Читать книгу The Financial Controller and CFO's Toolkit - Parmenter David - Страница 11

From the time we were at kindergarten we have had a fear of ever admitting we were wrong. In our personal lives we have, in some cases, held onto an abusive relationship for too long because we were scared to admit, to the world at large, we had made a mistake. The longer the relationship goes on we hold onto the hope that it will come right and we can always then say to our family, “I told you so.” In reality this does not happen. If I was to go into a reader's garage, what would I find? Maybe an exercise machine that started off life in great excitement as we envisaged a leaner self. After a couple of weeks in the lounge it started its inexorable journey to the garage, there to rest under the dust cover for a day in the future when we would use it again so we could say “I told you so.”

In the world of commerce this trait is equally damaging. We will hold onto systems, keep going with projects, keep writing that report that nobody reads because to remove it would mean a loss of face. Let's get over it.

Management guru Peter Drucker,8 whom I consider to be the Leonardo da Vinci of management, frequently used the word abandonment. I think it is one of the top 10 gifts Drucker gave us all. He said, “Don't tell me what you're doing, tell me what you've stopped doing.” He frequently said that abandonment is the key to innovation. He left some rather telling statements.

If leaders are unable to abandon yesterday, they simply will not be able to create tomorrow.

Without systematic and purposeful abandonment, an organization will be overtaken by events. It will squander its best resources on things it should never have been doing or should no longer do. As a result, it will lack the resources needed to exploit the opportunities that arise.

In finance, many processes are followed, year-in and year-out, because “it's the way things have always been done.” When staff question, “Why do we do this?” the CFO or financial controller will often answer, “There must be a reason; so please do it.” In order for the better practices in this book to work, there must be an adoption of:

● An abandonment of processes and procedures that are broken

● A letting go of the past

● A commitment to challenge the rules of the past

An organization that embraced Peter Drucker's abandonment earmarked the first Monday of every month for “abandonment meetings at every management level.” Each session targets a different area, so that over the course of a year, everything is given the once-over. This process would work well in the finance team, except we should meet once a week to discuss at least two abandonments.

Every organization I have come across should have an abandonment KPI measuring the number of abandonments that have been made around the organization last week. Teams that were no embracing the concept would soon want to get the CEO's attention and acclaim by embracing the concept.

The act of abandonment gives a tremendous sense of relief to the finance team, for it stops the past from haunting the future. It takes courage and conviction from the CFO. Knowing when to abandon and having the courage to do so are important leadership attributes.

I have included in the electronic media a book review of Elizabeth Haas Edersheim's The Definitive Drucker.9 Read the book for more on abandonment and his other great advice. I consider this book one of the top 10 management books I have read. I hope, like me, you will become a follower of the great Peter Drucker.