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September 7, 2011 By Samuel Dergel 6 Comments

CEO and Investors: Are you ready for your First CFO?

Companies in growth mode face great challenges. One of the biggest challenges a growing company faces is bringing in their first Real CFO.

In a previous post we reviewed an article written by Emily Chasen in the WSJ CFO Journal about how More Companies are Ready for their First CFO.

A growing company built on entrepreneurial spirit can only continue to grow so far on that spirit alone. At a critical juncture in the life of a growing business, it needs to make a transition from decisions made by the entrepreneur alone to a dynamic team that works on a business model of delegation of responsibility and co-operation between interests within the company.

This is an inflection point for many successful growth companies — when a CFO is recruited because the management disciplines that grew the enterprise to its current state will not be enough to take it to the next level.

Intellectually, the CEO and other key managers may know things need to change. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be comfortable with a CFO who asks tougher questions, instills new disciplines or has a fiduciary responsibility to the investors as well as a loyalty to the management team.

So, what is the answer? How do you strengthen CFO readiness when the next level of success takes people out of their comfort zones? Courage.

That’s why we developed our CFO Readiness Program in conjunction with Dr. Merom Klein & Dr. Louise Klein, leaders of the Courage Institute.

The Courage Institute wrote the book on The Courage to Act — about 5 Courage Factors that equip effective leaders to challenge the status quo, champion new possibilities and get traction on breakthrough ideas and improvements. This is the foundation of the CFO Readiness Program.

The CFO Readiness Program is an assessment, feedback and action planning program that works to equip the entire executive team to:

Strengthen and align your veteran executives — so they have the courage to welcome new thought-leadership and collaboration
Clarify your wish-list of expectations and priorities for the new CFO
Prepare for healthy debates and challenges to “the way we have done things here” as the new CFO identifies new opportunities
Equip the new CFO to conduct an independent assessment of your enterprise’s infrastructure, financial well-being and resources
Ensure career paths and mentoring opportunities for the finance executives who brought the enterprise to its current level
Identify fears, sensitivities and bridge-building that the new CFO could face — and ways to build courage to lift performance
Lift courage to embrace and accelerate change to get traction on new metrics, new ways of working and new ways to ensure regulatory compliance and good investor/board relations
Identify debates, deferred decisions and risk factors that the new CFO will face — and the input desired from the new CFO
See how to move past rivalries, turf-issues, personality clashes and other fear-inducing courage inhibitors that can reduce luminary efficiency at the executive and middle management levels
Invite scrutiny and transparency to sharpen up team thinking
Navigate matrix structures, networks and alliances — where it is not clear “who is in charge” or “who settles which debates”
Overcome fear and reluctance — as veteran members of the executive team are asked for courage to share decision-making discretion and authority with a new CFO

To receive a copy of our brochure and find out more about how our CFO Readiness Program can help your company, please complete this form:

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August 29, 2011 By Samuel Dergel 9 Comments

CFOs: 5 Reasons why you need an Executive Coach.

You want to be a Successful CFO. You’ve worked hard to get where you are, and you want to continue being the best CFO you can be.

If you are like most CFOs, you have never had a Coach before. Most likely, you’ve felt that you’ve never had a reason to. Your career success to date has been because of you have been good at applying and improving your knowledge, strengths and abilities.

Except…

The world is changing.

The business world is changing in front of your eyes faster than it has in your entire career. Markets and the economy are changing. Technology is changing. Customers and Suppliers are changing. The demands of your owners, board members, investors and regulators are changing.

Are you staying the same?

Now is the time to step up your game.

The good news is – most of your fellow CFOs are not stepping up their game. They are getting comfortable. They have finally achieved their career goal of becoming CFO and they feel it is time to coast.

They are coasting their way out of the CFO chair.

You, on the other hand, want to make sure that you become the most Successful CFO possible.

If you are ready to step up your game, get yourself an Executive Coach.

Why do you need a CFO Coach? Let’s take a look at the reasons why.

Plan – Do you go into the office every day and just fight fires? Or do you have a plan with long-term, medium-term and short-term objectives that will help you accomplish more with less fire-fighting. Failing to plan is planning to fail. (See our Blog – From CFO Vision to Action Plan)
It’s Lonely being a CFO – You need someone that will listen to you, provide you with advice, guide you, challenge you, and keep you at the top of your game. (See our Blog – The Lonely CFO)
Relationships – you are no longer an accountant. It’s no longer just about being technical. You need to manage your relationships. (See our Blog – Roadmap to Successful CFO Relationships)
Feedback – Now that you are at the top of the Finance Group in your company, do you really expect the people that work for you to provide you with objective feedback? You want someone candid and practical to give you the feedback you need.
Stress – remember the days when you left work at the office? If you do remember those days, I’m sure it is a long time ago. Managing the stress of being CFO is difficult, yet critical to your company as well as to yourself and your family. Expressing yourself and talking about what stresses you can go a long way to actively managing your stress, ensuring you get a better job done in less time.

Wouldn’t you love to…

have a plan?
be less lonely?
manage your relationships better?
get constructive feedback? and
be under less stress?

Email me to arrange your first Coaching session – FREE.

You have nothing to lose.

Let’s talk!

August 22, 2011 By Samuel Dergel 6 Comments

You’ve been promoted to CFO. Now what?

You’ve been in a senior financial role with the company for a while, and have been aiming for the CFO chair. One day, you get the call from the CEO (or the Chairman) and they offer you the CFO job.

Congratulations! You’ve been promoted to CFO. You have a new office, a new title, new business cards, and a better compensation package.

Except…

… You’re not exactly sure what to do as CFO.

Based on speaking with new CFOs in the same situation as you, you are not alone. When I speak with them and ask them if their job has changed since their promotion, they usually answer “Not really…”

As CFO, you should not be doing the same job you were doing before.

So now that you’ve been promoted to CFO, what can you do to ensure you become the best CFO you can be for your company?

1) Prepare a Plan

Your success as CFO depends on you having a plan for success. This requires that you be aware of the expectations the CEO and Board has from you, and putting in a plan to ensure you can deliver, and have a Strong Finance Team you support you in your goal to become a Successful CFO.

I recommend that this plan be completed within the first 100 days of your new tenure as CFO.

2) Get a Coach

If you ask your CEO, there is a good chance he or she has a Coach. It gets lonely at the top (see Lonely CFO). Being an Effective CFO requires someone that you can talk to that can guide you to make the right decisions and keep to your Plan.

Your success as CFO depends on your ability to deliver. Take responsibility for your new role. Make sure you have a Plan for your success, and have a Coach that ensure you keep to your Plan.

August 10, 2011 By Samuel Dergel 9 Comments

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.

July 29, 2011 By Samuel Dergel 4 Comments

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:

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?

July 28, 2011 By Samuel Dergel 2 Comments

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?

July 25, 2011 By Samuel Dergel 9 Comments

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?

July 13, 2011 By Samuel Dergel Leave a Comment

New Survey: CFOs and their Finance Team

According to our CFO Relationship Map, Successful CFOs need a strong Finance Team to support them so they can accomplish more for the people they work for (CEO, Board, Investors) and the people they work with (Operations, Sales, IT, HR and others).

We created this survey to better understand the areas that CFOs feel they need help with to ensure they have a strong Finance Team supporting them.

With this context in mind, please answer our survey.

Thank you for your help. We look forward to sharing these results with you.

Samuel

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