“The CFO is the New Chief Feelings Officer.” Wait, What??? Yes, Get Ready to Dance!
The thought of the CFO having feelings is a far cry from my early days when we referred to one of our beloved CFOs as “Mean Gene, the Money Machine.” I have heard the term “Chief Feelings Officer” over the last couple of months concerning modern finance transformation, I could not be more thrilled for the future of corporate finance if this is the case.
CFOs across the globe are in some stage of transforming their finance organization to meet senior leadership’s demands to accelerate growth and efficiencies, adopting digital business optimization initiatives, all while restoring or shoring up the organization’s financial health. In addition to driving this transformation, CFOs also have a function to run, a day job. As finance organizations enter this period of significant change, new technologies are readily available to help drive efficiencies and insights into business performance.
At Stacked Analytics, we have partnered with many companies undergoing significant digital transformations. What we have learned, and bring to every engagement, is the importance of relationships. People. Which is…
People inquiring of people.
People listening to people.
People helping people.
Our most successful clients have teams organization-wide that know how to engage with one another effortlessly, have empathy, and can communicate effectively. They have an awareness and understand the impact of feelings, theirs and others, on their working relationships and the organization's strategic objectives.
So, how can having feelings help a CFO drive finance transformation?
Focus on Relationships: Hone One’s Dance Moves
A relationship is defined as the way in which things are connected or working together. We bring our feelings and emotions to work daily, creating brain chemicals that change how we feel physically. Sometimes we are positive, but sometimes we may have negative feelings. Bringing awareness to our emotions helps us respond more uniquely to the problem or situation at hand.
Bringing awareness of feelings into the workplace is one way to improve relationships. Understanding our core personality traits and related behaviors can benefit how they drive the behavior and response of others in the workplace. If you are an introvert, you can consciously work and function in an extroverted way when the need arises.
Bringing awareness of our emotions and core personality is a way of connecting to our authentic selves. Engaging with others from our authentic selves builds trust. Trust creates a better business environment cultivating a more productive, efficient, cooperative, and scalable business. In other words, it puts one in a beautiful position to dance well with others.
Champion Relationship Building: Teach Others to Dance
Understanding relationships and dependencies throughout an organization is a dance, with back and forth, give and take. Relationship building is a crucial skill for the CFO as adopting digital business optimization initiatives has become a critical component driving finance transformation. These digital business optimization initiatives can cut across many silos within an organization. An effective finance partner needs to be a proper liaison and weave a thread through technology, customer success, data and analytics, marketing, operations, etc.
The new “Feelings Officer” needs to foster relationship building for their finance functions, but to truly drive company-wide success and adoption, they cannot stop there. The CFO will need the rest of their C-suite team, managers, and front-line leaders to all work on mastering the art of relationship building, essentially opening up the dance floor. They will need the support of others in the C-Suite and beyond to meaningly transform how the business makes decisions and relates with one another.
How do you do this? Talk to the business. Ask questions. Listen. Empathize. What are we trying to achieve? What roadblocks exist? How can we achieve better business objectives? What risks and value opportunities lie ahead? What are you excited about on the horizon? What keeps you up at night? What are the next 90 days’ outcomes that drive the highest value to the company and its customers? Understand what your stakeholders’ needs and wants are and why.
Develop an Operating Rhythm: Put the Dance Moves Together
Developing an operating rhythm and a cohesive system to communicate the long-range and near-term strategy of the business fosters the rigor for cultivating these cross-departmental collaborative efforts. Quarterly objectives and key results show how we are executing that strategy, while monthly business reviews and operations reviews drive accountability for progress. Weeklys, one-on-ones, reports, and various executive touchpoints help “de-risk” and optimize our execution against the strategy.
While writing this, I came across this construct on company metrics from the Engineering Analytics RoundUp that could generate some ideation around designing your own, as there are myriad ways to approach getting folks out on the dance floor. On Measuring: Company Metrics, Team KPIs, and OKRs
The planning process and quarterly reviews offer an opportunity to circle back and have discussions among and between departments as the business is alive and evolving. By partaking in more value-added activities, such as sitting with stakeholders to help assist with the decision-making process, developing what-if scenarios for various department initiatives, and assisting with future planning, “the dance” builds a strong culture of collaboration, trust, and productivity.
Finance departments are crucial to how a company runs. A two-way flow from finance to all other business functions, a constant ebb and flow back and forth to align business objectives, will be vital in enabling the company to accelerate growth and adopt efficiencies. A CFO who is in touch with and models an awareness of feelings, coming from a place of authenticity, fosters an environment of purposeful trust; after all, it is just people behind the numbers.
Using cutting-edge neuroscience, teams can reach the core of what drives inclusive, collaborative cultures where people can do their best work cross-departmentally and produce next-level results. If you would like to learn more about how we partner with our clients, we would love to hear from you.
