The New CFOs; by Liz Mellon, David Nagel, Robert Lippert and Nigel Slack, published by Kogan Page.I chose this book because it is highly relevant to our own work running courses for financial people from international companies; we do not normally deal at CFO level as our focus in on business partnering at operating unit level but it is interesting that many of the issues are the same.
I have mixed feelings when I see a book written by four authors and wonder how that can work, particularly as they are from different countries and backgrounds. Three come from the USA and one (Nigel Slack) from the UK and, as far as one can see from their biographies, their backgrounds are from general management and academia, rather than the Finance Function. It could be argued that this has some advantages and encourages objectivity but one would have expected at least one out of four to have worked in Finance. At times this lack of practical experience showed.
The book starts with an excellent four page foreword by Zarin Patel, CFO of the BBC, which could stand alone as a summary of what it takes to be a great CFO. In some ways this is a problem for the authors because this foreword creates expectations that are hard to follow. In particular it makes the reader hope for lots of views and examples from CFOs of similar stature but these are not forthcoming.
The week before reading this book, I came across a report from Ernst & Young titled ‘Finance forte – the future of finance leadership’. This was published in 2011 and contained no more than 30 pages, yet it was full of real life examples from top companies. It made interesting comparisons between the career routes of top CFOs, some MBAs, some accountants, some specialists in one sector, some who move around. But the impressive aspect was the companies they worked for; GSK, Nestle, Phillips, Unilever etc.
In contrast, this book is very short on such examples; I only counted seven references to company CFOs and while Google and Siemens were impressive, GenPact, Liberty Africa, and UBM were less so. I know from our own recent book on Business Partnering that getting approval for inclusion of content from top companies can be laborious but four authors should have been able to produce more than this. Fictitious or disguised case studies in which Gordon or Larry have to decide how to work with Mark or Sally do not sit well and do not live up to the expectations from the title and the reputations of the authors.
So what is there in the book that is worth recommending? The second chapter on strategic leadership makes some very good points, stressing the importance of communication skills and the need to see things from a broad business perspective. These are very similar messages to those that we cover in our work on Finance Business Partnering; it is reassuring that this is reflected at higher levels too.
The later chapters on control and risk management also make some sound points but it was then that I began to wonder who this was aimed at. Would an aspiring or existing CFO need to be advised how to use the well-known risk matrix and be informed about the importance of robust controls? This confirmed my own conclusions that, once finance people rise to senior level, the emphasis should be on behavioural and business skills; it is unnecessary (or too late) to cover financial principles. And some of the content betrayed the lack of financial expertise of the authors - a definition of investment taken direct from Wikipedia was particularly unimpressive and ‘avoid being a number cruncher’ is not advice that any financially qualified person should need.
There was an attempt to provide a practical tool near the end - a questionnaire that allowed self-assessment of CFO potential on a five point scale. I was ready to be impressed until I saw some of the questions; are you a great communicator? Can you manage business risk? These are not great questions for a five point scale and should be someone else’s opinion rather than your own. It all added up to an impression that this book had been strung together by authors who have approached the topic in an academic rather than practical way.
So it is difficult to find a reason for recommending the book, apart from the foreword and the one chapter on strategic leadership. It is expensive to buy and not value for money. A good CFO would not see it as a worthwhile investment.
Postscript
I reviewed the electronic version and found that, unlike some previous e-books I have reviewed, it had a comprehensive index. The idea is potentially brilliant; you press the entry and it takes you to the page. Unfortunately the hit rate was only about 50%, which may have been my poor finger work but which I suspect was partly poor indexing. However, my overall impression was good; I had previously favoured hard copies of business books but the overall experience confirms my view that e-books are the way forward.
Buy the book here;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-New-CFOs-Financial-Revolutionize/dp/0749465174
No comments:
Post a Comment