Category Archives: Professional Development

Create Your Own Credible and Authentic Professional Image

Have you been letting others dictate your career progress, or are you taking ownership of your own development? As a subcategory of your career development, have you started thinking about your personal branding?

Instead of getting too wrapped up in day-to-day details and stress, it is helpful to step back and evaluate the big picture of career progress and personal development. Either you can take ownership over your thoughts and behavior patterns, or you can let other people determine your path. Choose wisely.

Professor Lauren Morgan Roberts shared insights from her research on managing professional image in an interview with Mallory Stark. As with effective career development, Dr. Roberts points out that developing a desirable professional image is best undertaken strategically and proactively.

Dr. Roberts defines professional image as “the set of qualities and characteristics that represent perceptions of your competence and character as judged by your key constituents (i.e., clients, superiors, subordinates, colleagues).” She points out, “Research shows that the most favorably regarded traits are trustworthiness, caring, humility, and capability.”

Closely related to trustworthiness is reliability. Be a person that people can count on to deliver time and again, especially when the stakes are high and deadlines are tight.

Dr. Roberts gives insights related to closing the gap between your desired professional image and how others perceive you. Consider what you want people to say about you when you aren’t there, and compare this to the concerns you have regarding what people might think and say about you. Tune in to direct or indirect feedback about how others perceive your “competence, character, and commitment.”

According to Dr. Roberts, three factors can undermine your perceived professional image. First, making mistakes or having gaps in your skills and knowledge can create predicaments related to your professional image. Secondly, although not necessarily through any fault of your own, your identity with certain negatively stereotyped groups can create devaluation in how others perceive your professional image. Thirdly, if others perceive that you lack legitimacy, your professional image will be harmed.

To overcome these challenges, Dr. Roberts proposes these steps: “People manage impressions through their non-verbal behavior (appearance, demeanor), verbal cues (vocal pitch, tone, and rate of speech, grammar and diction, disclosures), and demonstrative acts (citizenship, job performance).”

However, when attempting to manage impressions, there is a risk of others perceiving your efforts as “deception, delusion, preoccupation, distraction, futility, and manipulation.”

This is where one of Dr. Roberts’ key insights comes in: “When you present yourself in a manner that is both true to self and valued and believed by others, impression management can yield a host of favorable outcomes for you, your team, and your organization.”

In other words, be authentic and credible. These attributes must be balanced since some people might need to downplay particular natural tendencies in order to meet professional expectations and be credible. At the same time, this should not be overdone at the expense of authenticity.

Dr. Roberts concludes with a list of action steps and provides this insight: “Be the author of your own identity. Take a strategic, proactive approach to managing your image.”

Poetry and Art for the CFO: Twelve Elements

Are you left or right brained? Analytical or emotional? A number cruncher or a poet?

Although it might run counter to our initial assumptions, CFOs are expected to go “beyond the numbers” and manage key aspects of the business as a whole. We have seen the importance of understanding technology and operations, among other factors not directly related to number crunching.

Very critical is the CFO’s role in dealing effectively with people and relationships. A CFO needs to be approachable. To become CFO material, a finance professional needs to develop habits of ambiguity tolerance, composure, empathy, energy, humility, and confidence.

On that note, the international accounting and finance firm Deloitte has published a poetic and artistic description of the CFO’s twelve elements, which encapsulates the expansive requirements and responsibilities of the CFO’s job:

“As CFOs grow in stature and importance, they keep coming back to the same issues that form their agenda. The elements of the CFO Agenda represent a powerful framework for one of the toughest jobs on earth. Year after year, quarter after quarter, they endure.”

Here are the twelve elements and my summation of the messages:

  • Truth – Be real. Know the true story and tell it.
  • Growth – Plant and water. Make choices and commitments to move plans forward.
  • Relationships – Work together. Manage relationships up and down, inside and out.
  • Decisions – Root your insights in numbers. Don’t manage solely based on your gut.
  • Capital – Manage business investments. Determine timing, amounts, and allocations.
  • Disruption – Be discerning as technologies, industries, and markets constantly change.
  • Crisis – Manage risks. Be ready to respond to various sorts of threats.
  • Infrastructure – Be an enabler. Invest in tech, talent, systems, and solutions.
  • Transactions – Research deals with the right criteria, calmly, thoroughly, and rationally.
  • Transitions – Change is constant. Build your skills and reputation in the midst of it.
  • The Street – Have give and take on forecasts. Be vigilant to represent the company well.
  • Me – Provide solutions. Navigate through complexity to make things happen.

Don’t take my word for it. Take a look at the presentation for yourself. Reflect on the messages. Do you agree or disagree with each of the elements and how they’re presented? How can you apply these insights in your work as you develop your career?

To Confront or Not to Confront?

Would you rather confront or appease someone in a conflict situation? Do you prefer to fight for a cause and for what you believe is right or try your hardest to avoid a clash?

Depending on the decisions you make and the roles you choose to fill, you might be able to navigate through life with a minimum amount of conflict. However, if you plan to take on a significant level of leadership over projects and people, such as the role of Chief Financial Officer, you will quickly find that conflict is inevitable. Customer complaints will find their way into your office. You will have to negotiate over defective products from suppliers. You will spend large portions of your day handling conflict and drama among your team members and among others within and outside of your organization.

Business leadership expert and blogger Michael Hyatt says he used to prefer to stay out of conflict by keeping his opinions to himself and going along with the system: “This was a pretty good strategy for a while. But it didn’t really work once people were counting on me to lead.” Furthermore, Hyatt notes: “Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the willingness to act in spite of my fear.” If you fear conflict because you want to maintain your personal comfort, you still have to be willing to step outside of your comfort zone by acting for the good of your team and those who rely on your leadership.

John Maxwell advises leaders to keep two points in mind during confrontation:

  • Be honest and realistic – don’t try to deceive people into going along with your position, or you will lose credibility and damage relationships.
  • Be sincere – have the right motives, and truly try to help the other person you are confronting. The person you confront might not like what you tell them, but if they sense that you have the right heart behind your words, they are more likely to accept your confrontation.

Doug Van Dyke encourages leaders to confront problems in order to set the right tone for both the troublemakers and the team members who rely on you for leadership. As with the book on negotiation that I am reviewing, Van Dyke advises being tough on issues but soft on people. He also says to focus on controlling your own behavior while you influence others, be specific and detailed about the problems you are confronting, and build collaboration with people to solve problems.

Finally, since business relationships rapidly continue becoming more international, Erin Meyer shares tips to manage confrontation cross-culturally. For example, understand the distinct approaches toward conflict and negotiation among various cultures, and learn to work with a variety of people who are different from yourself. Prepare for your confrontations. Develop tactics for depersonalizing conflict and emphasizing the problems and solutions rather than the parties involved (again, separate the people from the problem). Set a proper tone by asking open-ended questions rather than making direct statements of disagreement.

Like it or not, confrontation is inevitable for finance professionals who wish to become key members of their organizations’ management teams. Set the right tone and have the courage to lead. Be honest and sincere when you confront others. Tackle problems rather than attacking people. Prepare for the different types of people you will confront, and be solutions-oriented the whole way through the conversation.

Four Ways to be a Principled Negotiator (Part 1 of 3)

Negotiation tactics are often thought of like secret weapons. You want to keep your counterpart guessing, never divulge your bottom line, possibly find ways to intimidate your counterpart, and use the element of surprise. Under this paradigm, the less your counterpart knows about the books you’ve read and the conditioning you’ve undergone to enter the negotiation, the better.

There is an alternative approach: “Principled negotiation is an all-purpose strategy. Unlike almost all other strategies, if the other side learns this one, it does not become more difficult to use; it becomes easier. If they read this book, all the better” (p. xix).

Does this sound intriguing?

The quote comes from Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, authors of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Penguin Books, 1991, 2nd ed.). They describe their approach as principled negotiation, distinguishing it from positional bargaining in which the negotiator uses either a hard or soft stance.

To understand the approach and distinctions better, consider two elements of a negotiation: the substantive issue and the process. Each assertion you bring to the table and your demeanor throughout the process reinforces rules (often unspoken) about the process you are undertaking. You can take a hard or soft stance in advocating for your position, or you can step back and propose — explicitly or even implicitly — a principled approach.

Rather than deciding beforehand what position to take in order to best serve your interests — and then advocating for this position more or less robustly or timidly — you can negotiate on the merits of the situation. The authors boil down this principled approach to four points (pp. 10-11):

  1. People: “Separate the people from the problem.”
  2. Interests: “Focus on interests, not positions.”
  3. Options: “Generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do.”
  4. Criteria: “Insist that the result be based on some objective standard.”

The authors describe this approach as hard on the merits and issues but soft on the people and relationships.

The first step is to be sensitive and recognize the humanity of your counterpart. We don’t negotiate with machines or animals but with other humans who have real emotions, fears, values, beliefs, and elements of unpredictable behavior. We want to come through the negotiation having reached a wise agreement, as efficiently as possible, and with an ongoing relationship still intact. Rather than throwing around your weight by making personal attacks or appeasing your counterpart with substantive concessions, fundamentally deal with each issue on its merits. There will be no need for shouting, name-calling, or any other personal attacks; the hardness will be reserved for keeping the negotiation on a principled course.

A Key Gem to tuck away regarding the people aspect of negotiations: “The ability to see the situation as the other side sees it, as difficult as it may be, is one of the most important skills a negotiator can possess” (p. 23).

The second step is to be clear on the difference between interests and positions. The analogy that came to mind is a familiar marketing distinction between benefits and features. An average salesperson can talk all day about a product’s features. The remarkable salesperson can discern what benefits I’m looking for and show me exactly how the product will give me everything I need (and more). Rather than saying, “This has a nice touch screen,” the salesperson could say, “You can utilize the touchscreen to save time and spare yourself the frustration of pressing buttons and scrolling through menus.”

A negotiator who focuses on positions is like the salesperson who focuses on features. Instead, a negotiator does well to focus on underlying interests — i.e., the objectives to be achieved, which could be accomplished through a variety of means. A principled negotiator recognizes that features (positions) can vary as long as they provide ultimate benefits (i.e., preserve legitimate interests).

A Key Gem to tuck away regarding advocating for your interests in a negotiation: “It is your job to have the other side understand exactly how important and legitimate your interests are” (p. 50).

To Be Continued . . .

Think Twice Before Mixing Personal Relationships With Business

Have you ever tried to mix personal family or friendship relationships with business? How did it work for you? Some people function very well in a context of mixing work with friendship or family life. Others struggle with many inherent pitfalls. Whether you choose to rush in or avoid these arrangements, it is wise to be prepared. More than likely, even if it’s not of your own making, you will someday be in a position to deal with a scenario that involves the mixing of personal with business relationships.

In my experience as a finance professional I have seen business situations in which the participants’ actions were heavily impacted by relationships with family or friends who were involved. Even the savviest businessperson can struggle to make decisions at “arm’s length” when the personal relationship is clearly not arm’s length.

Personal finance guru Dave Ramsey advises, “I do a lot of business with friends. But I make sure that the specific requirements of our relationship are laid out very clearly, in writing.” In addition, “Just be straightforward, and make sure the rules are understood by everyone involved. Then, when you have to enforce the rules, do it gently but firmly.”

Of course, the tendency when working with friends or family members is to avoid solidifying details or getting anything in writing, let alone seeking legal counsel. After all, this can wrongly be perceived as demonstrating a lack of trust.

In reality, the best way to preserve relationships is to manage expectations. Talk through the relevant deal points, and solidify your agreements in writing. No exceptions really means no exceptions: Get your agreements in writing, even (or perhaps, especially) when dealing with family or friends.

Blogger Ron Edmondson provided some cautions on working with friends, including risks for both the organization and the relationship between friends: “The bottom line is that doing the best thing for the organization often involves making hard decisions. Leaders should not be held back because of the level of difficulty.”

Doing business with disinterested third parties is more straightforward in some respects because both parties are clear that the relationship is business, not personal. Attorney and CPA Mark Kohler recommends a simple test to determine whether to enter a business relationship: “Bottom line: if you feel you can’t ask for thorough documentation, or could never sue or send a nasty letter to the person you are going to be in business with, this is probably a project you should walk away from to hang on to the relationship.”

Rob Weinberg gives insight on his approach: “So if I’m doing business with a friend I find it’s critical to insist at the outset that the friendship is the priority. If there’s ever a question of the business tainting the friendship, we both agree to walk away from the business relationship. Furthermore, any indication of uncertainty at the outset eliminates the possibility of our working together.”

Harrison Barnes provides perspective on why organizations do not allow managers to hire their friends or relatives: “Reducing corruption and increasing efficiency are the primary reasons many organizations have anti-nepotism policies. Corruption has always been a concern in this realm. If individuals who are friends or relatives work together, organizations fear that these individuals may collaborate to advance their own interests rather than the interests of the organization.”

In future installments we will look at how finance professionals can position themselves to help navigate their businesses through tricky scenarios, and one of these would be a personal-turned-business relationship that goes awry.

See the Big Picture to Position Yourself as CFO Material

The Journal of Accountancy ran a rather thorough article detailing skill sets, thought processes, and behavior patterns that are helpful toward achieving the CFO role. Although perhaps dated in some respects, the article has a number of worthwhile insights, and here is a summary:

  • Priority #1 for an aspiring CFO is understanding strategy. See the “big picture” of how the organization creates value in the marketplace.
  • The CFO is the CEO’s right hand. If you aspire to this role, make sure the CEO knows it. Demonstrate that you can think like a member of the board of directors and that you take seriously what the board thinks, just as the CEO does.
  • Go beyond numbers and accounting. In addition to technical acumen, develop “soft” and “people” skills.
  • “Look for what the market wants rather than what you want.”
  • “Focus on the job content and reporting relationship.” Don’t worry too much about your title as you develop your career, strengthen your skill sets, and work on achieving your goals.
  • Have a positive attitude, ask questions, and demonstrate willingness to get involved with other teams in the organization.
  • The CFO must understand operations and technology. This is a persistent theme throughout much of the literature on the topic of CFO skill sets.
  • Decision-making and CPA or MBA skill sets are advantageous for differentiating your candidacy for the CFO role, possibly even more so than specific industry experience. That said, breaking into a new industry requires lots of time and hard work.
  • Getting some corporate treasury or controller experience is important, as opposed to exclusively focusing on public accounting. However, working in public accounting for awhile can strengthen accounting and regulatory compliance skill sets.
  • “Organizations typically want to hire a CFO who’s been a CFO.” Therefore, an aspiring CFO must develop a strategy for effective positioning as CFO material.
  • Do research on an organization before interviewing, determine the company’s needs, and based on what you learn, put together a proposal demonstrating your ability to be on senior management’s problem-solver team.
  • Be a self-starter, and study your organization, industry, competition, and benchmarks.
  • Be a team and consensus builder who can operate cross-functionally.
  • Seek out opportunities to broaden your horizons and skill sets by taking initiative and participating in various types of roles and projects in your organization.
  • Maintain your reputation and integrity. You must be loyal and trustworthy.
  • “Self-confidence is persuasive to your superiors.”

This is a long list, and it’s only a summary of some of the many points within the article. These ideas can help an aspiring CFO understand how to become positioned for the role through undertaking career development initiatives.

Lessons from a CFO: Operations, Technology, and Innovation

With the rise of technology and the rapid pace of change in the world, the role of the CFO is clearly being transformed. The traditional “sweet spots” for top finance executives are broadening beyond accounting and finance toward operations, technology, and innovation.

Lon Searle, CFO of YESCO which makes custom electric signs, provided some glimpses into his role in a recently published Forbes interview. Here is a summary of some of his points:

  • CFOs are becoming more focused on operations and supporting every department of the organization through financial analysis: “In manufacturing, the CFO has to get out on the shop floor and understand the operations and the product the company is making; he or she has to move the ball down the field in a way that provides value to the company.”
  • Understanding and working with information technology is an important part of the CFO’s role: “The CFO position is gaining a systems focus – it works with IT and financial analysis that can help every department.”
  • CFOs can serve as coaches for the finance staff as well as other functions in the organization: “I help train the financial staff, train the sales staff to lease to our customers, and even train our franchisees to help with financial decisions and funding decisions.”
  • Understanding international business is increasingly important for CFOs: “I also get involved in global shipping and interactions – getting letters of credit for our customers to ship products all over the world and deciding whether to hedge the currency risk in transactions. We’re a global company but not that large, so to be involved in that is surprising to me, given my career path. But it’s really a global economy now, and almost any CFO should be involved in those decisions and that research. It’s interesting and challenging, too.”
  • CFOs can help drive innovation in the organization: “CFOs can be a driving influence, spreading ideas throughout the company, helping employees cross-fertilize and see things from a different perspective. It’s a great position to be in. It’s unfortunate that some financial officers just see themselves as keepers of the books and not champions of innovation.”

Operations, technology, and innovation are broad categories for a financial professional to have on the radar, in addition to developing coaching skills and international acumen. The path toward the CFO role includes gaining professional knowledge and experience in these areas. These are helpful ideas to consider in mapping out a career development plan.

For Best Results, Avoid Drama

We have all known people who have a flair for the dramatic. Some of them end up in Hollywood, while others might end up in our workplaces. The gossip, petty arguments, political maneuvering, and other extracurricular activities of these dramatists have nothing to do with creating value in the marketplace. Depending on your personality and proclivities, you might have no problem avoiding such office place dramatics. That said, it never hurts to carefully think about how to position yourself professionally in the midst of office place drama:

  • Stay above the fray – Make a decision to simply go to your desk and not participate in the drama. If coworkers are gossiping about one another, cutting down the boss, or complaining about the latest item of discontent, demonstrate by your actions that you don’t participate in such antics.
  • Don’t gawk – It’s human nature to enjoy a good drama. But if fellow employees are putting on a show, don’t stick around to watch. Find something productive to do that will build up the organization.
  • Contribute professionally – Sometimes it is hard to draw a fine line between office drama and legitimate matters that need handled. Sometimes the dramatists themselves need to be brought into line, which requires professional handling. If you are in a supervisory or HR role, you have to deal with drama as part of your job. The key is to do this professionally while, again, staying above the fray.
  • Be warm and personal but not dramatic – We’re not recommending being dour. Develop a reputation for being approachable. But position yourself as a professional, not a dramatist.
  • Bring calmness and stability to the office place – Some people bring constant commotion to their surroundings. Others tend to calm down everyone. It takes all types to have an effective team. Regardless of our natural tendencies, the best approach is to actively discern what is needed. When everyone is riled up, it is best to have a calming presence. Be steady and dependable, someone who can be relied upon to perform well under pressure.

Unless your career path leads toward Hollywood, you are unlikely to gain any professional advancement by being a dramatist. Position yourself as a leader who can resist the clever attempts of coworkers to drag you into the fray.

Step Number One for Creating Positive Change

No organization is perfect. Every business has room for improvement. Even the best companies have to constantly reinvent themselves in order to stay ahead within a rapidly changing marketplace.

Business professional who care about their organization’s success must identify key steps to effectively manage change. Whether the matter is a problem to be solved or a proactive initiative to keep the business on the cutting edge, the best approach is to take ownership.

Senior leaders hire employees to solve problems. Employees do not exist in the organization so that they can delegate tasks and problems for the boss to handle. Sometimes an employee will be able to identify a problem that needs solved or an initiative to pursue, but the challenge becomes presenting an effective business case that gets to the root of the matter, initiatives a path forward, and assigns authority to the appropriate parties.

If there is a hole in my roof it does no good for me to say, “Someone needs to fix that hole in the roof. I hope someone comes along soon before it rains, or else we’re all going to get wet.” Rather, I must identify a solution: Either I can obtain the needed supplies, get up on the roof, and get my hands dirty; or I can identify and pay a competent repair person to do this for me.

In the same way, when an employee sees a “hole in the roof” within the business, it does no good to tell the boss that the problem needs solved and leave it at that. Absent a solutions-oriented approach, this only provides the employee with a reputation of being negative or a nag. Rather, the employee should lay out the problem, provide well-research options for potential solutions, and then ask for the boss to sign-off on pursuing the most feasible solution. This process can take time in soliciting input, but the boss needs to know all along that the employee fully intends to take ownership and handle the matter to completion.

The final proposal to solve the problem and drive change might involve spending time, money, or other resources. Whatever it means, the employees must take initiative and own the matter through to completion. Managers will appreciate and start relying upon those rare employees who do not try to pass the monkey onto the boss’s back.

The Future of Your Work

TIME ran a series of ten features regarding the future of work. In formulating a career development plan it is imperative to begin visualizing how work life might look in the future in light of rapid global changes. Here are a few summarized conclusions from TIME‘s articles:

  • “We will see a more flexible, more freelance, more collaborative and far less secure work world. It will be run by a generation with new values — and women will increasingly be at the controls.”
  • Not surprisingly, one of the best sectors into the future will continue to be technology. Entrepreneurs will set the tone for which specific areas thrive and dominate within the broader tech landscape.
  • Debate rages about the role of business schools in inculcating managerial ethics. One way or another, the importance of business ethics – and the consequences for diverging from paths of integrity – will not wane into the future.
  • As a cost-savings measure, companies will increasingly expect employees to contribute more toward paying for their benefits. Many companies started their benefit plans when the ratio of young workers to retirees was much higher. Now that the ratio is reversing, companies have to adjust accordingly and trim back benefits expenditures for employees and retirees alike.
  • Rather than the old traditional “up or out” model of career advancement, some companies are adopting a “lattice” model. Employees can “dial up” or “dial down” to different roles and enjoy more flexibility. Implementing telecommuting and other forms of flexible work arrangements can even be financially compelling for companies.
  • Baby Boomers will have to keep working longer than anticipated rather than retiring due to not having enough retirement savings. This can have both positive and negative effects for the economy.
  • Women will continue to extend their influence in the workplace. Women have a distinct style focused on collaboration, managing risk cautiously, and looking into the future, as compared to their male counterparts who thrive on risk. With more women comes more emphasis on work-life balance and flexibility. Furthermore, “When a company gives employees freedom, it doesn’t just feel good or get shiny, happy workers — productivity goes up.”
  • Green jobs geared toward various environmental objectives will likely continue to gain traction.
  • Generation X management styles will increasingly emerge. Gen X will have to manage Gen Y. “Companies already want more short-term independent contractors and consultants and fewer traditional employees because contractors are cheaper. And seniority matters less and less as time goes on, because it’s about the past, not the future.” Collaboration among workers from various backgrounds who are spread all over the world will become increasingly common. Cross-cultural communication and motivation strategies will become paramount career skills to develop.
  • Manufacturing productivity continues to vastly increase, coupled with less domestic demand for manufacturing workers. “Highly skilled workers creating high-value products in high-stakes industries — that’s the sweet spot for manufacturing workers in coming years. … Ultimately, what’s endangered is not U.S. manufacturing. It is our deeply ingrained cultural image of the factory and its workers.
  • “In order to understand what your workplace is going to be like in five or 10 years, you need to think about what your work is going to be like. Here’s a clue: employers no longer need to pay you to drive to a building to sit and type. In fact, under pressure from an uncertain economy, bosses are discovering that there are a lot of reasons not to pay you to drive to a central location or even to pay you at all. And when work gets auctioned off to the lowest bidder, your job gets a lot more stressful. … So, are you essential? Most of the best jobs will be for people who manage customers, who organize fans, who do digital community management. … Some people will embrace this new high-stress, high-speed, high-flexibility way of work. We’ll go from a few days alone at home, maintaining the status quo, to urgent team sessions, sometimes in person, often online. … Work will mean managing a tribe, creating a movement and operating in teams to change the world. Anything less is going to be outsourced to someone a lot cheaper and a lot less privileged than you or me.”

What other trends for work and careers can we expect in coming years and decades? How should we respond? This is a significant theme I plan to explore in many future installments. Whether we like trends of rapid change, reality is reality. We can either complain about emerging patterns, or we can learn to work them to our advantage. The choice is ours. Let the planning and action begin.