CFOs get lots of good advice about their career. They hear things like:
- Build your Personal Brand
- Always be Networking
- Learn to be more Strategic
- Acquire Operational Experience
These tidbits are important for a CFOs success.
However, as good a CFO as you may be, to become a Great CFO you must have a great team.
Having a great team gives you the bench strength you need to spend the time necessary to be strategic and add value to the business, rather than getting lost in the day to day functional realities and firefighting.
Whether you are the newly hired CFO or have been the CFO for a while, the steps necessary are the same. You need to:
1) Design what your team should look like to support your vision
2) Look critically at your current team and allocate people based on their strengths
3) Dismiss those whose strengths do not align with the vision of what your team should look like
4) Hire right to fill the gaps, and
5) Create a succession plan for your team and for yourself.
Sounds simple. It's not. But you already knew that. However, putting in the time and the effort to doing these steps will put you on track to becoming a Great CFO.
I urge you to make this effort. It will be worth the time.
Let me know how it goes.
2 comments:
Great advice -- I'd also add that being a great CFO means communicating and having honest expectations from your team.
Great advice, Samuel.
I love that #1 is build your personal brand. Besides being important in conveying who you really are, it is also differentiating AND speaks directly to culture fit.
Two points that add validity to that statement. First, the number of CFOs who ask about branding has increased 80% over two years ago. They are getting it. Second, in talking with my contact at CFO regarding their last conference, he said the "buzz" centered around branding.
Personal branding is, and will continue to be, a big deal.
Post a Comment