In 2010, international shipping and energy conglomerate A.P. Moeller-Maersk called on its finance professionals to take a more active role in business operations. Since then, the finance department of at least one of its divisions, Maersk Drilling USA, crossed department lines to contribute changes that this year will produce a $10 million bottom-line improvement.
Anders Liu-Lindberg, the division’s finance manager, says the progress his team has made wasn’t so much about technical finance and accounting—its main directive—but rather collaboration. The department reached across to other parts of the business and improved how finance staffers worked with other departments, interacted with them, and communicated with them.
For example, Liu-Lindberg and his team have changed how they present information to operations staff, moving from complicated spreadsheets to PowerPoint presentations that use graphs to convey information that is more easily digestible. Thanks to the improved communications, the people behind the numbers found themselves invited to more conversations, which in turn gave them more chances to engage with human resources, purchasing, and other functions. Soon, armed with richer information and better interdepartmental collaboration, those in finance were able to dig up areas for savings. These included noting that offshore drilling units staffed mostly with locals were less expensive than those with lots of expats, and revealing that sending people overseas for training was often more costly than local courses and had no added benefits.
Finance didn’t necessarily drive such changes, Liu-Lindberg says, but he and his staff got the conversations started and provided support to get things done. “You really have to apply different skills than you’re used to,” he says. “It’s transformational. You have to change mindsets.”
These days, the skills Liu-Lindberg is talking about—communication, leadership, and big-picture thinking—are almost universally regarded as crucial for advancement and success in the finance world. The department and its leader are looked upon to offer more of a say on the corporate strategy and to carry over their unique knowledge and skillset to the rest of the company. To do it well, they need to know more than just numbers and what they mean. They need to be able to communicate their analysis thoughtfully and in a way that will get and keep the rest of the company’s attention. They need those so-called soft skills that are not always naturally picked up in traditional accounting schools and corporate settings unless they make a concerted effort to learn more about them.
As it is, many CFOs seem stymied about how to address their own soft skills and those of their staff. For example, a 2013 survey by finance staffing firm Accountemps found that 30 percent of CFOs identified poor interpersonal skills as the most common reason employees fail to advance, but only 19 percent said their organization is likely to invest in soft skills training for accounting and finance staff.
Why Professional Development Matters
Just as CFOs and their accounting staff keep their technical skills updated to maintain their CPA status, they should consider ways to keep sharpening their soft skills too (professional development courses specifically designed for the office of the CFO are now available through Proformative Academy).
Consider the benefits of ongoing learning realized by David Buley, CFO at the Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales in Australia, who has taken a number of courses on strategy, leadership, and negotiation from institutions including The Wharton School and MIT’s Sloan School of Management in recent years. “I’m a perennial studier,” he says. “Study refreshes your perspective because it’s too easy to just do your own job. You get better at it, more efficient, complacent, and before long there’s no challenge.”
Buley says that while the need for technical skills is a given, it’s also crucial for how the CFO and his or her team communicates with various audiences, which can range from the CEO to the board to the leader of a tiny subsidiary. “You have to be able to present everything in a way that resonates with everyone you are trying to connect with,” he says. “So, presentation skills are highly useful. Tricks include changing your tone, using passion sparingly, slowing down your delivery speed, leaving pauses, and effectively structuring your argument.”
Buley also seeks out resources like the Harvard Business Review and London Business School’s Business Strategy Review to keep himself thinking about how to approach different challenges. Even though the anecdotes in these publications can be repetitive, they have given Buley fodder for ways to help others in his organization. “Sure, a lot of stuff gets recycled, but that's OK because my conversations get recycled too, and it’s useful to be able to draw upon different examples from different stories to get your point across,” he says.
This commitment to continuing education has led, Buley says, to a seat on a board of directors and a pension investment committee, and that, in turn, has provided another boost to his abilities. “I think getting a seat on a board gives you a better perspective because you are forced to stop being a manager and looking deep into operational matters and look more at oversight, risk, and strategy,” he said.
Talent Management of the CFO
When done purposefully, soft-skill development can give finance departments more ease in crossing department lines to uncover inefficiencies and strategize over how the company should move forward. The ability to work well with others is actually a skill that can be learned — it isn’t necessarily a personality trait.
This can be developed by getting training in active listening or taking a temporary stint in a different department, says ArLyne Diamond, owner of California consulting group Diamond Associates, who recently started an active discussion on the subject through a Proformative blog post. Or it can be done through an even more creative method— by reading fiction, she suggests. “You get interpersonal relationships and stuff like that within the form of a novel—how to communicate with people, what works, what doesn’t,” she says, “Start thinking about where other people are coming from.”
In the real world, for Liu-Lindberg of Maersk Drilling, the fact that he had been trained in communications proved crucial when he was called on to expand his finance department’s efforts.
“You really need to be good in that area,” he says. “Who’s my audience? How do I present for them? You don’t necessarily have to have a job in operations, but you have to have interactions. Otherwise you’ll be sitting in your own cocoon producing financial information, and that’s just not going to cut it anymore.”
In 2010, international shipping and energy conglomerate A.P. Moeller-Maersk called on its finance professionals to take a more active role in business operations. Since then, the finance department of at least one of its divisions, Maersk Drilling USA, crossed department lines to contribute changes that this year will produce a $10 million bottom-line improvement.
Anders Liu-Lindberg, the division’s finance manager, says the progress his team has made wasn’t so much about technical finance and accounting—its main directive—but rather collaboration. The department reached across to other parts of the business and improved how finance staffers worked with other departments, interacted with them, and communicated with them.
For example, Liu-Lindberg and his team have changed how they present information to operations staff, moving from complicated spreadsheets to PowerPoint presentations that use graphs to convey information that is more easily digestible. Thanks to the improved communications, the people behind the numbers found themselves invited to more conversations, which in turn gave them more chances to engage with human resources, purchasing, and other functions. Soon, armed with richer information and better interdepartmental collaboration, those in finance were able to dig up areas for savings. These included noting that offshore drilling units staffed mostly with locals were less expensive than those with lots of expats, and revealing that sending people overseas for training was often more costly than local courses and had no added benefits.
Finance didn’t necessarily drive such changes, Liu-Lindberg says, but he and his staff got the conversations started and provided support to get things done. “You really have to apply different skills than you’re used to,” he says. “It’s transformational. You have to change mindsets.”
These days, the skills Liu-Lindberg is talking about—communication, leadership, and big-picture thinking—are almost universally regarded as crucial for advancement and success in the finance world. The department and its leader are looked upon to offer more of a say on the corporate strategy and to carry over their unique knowledge and skillset to the rest of the company. To do it well, they need to know more than just numbers and what they mean. They need to be able to communicate their analysis thoughtfully and in a way that will get and keep the rest of the company’s attention. They need those so-called soft skills that are not always naturally picked up in traditional accounting schools and corporate settings unless they make a concerted effort to learn more about them.
As it is, many CFOs seem stymied about how to address their own soft skills and those of their staff. For example, a 2013 survey by finance staffing firm Accountemps found that 30 percent of CFOs identified poor interpersonal skills as the most common reason employees fail to advance, but only 19 percent said their organization is likely to invest in soft skills training for accounting and finance staff.
Why Professional Development Matters
Just as CFOs and their accounting staff keep their technical skills updated to maintain their CPA status, they should consider ways to keep sharpening their soft skills too (professional development courses specifically designed for the office of the CFO are now available through Proformative Academy).
Consider the benefits of ongoing learning realized by David Buley, CFO at the Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales in Australia, who has taken a number of courses on strategy, leadership, and negotiation from institutions including The Wharton School and MIT’s Sloan School of Management in recent years. “I’m a perennial studier,” he says. “Study refreshes your perspective because it’s too easy to just do your own job. You get better at it, more efficient, complacent, and before long there’s no challenge.”
Buley says that while the need for technical skills is a given, it’s also crucial for how the CFO and his or her team communicates with various audiences, which can range from the CEO to the board to the leader of a tiny subsidiary. “You have to be able to present everything in a way that resonates with everyone you are trying to connect with,” he says. “So, presentation skills are highly useful. Tricks include changing your tone, using passion sparingly, slowing down your delivery speed, leaving pauses, and effectively structuring your argument.”
Buley also seeks out resources like the Harvard Business Review and London Business School’s Business Strategy Review to keep himself thinking about how to approach different challenges. Even though the anecdotes in these publications can be repetitive, they have given Buley fodder for ways to help others in his organization. “Sure, a lot of stuff gets recycled, but that's OK because my conversations get recycled too, and it’s useful to be able to draw upon different examples from different stories to get your point across,” he says.
This commitment to continuing education has led, Buley says, to a seat on a board of directors and a pension investment committee, and that, in turn, has provided another boost to his abilities. “I think getting a seat on a board gives you a better perspective because you are forced to stop being a manager and looking deep into operational matters and look more at oversight, risk, and strategy,” he said.
Talent Management of the CFO
When done purposefully, soft-skill development can give finance departments more ease in crossing department lines to uncover inefficiencies and strategize over how the company should move forward. The ability to work well with others is actually a skill that can be learned — it isn’t necessarily a personality trait.
This can be developed by getting training in active listening or taking a temporary stint in a different department, says ArLyne Diamond, owner of California consulting group Diamond Associates, who recently started an active discussion on the subject through a Proformative blog post. Or it can be done through an even more creative method— by reading fiction, she suggests. “You get interpersonal relationships and stuff like that within the form of a novel—how to communicate with people, what works, what doesn’t,” she says, “Start thinking about where other people are coming from.”
In the real world, for Liu-Lindberg of Maersk Drilling, the fact that he had been trained in communications proved crucial when he was called on to expand his finance department’s efforts.
“You really need to be good in that area,” he says. “Who’s my audience? How do I present for them? You don’t necessarily have to have a job in operations, but you have to have interactions. Otherwise you’ll be sitting in your own cocoon producing financial information, and that’s just not going to cut it anymore.”
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