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The Lonely CFO.

Many finance professionals aspire to become CFO. Once they get there, they realize it’s lonely at the (almost) top.

As CFO, you have relationships with those you work for (CEO, Board, Investors), the executives you work with internally, your important outside relationships (bankers, auditors, lawyers) and of course your finance team. (See Road Map to Successful CFO Relationships). With all these people you work with, can you really be lonely?

The answer is yes.

CFOs have told me they feel alone because very few people in their organization understand all the pressures they face, the complexity and the volume of issues they deal with, and the difficulty of the conflicts they manage. The only people that can relate to the challenges CFOs face are other CFOs.

How can a CFO find other CFOs to commiserate with, learn from, and talk to?

There certainly are many groups that bring CFOs together. FEI (both in the USA and Canada) is an example of great organization that brings CFOs together. There are regional groups (like The CFO Roundtable and The CFO Alliance) that bring CFOs together for topics of interest and networking. Social Media CFO groups like CFO or TGL are very visible and active.

However…

There are few places where a CFO can go online to discuss with their peers matters of interest to them. To meet the needs of Lonely CFOs, I am announcing the launch of CFO Lounge, a closed LinkedIn Group specifically created for CFOs to have discussions about the real issues facing them – whether they are technical, interpersonal or strategic in nature.

My role in this group will be to moderate, engage and sometimes lubricate discussion with the CFO members. This group will only be open to CFOs.

If you’re a CFO that would like to be a little less lonely, join your peers at the CFO Lounge on LinkedIn.

Photo Credit Jeffrey Munro

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When should a CFO hire?

According to a recent article in CFO.com (Always Growing Means Always Recruiting), a growing finance team should always be in hiring mode.

We recently touched on this subject in our recent blog post A Strong CFO needs a Strong Finance Team.

Should a CFO always be hiring? Well, let’s see…

For a CFO to be successful, they need a strong team to support them.

For a CFO to have a strong team, they need to properly manage their talent.

For a CFOs to properly manage their talent, they need to have a Talent Plan.

A Talent Plan requires understanding the needs of the team today and in the future, the current structure and capabilities of the team, identifying growth opportunities for key performers, and managing the probabilities that staff will leave the company.

In the context of a Talent Plan, ‘always hiring’ is a good idea. However, done outside a well prepared Talent Plan, time and effort will not be spent efficiently or effectively.

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CFOs and Recruiters: Quick Survey

Of the many relationships CFOs have (see CFO Relationship Map), they seem to have a love/hate relationship with Recruiters. Speaking recently with Cindy Kraft (CFO Coach), she confirmed that this dymanic has been mentioned to her several times as well.

In collaboration with Cindy, we want to find out what bugs you about Recruiters.

Take our quick survey by clicking here.

If you have spoken to a CFO colleague who has expressed their frustration to you, forward them this post to have them share their frustrations as well.

Photo Credit: JC Lamkin

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How you answer this question defines whether you are a Real CFO.

I’m about to upset some of you. It’s not intentional – I am trying to make a point.

The word CFO is overused by many people – by business owners, CEOs, boards, and recruiters. In too many instances, the position that many people call CFO is nothing more than a Controller or Chief Accountant.

CFOs are senior financial managers who work with the CEO and other executives within the company to make business decisions. CFOs do this with information provided to them by the team that they lead.

I have heard the argument that smaller businesses do not have the depth or resources for such a CFO, and their most senior financial person is designated as the CFO. I’m not saying every business needs a Real CFO, but a person doing the accounting as a part of their required tasks is NOT a CFO. Smaller businesses may need a CFO, and there are businesses and professionals that provide excellent Part-Time CFO services to these companies.

So, what is the one question that defines whether you are a Real CFO or not?

Answer this question in the affirmative, and it’s a good chance you’re a Real CFO.

Do you earn more than a $250,000 package annually?

(Caveat: This amount applies in the USA and Canada and may need to be adjusted lower or higher based on cost of living situations which vary from place to place. This amount is a number chosen to reflect my general statement. It does not mean you are making too little, or too much.)

Are you a Real CFO? Do you have a Real CFO working for you?

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A Strong CFO needs a Strong Finance Team

In a recent survey, we asked CFOs whether, to meet their goals as CFO, they felt they needed help with their finance team in the following areas:

  • Talent Management
  • Succession Planning
  • Structuring an Efficient and Effective Finance Organization (Team Structuring)

Almost half of the CFOs surveyed felt they needed help with Talent Management and Team Structuring, while about one in 5 felt they needed help with Succession Planning.

Interestingly, CFOs feel that other CFOs have more needs in these areas than they do. They answered that 2/3 of other CFOs needed help with Managing Talent and Structuring their Team, and almost one half of other CFOs needed assistance with Planning for Succession.

Our CFOs overwhelmingly felt that they were either ‘willing’ or ‘very willing’ to spend internal resources on dealing with these Team challenges, but less willing to hire external resources for these challenges.

CFOs were most interested in seeking outside help for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their Finance Team.

Lessons learned:

CFOs believe that their team is important to their success, and are aware that they have challenges on their team. They also believe that spending time, effort and resources will make a difference to how they perform as CFO – the stronger their team, the stronger they are.

Challenge:

As CFO, do you have the strongest finance team possible to support you in your goals?

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CFO Consulting: What it means.

What does the term CFO Consulting really mean? As I have found over the last while, it means different things to different people.

So for the sake of clarity, this is what it means (and doesn’t mean) to me.

CFO Consulting is:

The Coach's Job?

(c) 2009 DVIDSHUB and made available under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license

Working with CFOs to help them be a better CFO for the company they are working for, through

  • Executive Coaching – helping them become a more capable and effective CFO.
  • Training & Development – teaching to and increasing the knowledge, skills and abilities of the CFO.
  • Talent Management – providing CFOs with all the processes necessary for a more efficient and effective Finance team – including Talent Assessment, Talent Planning, Talent Succession for the entire the finance group or for specific individuals within finance.

CFO Consulting is not:

  • Interim CFO
  • Part-time CFO
  • CFO Career Coaching

Personally, I find Career Coaching for CFOs to be a needed and valuable service to those senior finance executives who need to plan their career. One such person that offers these services is Cindy Kraft (CFO Coach). She does an excellent job and I highly recommend her.

I’m not knocking those who work delivering Interim CFO or Part-time CFO. At one point in my career, I used to deliver Interim CFO and Part-time CFO services, so I do understand what is involved. There are many good companies and individuals that offer these services. My only issue is that calling these services “Consulting” is not appropriate. Calling them CFO Services is a better name for it.

This is my point of view. What is yours?

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4 ways LinkedIn helps you keep your current CFO role

LinkedIn is pretty popular. With over 100 Million people on the social media site, it is becoming the de facto public profile for professionals like you.

LinkedIn recently issued their ‘Apply with LinkedIn’ button – showing the pervasiveness of LI as todays primary career management tool.

Cindy Kraft also penned an article that appeared in Business Finance Magazine where she argued successfully about why CFOs need to be on LinkedIn for their careers and their future.

Although Cindy did touch briefly on the value of LinkedIn to your current role as CFO, the following are the reasons why you should be involved with LinkedIn to get the best out of your current CFO role.

1. It’s your billboard to the people working within your company. Many people in your company know that you exist, but do they know you? Managing perceptions internally to the people who might be calling you ‘Mr. or Ms. No’ is important. They should see what your background is, what school you went to and all the other impressive things about you.

2. Interacting with customers, suppliers, bankers and other external business partners. I can guarantee you that people you interact with daily from outside your company want to know who you are – and they are checking you out on LinkedIn and the web. What do you want them to see?

3. Being part of the PR message. You are a key component of your company and its message to the world. Read “The CFO: PR Rockstar” for more insights on this value you can bring to your employer.

4. How you are perceived by people you work for. The CEO, Board and Shareholders are keeping tabs on you. Just like you will wear an appropriate suit to work and drive an appropriate car to meet image expectations, your LinkedIn profile speaks loudly to the people who employ you.

Is your LinkedIn profile up to date? Do you still not have a LinkedIn Profile? What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for the next CFO of your current employer to force you to?

 

 

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What do CFOs want from HR? (Part 3 of our survey results)

As the final instalment of the results from our CFO survey on HR, (Read Part 1 and Part 2 here), I wanted to share with you some of the comments we received from CFOs about their relationship with Human Resources.

In some companies, there is no love lost between Finance & Human Resources.

Below are individual comments from CFOs about their relationship with HR based on their own experiences and backgrounds. These comments were curated from our survey to prove the point that Finance and HR don’t always see eye to eye.

Here are some of the more interesting comments we received:

Having HR report to the CFO has been good for our company. It offers a sounding board for HR on tough issues and a little more objectivity vs. operations who are more concerned about staffing than possibly dealing with a difficult personnel issue.

I’ve been CFO of three organizations and have always found a conflict between the CFO and HR. HR believes they should have a direct ear to the CEO – which they should on personnel issues. Often though, this bleeds over to cover financial decisions. If HR does not agree with CFO analysis on a benefits package or offering, often there is a private discussion between HR and the CEO where it “comes up.” This usually results in many extra processes and meetings with the end result being the more logical, CFO proposed issue.

A strong HR dept can add tremendous value to the organization and support to the CFO. However, it has to be balanced in the services they provide and not be just great in one or two areas – it needs to be strong in all areas otherwise it can effect the performance of the employees and the company, similar to the finance function. HR, like finance, is an internal service organization that needs to provide the best quality of service to be an effective dept that adds value to the organization and not a drain on it. I believe that HR and Finance can be very strategic if first they are operating effectively, aligned together and operate as a team.

My biggest headache is HR. They continuously enter pay rates, SSN, address, benefits, etc. incorrectly into payroll and the Accounting software. I have complained to the CEO, but he has not corrected the problems. Accounting often does not have time to take lunch, because we are fixing HR’s mistakes. HR however, manages to take long lunch breaks daily.

(The next one is my favorite)

I should mention that the Director of HR is very pretty and the CEO cannot say no to her or will he make her do her job. Accounting is left to complete many processes that should have been completed by HR so we can do our job. I have many friends in upper levels of Accounting. The biggest complaint I have heard from all of them are their biggest nightmare is HR.

As CFO, do you feel that your fellow CFOs are facing the same issues you are? What do you feel about the comments these CFOs have about HR?

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The CFO: PR Rockstar?

Mitch Joel taught me (The only book a CFO needs to read about social media) that if you want others to know about your expertise in your area of focus, you need to follow what is trending on topics in your space.

My space is CFOs. I work with CFOs, talk with CFOs and talk about CFOs. It is my job to be on top of what is going on in the CFO world.

A trend I have been noticing is that some CFOs of major companies have been very involved in company PR not only about financial information about the company. They have also been a key point person for new product hype. Here are some recent examples:

Apple (CFO: Peter Oppenheimer, July 20, 2011) Apple fuels September iPhone 5 rumours

Google (CFO: Patrick Pichette, July 20, 2011): Brainstorm Tech video: Google’s Patrick Pichette on Android’s future

Verizon (CFO: Francis Shammo, January 12, 2011) Verizon executive says CDMA iPad coming

I find it fascinating that CFOs are being used to deliver marketing and product messages. Who would have thought that the Finance Guy or Gal would have such visibility on an overall business perspective?

The lesson to CFOs is: If you see yourself as the accountant; that is all you will be. If you see yourself as a key and indispensible face of the company; you will become it.

It can be a big step to move from a purely technical and analytical background to being viewed as one of the top (and indispensible) leaders of your company.

How can a CFO make such a move?

1) Know your strengths (The Strong CFO Program), build upon them, and support yourself with others that have complimentary strengths.

2) Know your relationships, the expectations of these relationships, and understand what is necessary to successfully deliver in each of these relationships. (Roadmap to Successful CFO Relationships).

As CFO, you can become indispensible to your company. You can be a PR Rockstar. The only person stopping you is the person in the mirror.

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The only book a CFO needs to read about social media

I will admit, this book is a ‘old’ in social media terms (it was published nearly 2 years ago). Six Pixels of Separation was my entrée into finally understanding how Social Media can truly benefit me. Actually, by extension, you have benefited as well if you read my blogs, follow my Twitter and are connected with me on LinkedIn.

Many of the CFOs I speak with still have difficulty getting a handle on Social Media. They do not know what is involved in getting involved with Social Media and how to best take advantage of it. There will continue to be new tools (My recent blog: Should a CFO be on Google +?) while other social media sites will fade (remember MySpace?). The concepts explained by Mitch are still valuable.

If you “get” Six Pixels and then “apply” some of the concepts in the book, you will be considered as a Social Media CFO by your peers.

Below is a review I wrote on my LinkedIn application “Reading List by Amazon” in April 2010. Seems like a long time ago. Upon re-reading what I wrote then, I find the review as relevant today as it was when I wrote it.

On a separate note, I would highly recommend you use the LinkedIn “Reading List by Amazon” application. I have found this tool to be a great way to engage with my connections. Assuming you read interesting things (that, let’s face it, make you look smart and build your personal brand), adding it to your LinkedIn profile and looking to see what your connections have read and are reading can allow for real emotional and intellectual engagement.

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Review written by Samuel Dergel on Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel, April 2010

“I have to start this review with a caveat. I knew Mitch Joel before he was Mitch Joel. Well, at least before everyone knew Mitch Joel.

And this has led me to a dilemma.

Because I have known Mitch for a long time, and he wrote a book, it was hard to consider him a famous expert. So I didn’t read the book until recently.

Big mistake.

Six Pixels is a great book for those trying to get a handle on what is happening in the social media space, and how to be able to navigate it.

I recently finished reading the book, and afterwards, went through the specific pages to ‘dog ear’ so I could go back to them and find them with ease.

Six Pixels is a great read because:

– Mitch gives history and relevance to the social media revolution we are currently going through.

– Mitch gives practical advice and self-questions to help you make the most out of social media.

– Mitch gives predictions as to where this space can go.

This book falls in to the “highly recommended” category.

Thanks Mitch”

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Have you read Six Pixels of Separation? Has Mitch Joel’s book helped you better understand how social media can help you?

Contact Information

You can reach Samuel by:

Telephone
San Francisco: +1 (415) 738-2070
Montreal: +1 (514) 907-0925

Email: samuel@dergelcfo.com