Ok, let's leave our bosses alone for the time being. Let's talk about us as bosses. In our multi-functional lives as CFOs and Controllers we frequently end up with more direct reports than CEOs/owners. There are accounting managers, finance directors, budget and analysis groups leaders, PR, AP, AR, IT, and so on.
Let's say you are making a career move and just accepted a position with XYZ, Inc., replacing a departing CFO. In a dreamy corporate fairy tale you should be able to do what our newly elected presidents do – form your own cabinet and move in with your faithful acolytes. In real life… you inherit somebody else's staff. Moreover, you have to quickly immerse and keep the business going.
The subsequent events can play themselves out in three possible scenarios:
1. Without giving the existing operations a real dissection under a microscope, you simply learn how everything functioned under your predecessor, decide not to change anything even if you find the old ways inadequate or wrong, and continue in the same fashion. The effect: good for the staff – no changes, no new things to learn, no old habits to break; bad for the company, your employers and ultimately yourself – inheriting diseases without attempting to treat them will assure your failure.
2. If you are a responsible and knowledgeable person with an impressive background and enthusiasm for your new job, you will study all aspects of functions under your control, diligently, but without prejudice; find errors, shortcomings and blind spots; apply your expertise, and develop improvements and innovations plan. And then you will face incredible resistance from your inherited staff. It is very natural: humans are resentful of changes. They will give you very hard time, no help and mountains of frustrations. Just because you are great at finance and accounting, it does not mean that you are good at managing and educating people. If you don't have patience and sufficient skills to overcome the resistance in a positive way, you will end up firing a third of the stuff and another third will leave on their own. The rest will stay, but you will never gain their trust and support. The worst part – by replacing former employees with new ones, you will loose the continuity of the departmental knowledge.
3. Under the best case scenario, your professional and managerial skills are equal. While you sifting through processes, functions, policies and procedures, you must study the people. What motivates them? Do they know their jobs well? Are their duties properly matched with their abilities? Psycho-profiling is one of the most important managerial skills. Try to discern the personality traits of your employees. The personnel strategy should be part of your improvement plan. Find people who are interested in positive progress, explain to them how the new developments will benefit them, show them the big picture (for more on this subject see my post Big Picture and Staff Training) and make them your agents of change. Then you can claim the successful transition.
The Frustrated CFO 