By Brian Besanceney

Around this time last year, fresh off leaving my most recent corporate job, I got a call from Jane Randel telling me about an exciting new project she was working on with other senior leaders to bring the fractional executive leadership model to our profession.

My first reaction was: “Sounds interesting.  But what’s fractional?”

As she explained the concept, I realized I’d seen this model before with senior leaders in other professions.  At one previous professional stop, for example, we had a very experienced former CMO working alongside our in-house CMO as more of a consigliere than a consultant.  I just didn’t have a word to describe it – much like the George Washington skit with Nate Bargatze on Saturday Night Live (“We will have no word for that”).

Fast forward a year, and I’m now working with two great organizations fractionally while also partnering with Jane and the CommsCollectiv team to expand awareness of this model in communications and corporate affairs.

So what have I learned?

  1. Unlike traditional consulting, I very much feel like a full fledged member of the team.  I have organizational email addresses and join team meetings and client engagements as an “insider” rather than an outsider.  And my bandwidth isn’t limited to a particular project or issue – fractional executives can “run to the fire” when a new issue or opportunity pops up.
  2. I assumed the primary hiring client for fractional CCOs would be CHROs.  Wrong!  Forward-thinking CCOs who want an additional set of experienced eyes to help solve business challenges have been our primary clients.  And rather than seeing fractional execs as competitors, agencies are interested in adding them to their teams to bolster client credibility with senior level in-house expertise.
  3. There’s a tremendous amount of interest from our professional community in this way of working.  More than 200 senior professionals from a wide range of industries are part of the CommsCollectiv talent pool, plus all the professionals who are working fractionally on an independent basis.  Some are bridging between full time roles, others have transitioned out of full time work but want to remain engaged, and others prefer this way of working – but most in our profession instantly “get it” when they learn about fractional.
  4. The most surprising limiting factor beyond awareness of the model? Corporate procurement processes, which seem to be engineered in a lab to defeat organizational nimbleness and agility.

More and more organizations are finding themselves in need of senior level corporate affairs and communications expertise.  It’s exciting to be on the leading edge of this model taking root as we raise awareness in the marketplace!

Brian is a partner in CommsCollectiv