The Times: C-Suite executives team up with ‘fractional twins’
At the start of January, I made my predictions for work in 2025. One of them was this:
“Corporate CxOs will get their own ‘fractional twin’: Full-time corporate CxOs will start partnering with fractional CxOs - trusted, non-threatening allies - to handle specialised projects and clear their plates."
It caught a lot of attention and interest.
What does this actually look like in practice? How do I find the right twin for me? A lot of questions! Let’s start with the background
The Rise Of The Fractional Leader
In 2022, just 2,000 LinkedIn profiles referenced ‘fractional leadership’. By 2024, that number had skyrocketed to 110,000. This is reflective of the changing nature of work.
So, What Is A Fractional Leader?
Fractional leaders are highly experienced professionals who have left corporate employment to go self-employed and provide their strategy, skills and leadership on a fractional, flexible basis to businesses. Those who do it best create long-term relationships with their ‘clients’ and scale their time up or down depending as required. More on that here.
This model has already gained significant traction among ambitious SMEs who don’t want, don’t need, and can’t afford a full-time C-suite but require the expertise to scale.
But now, forward-thinking corporates are catching onto this opportunity, and as per my prediction for this year – adoption is set to grow significantly.
Corporate CxOs Urgently Need Support
For mid-to-large corporates and employed Group C-suite professionals, there’s never enough time in the day. These executives must be on top of their game, all the time. Their human capabilities are being stretched to their limits and it’s not feasible to have all the skills required to do these roles wrapped up in a single individual:
It’s not healthy or sustainable – levels of burnout are through the roof
It’s too risky – relying on a small number of individuals to do everything is an organisational risk
It’s not good for innovation – organisations need cutting-edge skills for innovation
This is occurring against the backdrop of full-time roles unbundling into their parts -partly due to the speed at which we are developing and innovating – it’s all too much for one role or even for one human.
We need to accept that one person cannot do it all, all the time.
Traditional roles will further break down into work and tasks performed flexibly by humans and technology. We need the right support in place to do our jobs well without burning out. And of course, we need that support to be flexible.
Enter ‘Fractional Twins’
Now, imagine yourself as a CxO (CFO, CMO, CPO, CTO etc.), with your never-ending list of responsibilities and ‘To-do’s.
But now, you have a highly experienced ‘twin’ by your side – someone who has sat in your seat before, and really, truly ‘gets it’.
They’re there to support you on a fractional basis (as and when needed, dialling their time up and down as required) to help YOU meet all the demands of your role where you don’t have the time or skills to do it yourself.
They make a difference from day one – they don’t need significant oversight or training which frees you up to focus where you can add most value.
Just like biological twins, you can choose:
An identical twin – someone with the same skills as you, supporting to get key initiatives over the line
Non-identical twin – someone with complementary skills to fill experience gaps and bring new capabilities
Won’t They Take My Job?
Let’s address the (ego) elephant in the room.
One of the best parts of this model is they are non-threatening by nature. They aren’t looking for a job. They’ve consciously chosen to move away from corporate and to become self-employed. They are quite happy working flexibly alongside the organisation’s executives. In fact, there is nowhere they’d rather be. They don’t want your job; they want to partner with you to make sure you succeed.
Ok, so an identical or non-identical twin who can support me to be the superhuman executive I’m expected to be without threatening my position or status… very interesting. How does this differ to interim support?
Fractional Is Not The Same As Interim
Interim support is rigid by nature in its full-time approach, typically fully-on or fully-off. We all know business issues don’t fit neatly into full-time roles and the fractional twin concept is designed to match the cadence of time-commitment required for the short, medium, and long-term.
Access to teams of fractional support means organisations can have multiple specialists in fractions – a highly tailored approach. Historically if an organisation needed a range of specialist skills, they would have had to commit to bringing in multiple interims who are essentially unconnected one-man bands or make do with a generalist and hope they can deliver what’s needed.
How Do I Find The Right Twin For Me?
This is where engaging with a firm of fractional C-suite providers comes into its own. These firms of fractional twins are a new breed of organisation – organisers not employers. They provide the community, support, and infrastructure for C-suite professionals to go fractional.
By building a relationship with these firms, corporates can be sure to have access to the ‘power of many’ - their collective functional intelligence, knowhow, and wider network. They will always get the answer they need. What’s more any accumulated knowledge regarding their organisation will be transferred from team to team making sure new twins get up to speed quickly and no time is lost.
The Future of The C-Suite
We’ve entered a new era of work – one that is increasingly modular and flexible.
The C-suite have accepted traditional ways of working for too long – the construct hasn’t been revisited since its introduction in the 1980s. The requirements of our top talent and their organisations are changing rapidly to cope with the ever-complex demands of global mega-trends – our current approach is not fit for purpose.
For corporates, the choice is clear – struggle to do it all alone (increasingly unfeasible) or take advantage of the fractional C-suite to supplement their in-house C-suite and access wider talent pools flexibly and dynamically to gain competitive advantage.