I was reminded recently of one of the more interesting episodes in my career when, for about twelve months, I was fortunate to be seconded to a small car manufacturer as Finance Director (both the cars and the company were small!). It presented an exciting departure from my normal way of working but was also an opportunity to learn. Here are the major takeaways for me from this experience:
Collective executive responsibility
Being part of the executive team meant that we plotted the course for the company and that we all bought into the strategy and the plan to deliver it. We were making significant changes to the products, to the manufacturing process and to the supply chain and we all had to be clear about what we were doing, why we were doing it and how we were going about it. Employees, shareholders, bankers, auditors and the press would be asking questions and we had to be consistent and clear in answering those questions but then in the actions and decisions we took.
Visible leadership
As I mentioned, we were introducing a lot of change to the business and my arrival as an appointee of the owners had the potential to cause further concern for the team. This was an opportunity for me to "walk the talk" when it comes to leading through change. Although the Finance Director is not typically someone who looms large in the daily life of the shop floor, I made it a point to have a daily walk about, partly to check where we were on the production schedule and identify anything that might hit the cashflow, but also to get to know people and for them to know me and that I was not some Corporate Venturing monster. I was also rolling my sleeves up, and using existing specialist skills and experience, in re-booting a stalled ERP system implementation, so had reason to work closely with the teams in all departments which made me more visible and accessible.
Trusting my instincts
I was lucky to have a mentor early in my career who said to me "Mike, your are smart and you know right from wrong, so trust your instincts". So I remembered my Obi Wan Kenobi's words when faced with the many and varied challenges that a Finance Director in a small business has to face. I had HR issues, including a constructive dismissal case, several staff members with significant personal issues that affected their work as well as a debt recovery action and a major IT problem to deal with. Yes, not just a CFO, but a CRHO, a CIO and Chief Counsel, all in one. I got it right for the most part through using my business "force".
Building trust with my team
I had a small accounting department and I knew it would be vital to get to a position of mutual trust with them. As a consultant, I was used to working in teams with people who had similar backgrounds and career motivations to my own. My accounts team were not that, but they were excellent nonetheless, and without being able to trust in what they could do, and their amazing level of commitment, I could not have been able to succeed in my goals.
Having had this role has helped me in my career since by adding a sense of perspective to the consulting work I have done for mostly large organisations across the world as well as providing these specific learnings.
Collective executive responsibility
Being part of the executive team meant that we plotted the course for the company and that we all bought into the strategy and the plan to deliver it. We were making significant changes to the products, to the manufacturing process and to the supply chain and we all had to be clear about what we were doing, why we were doing it and how we were going about it. Employees, shareholders, bankers, auditors and the press would be asking questions and we had to be consistent and clear in answering those questions but then in the actions and decisions we took.
Visible leadership
As I mentioned, we were introducing a lot of change to the business and my arrival as an appointee of the owners had the potential to cause further concern for the team. This was an opportunity for me to "walk the talk" when it comes to leading through change. Although the Finance Director is not typically someone who looms large in the daily life of the shop floor, I made it a point to have a daily walk about, partly to check where we were on the production schedule and identify anything that might hit the cashflow, but also to get to know people and for them to know me and that I was not some Corporate Venturing monster. I was also rolling my sleeves up, and using existing specialist skills and experience, in re-booting a stalled ERP system implementation, so had reason to work closely with the teams in all departments which made me more visible and accessible.
Cash is king
As an accountant I knew that cash flow management was always front and centre for a small manufacturing company but there is nothing like living it day-to-day to reinforce that. We had a great product, people wanted to buy it and we had a strong order book but our supply chain had a fragility which meant any hiccups would mean cars could not be completed tying up cash in uncompleted cars. So I got very adept at the good, the bad and the ugly of managing our cash. From increasing the level of the deposit taken when a customer ordered a car (the good) to holding onto large cheques for our larger suppliers until they asked for it (the bad) and many others in between (like daily cash monitoring) I was able to turn a weak cash position to something much more healthy.
Trusting my instincts
I was lucky to have a mentor early in my career who said to me "Mike, your are smart and you know right from wrong, so trust your instincts". So I remembered my Obi Wan Kenobi's words when faced with the many and varied challenges that a Finance Director in a small business has to face. I had HR issues, including a constructive dismissal case, several staff members with significant personal issues that affected their work as well as a debt recovery action and a major IT problem to deal with. Yes, not just a CFO, but a CRHO, a CIO and Chief Counsel, all in one. I got it right for the most part through using my business "force".
Building trust with my team
I had a small accounting department and I knew it would be vital to get to a position of mutual trust with them. As a consultant, I was used to working in teams with people who had similar backgrounds and career motivations to my own. My accounts team were not that, but they were excellent nonetheless, and without being able to trust in what they could do, and their amazing level of commitment, I could not have been able to succeed in my goals.
Having had this role has helped me in my career since by adding a sense of perspective to the consulting work I have done for mostly large organisations across the world as well as providing these specific learnings.
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