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By Esther Ewing
In these "interesting times" as the old Chinese saying goes, we have a sense of chaotic forces swirling around us. Every time we open a newspaper or magazine we are likely to read yet another article that will affect us personally or our business or the businesses we work for. This is the first in a series of articles addressing the role of the finance professional in providing critical leadership to the company and to its people.
xxAs finance leaders you are often closer to the centre of the business and its strategies and yet you are certainly not immune from being buffeted by the stresses and strains that your organization undergoes - Nor are you immune from the feeling of being cast adrift, at times, when changes that you either did not predict or did not wish for, happen in your company. Even when you were one of the initiators of change, it can affect you in ways you did not predict. So what can you do to make things better for you and for your staff?
xxFirst of all, it is the old Newtonian concept that stability and equilibrium are desired states. If we view the world the way the quantum physicists do, the world is an ever-changing, ever-evolving dynamic, open system which self-organizes... In this world view, being on the edge of chaos is seen as a sign that the world is unfolding as it should and stability and equilibrium are seen as signs of organisms that are dying. The Newtonian view was that left to themselves, things would tall apart. In the new view, things left to themselves, self-organize. In the old workplace, information is closely managed. In the new, it needs to be abundant and open. In the old workplace, the fundamental organizing units are things. In the new workplace, the fundamental organizing units are relationships-
xxSo what does this have to do with being a finance leader? As leader of your staff, it is important for you to create a climate where people can learn and grow. Margaret Wheatley, in Leadership and the New Science * identifies three important thrusts for organizations in which to excel if they are to thrive in this chaotic world. While she identifies them for organizations, I suggest that they are applicable to the finance area of your organization as well as to you, as leaders of finance.
xxThe first is the area of shared vision. If an organization, has a shared vision of where it is going and if, throughout the organization, everyone has a common understanding of what that is, then every person in the organization is empowered to act in service of that vision. Wheatley points out that the vision is shared from the bottom up as well as the top down. Vision comes from the understanding and hearts of those working in the organization.
xxWhat does that have to do with the individual finance professional? You are in a key position in your organization. Finance has an impact on every other part of the organization. You have the power to facilitate the success of the organization reaching its goals. It is important that you are very clear about these goals and your role in helping it attain them. Secondly, you must be developing your own personal vision or purpose. Key questions to ask yourself include, "What is it your organization is trying to achieve and what is my role in that? What is my own purpose and how does that fit into my role in this organization?"
xxThe second area Wheatley identifies is that of information. In the old world, information was held closely, shared with only a key few individuals and was seen as a source of power, Now, information is being broadly shared and disseminated with the goal being to put it in the hands of the people who need a when they need it. Finance has a strong role to play in placing the right kinds of information in the right places. It used to be that responsibility for control was in the hands of finance. Now, everyone needs to learn about control and the need for it and responsibility for control is now being placed in the hands of all across the organization. A key question for you to ask yourself is, "Do I have the information I need to perform my job and do I have information that I should be sharing to help others perform theirs?" Your staff will also need to be asking the same questions.
xxThe third area Wheatley identifies is that of relationships. In the old world, people had access to others by virtue of their title or their reporting relationship or their job descriptions. In the new world, it is recognized that there are relationships you need to have access to in order to get the job done. Key questions to ask yourself are: "Do I have the relationships I need to get my job done? In which relationships am I most effective? What do I need to do to strengthen those relationships? Is there anything in my more formal, official relationships which needs revising or shifting to become more effective?"
xxOne of the critical aspects of good working relationship is the building of trust. If you have trusting relationships, you can accomplish much more than in silos where either people don't trust each other or don't understand each other. You don't have to build trust all at once. It takes the laying of one brick at a time, day after day, until you have the relationships you need. One of the most effective ways to build trust in another, however, is to extend it yourself. A key question to ask yourself is, "is there a significant relationship you have in which there is not enough trust?"
xxAs a finance professional, you will naturally have technical competencies that you bring to your role. You will have interpersonal skills which will be getting more and more practice with each day. There used to be a large gap between those "hard" issues and the "soft" issues. However, as Richard D. Haas, Chairman and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co. has said, "What we've learned is that the soft stuff and the hard stuff are increasingly intertwined. A company's values - what it stands for, what its people believe in - are crucial to its competitive success. Indeed, values drive the business."** Your role as a finance professional will be to work to harness your technical competencies while exercising your interpersonal skills to the fullest.
If you have any comments or questions for Esther Ewing, please contact her.
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