could lead the team in the logistics area to take advantage
of those opportunities.
The
main challenge was the location. The country is not an easy place
in which to live - infrastructures are chaotic, corruption is
deep and many everyday commodities and services are difficult
to find. In addition, many areas outside of the capital remain
dangerous. Finding a manager with the right leadership skills,
experience and resilience who would be motivated to move to such
an environment would indeed be a challenge.
In
addition we began to realise that there were tensions between
operations and headquarters offices in Europe as well as with
the operations in Africa.
The
process
We decided to begin our search by casting the net as wide as possible.
Since it was essential to find someone with extensive specific
experience and so could not broaden into other sectors, we called
on our INAC colleagues around the world to search their databases
and we also decided to advertise in Lisbon.
In
the end, after assessing candidates from a variety of backgrounds
and nationalities, the chosen candidate came from a local search.
To our surprise, he was sent almost immediately to the African
country, with no significant briefing or preparation for this
difficult posting.
Conditions
in the country were tough - the accommodation was of a poor standard,
the staff had not been prepared and there was no handover process
for the new manager. He received little advice or support and
was left to sink or swim. Unfortunately, his shock reaction was
not ideal and he tried to impose his own way of doing things in
a cavalier fashion without adjusting for local conditions or company
strategy.
The
result
The Country President reacted by wanting to send the new manager
home. We were asked to intervene and after some intensive coaching,
negotiation and detailed reporting on the situation to Head Office,
we managed to create a more co-operative and structured approach
on all sides. We continued to support the manager and his colleagues
for several months.
The
manager is now a successful and integrated member of the team.
His business area has grown greatly and both his local and
head office colleagues are well satisfied with his work.
As
one of the Senior European managers commented:
"The
comprehensive and dedicated support you gave us and [the chosen
candidate] during a very difficult period of integration into
the operation in West Africa was excellent - thank you."
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