GrowCFO Show

Research shows that soft skills contribute towards 80% of your career achievements.  Despite this, most people prioritise developing hard skills and do not have an action plan to improve your soft skills.  This is particularly true of the finance leader community, who spend much of their career learning technical accounting skills.

The CFO role has evolved significantly during recent years.  You will need to master a significant number of soft skills to successfully deliver your role.  I asked experienced CFO Catherine Clark for her insights.  Catherine is GrowCFO’s lead professional mentor and has significant experience of performing the Board level CFO.

Importance of soft skills

Soft skills are highly important to becoming a finance leader.  They are the qualities that make your leadership successful.

Soft skills are the human skills that you use in teamwork, leadership, collaboration, communication and dealing with people.  These are sometimes known as the emotionally intelligent skills and help you to tune in with other humans.

To many people, certain soft skills come naturally.  Others will need to invest time in learning these.

Most accountants will learn your hard skills through your qualifications.  People consider these to be a given as you become more senior.  You will then need to differentiate yourself through your soft skills.

Finance leaders have an incredible amount of knowledge and provide a unique perspective to your management team.  Soft skills allow you to articulate knowledge in a way that creates significant impact. 

Communication is a vital soft skill

Most experts state that communication is the most important soft skill.  Many people feel overwhelmed in their roles and rely upon your communications to provide clarity. 

Finance leaders play a huge role in sharing the bigger picture, the purpose and the performance of an organisation.  This enables people to understand their role in contributing towards the business.

Your gravitas, presence and how you show up must provide comfort to people.  Your finance leader role is particularly important towards making people feel safe within their roles.

The CFO plays a key role in providing business confidence to the Board and stakeholders.  Therefore, the CFO must always look calm and in control.

Your body language contributes towards 55% of your message, your tone contributes 38% and your voice 7%.  Therefore, you need to be able to communicate through your body language as well as through your words.

Most people across the organisation will not have access to the information that you possess.  You must therefore continuously communicate with everybody to help motivate people to achieve your company’s ambitions.

Listening skills

Your listening skills are also a vital part of communication.  These include asking people the right questions at the right time.  You need to actively listen to people to help them feel their worth in the organisation.  This often results in a huge impact on people’s performance.

Active listening helps you to understand other people’s perspectives.  This also supports your decision-making and allows you to factor in a wider range of insights.

You can assess your listening skills by trying to recollect what somebody has told you after a conversation.

Why is storytelling so powerful?

Storytelling is an essential form of communication as it helps to bring things to life.  People absorb information in different ways and may find it easier to relate to stories.

Finance leaders need to adapt their communication to different audiences.  Most other people will not possess your level of technical ability or access to information.  Storytelling can help to bridge this gap.

Showing vulnerability

Vulnerability can be a great approach for building a connection with people.  This helps people get to know you better and portrays you as being more approachable.  People are prepared to show much more vulnerability within today’s culture compared to previous generations.

Most people feel vulnerable in many ways and may find it easier to relate to others who experience similar emotions.

How to improve your soft skills

Finance leaders need to start by acknowledging the importance of soft skills.

You should start by continuously self-assess your current levels of performance. For instance, think about how others may perceive you.  Then, consider the impact of your behaviour amongst your colleagues.

Look around you for strong role models and weak performers.  Observe their behaviour traits and determine what may work for you.  However, do not attempt to become a clone of somebody else as you need to remain as yourself.

Once you have determined your shortfalls, you need to create an action plan to improve your soft skills and dedicate significant time towards practising this.

You will need to develop excellent soft skills to become the best finance leader that you can be.

For more details, finance leaders should work through GrowCFO's Soft skills competency module

Mentoring will improve soft skills

Soft skills are much harder to learn than hard skills, which you can often learn via textbooks.

A professional mentor will work with you to determine your career aspirations, address your skills gaps and challenge you in the right areas.  In addition, they will become your biggest supporter and will help you to reach your highest level of potential.    

Mentors work through specific scenarios with you to determine how you can develop each skill as you work through your career.  Your mentor will also challenge you and provide honest feedback, including delivering the harder messages.  You will move forward together to achieve your aspirations.

In summary, soft skills are essential towards your career but can be difficult to develop. As a result, finance leaders need to dedicate significant time towards methods to improve your soft skills to achieve your full potential.

Mark Lee has been described as the most networked accountant in the UK. Who better to talk to about building your professional network?! Networking on LinkedIn is a key part of this. Particularly at the moment when meeting up in person is so difficult.

Mark is a man of many talents. He runs his own business mentoring accountants and tax advisors. Mark is Chairman of the Tax Advice Network. He is also Treasurer to The Magic Circle and a former Chair of the Tax Faculty at the ICAEW.

There are millions of qualified accountants and finance leaders around the world.  Each individual has their own unique combination of soft skills, hard skills and personal values. 

This podcast episode will help finance leaders to stand out on LinkedIn and tailor your inbound content.

The benefits of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the main social media platform for senior finance professionals.  LinkedIn offers an amazing free service for finance leaders to market themselves and build their network. 

Many finance professionals do not enjoy networking events. They are constantly being pounced on by salespeople.  LinkedIn offers a good way around this.

Very few finance leaders have received proper training on how to maximise the benefits of LinkedIn.  For example:

How do you stand out amongst the crowd?What is the best way to tailor your inbound content?Which types of people should you connect with?

Standing out amongst the crowd

LinkedIn can be incredibly valuable for building your personal brand and obtaining new roles.  It is essential to optimise your professional profile well in advance of when you actually need it.

Your history of LinkedIn posts, collaboration and endorsements takes a while to build up.  When somebody searches for you online, your LinkedIn profile will be the first thing that they see.

It is important to use the right photo and strapline.  You should also update what you say about your previous roles so that your LinkedIn profile is relevant now.  Clearly state what problem you solve for people who are reading your profile.

Most people fall into the trap of simply re-writing your LinkedIn profile every time you think about moving roles.  Whilst this does have some impact, you will miss the opportunity to demonstrate your full expertise.  This can be more powerfully portrayed by the quality of your network and what they say about you.  Adding endorsements, blog posts and articles will also further enhance your overall impact.

If you achieve something great then tell people about it.  Find a style to powerfully portray your achievements, without sounding like your own biggest fan…!

Video posts can also be a fantastic way of giving people a change to get to know you online.  They profile your personality and help show what you are like to interact with.

For more details, finance leaders should work through Module 4: Build your own brand within your Future CFO Programme Home - GrowCFO

Networking on LinkedIn

Very few finance leaders have a proper strategy to build up a powerful LinkedIn network.  Networking on LinkedIn is about quality not quantity and you need a proper plan.

Start by connecting with your known contacts and people who you have previously worked or interacted with.  After that, you should also be very picky about who you accept connection requests from.

Also think carefully about who you request to connect with on LinkedIn.  Networking is important and you want to create a powerful network.  This network should demonstrate your profile, as well as provide you with insightful content.  There are huge benefits to networking on LinkedIn with people who regularly share value-adding posts, videos and articles. 

Many people worry about constantly being sold to on LinkedIn.  However, it is easy to adjust your notifications to minimise spam messages.  If necessary, it takes seconds to remove any connection who keeps spamming you.

For more details, finance leaders should work through Module 5: Grow your own network within your Future CFO Programme Home - GrowCFO

Personalising your newsfeed

The LinkedIn algorithm attempts to personalise your newsfeed based upon your interests.  You can easily educate the algorithm by liking and commenting on posts that you find helpful.

Likewise, you can click on the three dots next to any post. Click accoringly to tell the algorithm which post categories you no longer wish to see.  LinkedIn will respond accordingly and will stop showing you these types of posts.

Remember - you are far more likely to receive content in your newsfeed from your first connections.  Therefore, think about who these people should be.

Following people and groups will also educate LinkedIn around your interests.  You can easily activate these and tailor them over time.

A few final words of caution! Never share more on LinkedIn than you would be prepared to share with an audience of random people.  This is what you are doing every time you post something into social media…!

Find out more about Mark Lee at his website, bookmarklee.co.uk

Surviving lockdown was an issue raised in the last GrowCFO Situation Room networking group. I asked resilience specialist Russell Thackeray for some advice.

Our finance leader community is affected by lockdown in a number of ways. Some are working solo, home alone. Others are struggling to do a high-pressure role alongside home schooling and childcare. Yet others might be finding themselves in between jobs. It’s lockdown number 3, its starting to feel like Groundhog Day, and the weather isn't great anymore. So, how do we all keep sane?

Surviving lockdown is the wrong mindset

Many people are currently extremely worried about this lockdown and part of the problem is the way that we frame it.  We often think about surviving lockdown, rather than accepting it and then working out how best to deal with it.

People spend a lot of time reading negative headlines in the press, which can easily make you feel depressed.  However, the chances are that many positive things have also happened to you during the past year.  For example, new hobbies, personal achievements, business successes, family additions, discovering more things to do locally, meeting more of your community and spending valuable time with your household members.

It is important to build the right mindset and select which facts you would like to focus on when determining how you really feel.

Personal resilience helps surviving lockdown

Building personal resilience is essential towards surviving lockdown.  Everybody has their own unique combination of circumstances. Your circumstances can have a huge impact on how this lockdown is affecting you.  The chances are that you cannot do many of the things that you previously enjoyed doing. Spending time with family and friends; going to work; travelling; visiting bars or restaurants; and playing sport.  Plus, many people probably haven’t had much time off work recently.

Regardless of how you feel, you need to find a sense of perspective and determine what best options are available to you.  Otherwise, you can easily fall into the trap of blurring the lines between personal life and work. This will inevitably lead to you working harder at the expense of your wellbeing.

Statistics show that employed people are currently working incredibly hard and that most people are being incredibly productive.  However, this is unsustainable and carries a range of risks including developing stress and potential burnout.  You could also be missing an opportunity to maintain some form of personal life. Maybe there's an opportunity to develop new hobbies that you may benefit from

How long is your working day?

Many people now have a potential working day from the moment that you wake up until the moment that you fall asleep.  Other than attending various Zoom sessions, much of your work can be done at any time. You can balance it around your personal requirements, household and family commitments.

However, given the blurred lines between each of these activities, many people find themselves constantly juggling work, homeschooling, childcare, household requirements and personal activities all into one go.  This can result in doing 14 things badly, rather than delivering each of these effectively in turn.

Neurotherapy shows that the way we think, feel and act is reflected in our physiological functioning. Particularly in the brain and nervous system.  Problems like depression and anxiety form when your brain gets stuck in maladaptive states and patterns, due to the hormonal feeding of cortisol into our system. 

Surviving lockdown is all about managing cortisol

Just small amounts of anxiety will create a cortisol load rocking through their body, affecting your heart, lungs, digestive system, glucose immunology and brain function.  Too much of your physiology is being poisoned by cortisol, which loves glucose and drains energy.

You need to control your situation to prevent cortisol from being stimulated and then determine activities to help you get rid of it.  For example, going for a walk, spending time outside and other forms of exercise.  This will help you to feel mentally alert, more physically tired and sleep better.

Like anything, you need to form an effective plan and be well-organised for surviving this lockdown.  Each week contains 168 hours.  Whilst some activities will be at fixed time periods, many are flexible. This should provide you with plenty of opportunities to organise your daily routines. 

For many people, your current lifestyle is a choice. How you choose to structure this is up to you.  For example, you may wish to take a few hours off during the afternoon to enjoy daytime hobbies and valuable outdoors time.  Going outside, within the rules, is also important for your confidence and social interaction.

Work when you are most productive

Learn how your brain works and when you are typically most productive, then structure your day accordingly.  Think about the ROI of your time and whether you are really using it effectively.

Many people still feel the need to work during standard work hours, despite this no longer being a necessity.  How you choose to structure your day is your personal choice, including which meetings you choose to attend.  You may be asked to attend many meetings. Most people have a level of influence upon which meetings are important. Do you really need to attend? Can you influence when they should take place.

You are likely to receive a positive response from your direct reports if you suggest ways in which you can structure your work commitments in a more productive manner.

Are you spending too long sitting down?

Most people feel compelled to spend most of their time sitting down, when in actual fact it is a choice.  Even the busiest of people could probably manufacture time for sporadic high-intensity short workouts in between tasks.  Research suggests that HIIT exercises, sit-ups, arm curls, etc., will improve your productivity. They will provide a high return on investment for the committed time.

Others complain of spending too much time sitting down during never-ending Zoom calls.  However, this is actually your choice.  In most cases, it would not be difficult to construct a setup that allows you to do Zoom calls whilst standing up.  You should think about converting some of these Zoom calls into walking telephone calls. Other people will be feeling the same as you.

Good dietary inputs are important but may be difficult to maintain as you get tired and bored of trying to be healthy the whole time.  Try to establish some realistic rules and stick to them.  Build in more movement and exercise to match your intake of calories.

Include the family in the working culture

Most people have now brought their family into their working culture.  However, it has now become generally accepted for other people’s children to unexpectedly appear on a Zoom call.  This acceptance should help to remove your anxiety towards such situations arising. This allows homeworkers to relax more whilst delivering your work.

Surviving lockdown is actually about resetting our physiological and psychological load on ourselves to drive more cortisol out of our system.  Despite most people trying to avoid bad weather, there is nothing better for dumping cortisol out of the system than getting cold and wet.  Likewise for cold showers.  Many studies suggest that human bodies repair much better in the cold.

Try physically separating where you do each activity

Where possible, try to have separate rooms where you sleep, work, eat and relax.  Consider putting a shelf up so that you can work or do Zoom calls whilst standing up.  You may wish to avoid taking your laptop or phone out of your work room.

For those in relationships, it is important to spend time together without any distractions, rather than whilst multi-tasking.  Develop a habit of generally doing one thing well, rather than two things poorly.

In summary, your approach to surviving lockdown is your choice. Organise your days effectively and spend time identifying a structure that works best for you and your family.  You should try to create time for exercise and outdoor activities. Challenge yourselves as to how and when things really need to be done.

Resources we mentioned

We publish the GrowCFO Show podcast every week, but its only a small part of GrowCFO. In this week's show we take a look at how you, the finance leader, can benefit from the wider CFO community.

Grow CFO is where Finance Leaders Grow Together. Join thousands of like-minded professionals using GrowCFO to access the combined knowledge and experience of the finance leader community

Being a successful CFO isn't easy

Becoming a successful CFO requires commitment and dedication towards delivering your full potential.

Securing the top CFO role is the ultimate aspiration for most ambitious finance leaders. When delivered effectively, it offers a lucrative career full of exciting challenges. Alongside this is the personal satisfaction of making a huge impact.

However, the constantly evolving role carries huge responsibility and significant pressure from ongoing urgent tasks. CFOs often feel overwhelmed and stressed out, leading to procrastination and struggling to see the bigger picture during decision-making. You may feel very self-reliant and exposed to others, creating a loss in confidence and imposter syndrome which can rapidly diminish performance levels.

The most successful CFOs possess a strong financial foundation, an integrated understanding of the role and high levels of gravitas around board members. They build trusted teams, implement robust integrated systems and generate confidence, whilst supporting senior management and driving decision-making.

Who is GrowCFO for?

Grow CFO is aimed at finance leaders. Its not just CFOs though. Finance leaders have many different job titles. You might be a finance director; a VP finance; or a head of finance. We think of CFO referring to the person who has the no 1 role in finance.

You may be a CFO already or you might have ambitions to take on that role in the near future. If you are looking to take on the role in the near future then the future CFO programme can give you the help you need. I discussed the programme with Dan Wells in episode 20

If you are a CFO, then you might be very experienced, or you might be new to the role. GrowCFO can help with the Finance Leader Programme and with mentoring. We talked about mentoring in episode 5 with Catherine Clark.

For experienced CFOs its a place to give back, and to encourage the next generation of finance leaders. Chances are the things they are struggling with are things you have already solved.

How did GrowCFO start?

Dan Wells started GrowCFO in January 2020. Prior to that he was a partner in KPMG. I first spoke to Dan in February, and he already had a thriving community of CFOs established. We met on linkedin, and quickly ended up in an extended phone conversation. The first of many. Soon after I invited Dan to be a guest on The Next 100 Days Podcast. The relationship grew from there.

That first phone call happened in Costa Coffee on the way home from my last face to face client meeting. Little did I know the next one would have to take place with us all working remotely. The next consulting project had been planned for ages too. It didn't happen. Welcome to Lockdown! Little did I know that my whole life had just changed.

Besides consulting, I also worked with IA seminars, delivering courses in the classroom to develop tomorrow's finance leaders. I focused on delivering classes that let people learn practical rather than theoretical skills in a safe space. I teach most of the skills you need to be a successful strategic business partner

Strategybusiness planningbudgets & rolling forecastsZBB & cost reductionUnderstanding the economic engine of the business with ABCKPIs, nonmembers financial reporting balanced scorecards

I added some free resources to Dan's website to help finance leaders who needed to replan quickly during lockdown. At the same time I was looking for ways to take the things I teach in the classroom into the online space. Suddenly rather than adding them to my own website I was developing things on the GrowCFO platform.

What's GrowCFO's Why?

Dan can trace the idea of GrowCFO back a lot further than last January. Back to the many CFOs he used to meet as big 4 clients. Our mission started several years ago during a focus group with ambitious finance leaders. Dan listened carefully to the challenges that nobody was dedicated towards solving:

Becoming a CFO requires you to learn many new skills that take a long time to master;People feel overwhelmed with tasks and are battling problems already solved by others; andCFOs often feel lonely at the top and would benefit from a strong collaborative peer group.

The message was clear: finance leaders require easy access to the combined knowledge and experience of the CFO community. We needed to build an independent organisation fully dedicated towards helping ambitious finance leaders to achieve your full potential.

During the past few years, we have all been busy creating resources for you, the finance leader. Most of these have been developed in the finance leader community and led by inspirational CFOs, including:

Peer group development programmes and private mentoring for aspiring or first-time CFOs;A huge library of online training lessons covering your CFO competency framework; andCollaborative events, forums and podcasts across an important range of relevant topics.

Everything we do is designed to support you in the most time-efficient manner and to help you give back to the next generation.

We hope that our mission inspires you to join our cause and to enjoy the benefits of collaborating with such a wonderful community.

The GrowCFO Community

The GrowCFO community is free to join, and once a member you can network with your fellow finance leaders and join in online discussions. We meet face to face too, over Zoom. Hopefully we can supplement that with some in person events once Covid-19 is behind us.

The Situation Room

The Situation Room is our live Q&A forum. It happens over Zoom, once a fortnight, 1pm Thursday. The room is open to every GrowCFO member to attend. Its a place to meet other finance leaders, get to know each other, share issues and problems.

A huge range of diverse topics have been discussed. Last week we chatted in depth about the economic outlook for the next couple of months, with a range of interesting and diverse views from across a broad range of industries.

Future of Finance Functions

Every Tuesday at 12pm GMT we focus on Systems, Roles and Automation: What a modern day finance function should look like and how it is likely to evolve going forward.

Way back in the first session we asked you, the members, what topics you needed to know more about. You gave us quite a long list. We've covered many of them, but there are more still to do. We've covered lots of finance systems & automation themes; business change topics; and the people aspects of finance transformation.

Women Finance Leaders

Once a month a very active group of ladies get together over Zoom and focus on the issues they find give them the biggest challenge. We've covered off personal branding; imposter syndrome; assertiveness and difficult conversations; and a few other topics besides.

The group isn't just for the ladies. We focus on the problems they highlighted in the very first meeting of the group, but anyone male or female that needs support in the area under discussion is more than welcome.

GrowCFO Premium

There's lots to do in GrowCFO as a free member. If you really want to develop your skills and progress your career there's lots more as a premium member. Premium membership is either monthly or annual. The subscription gives you access to all the online resources in the development programmes. You can join in with premium member only events such as "An Audience With" or "Monday Masterclass". For an additional charge there's also one on one or group mentoring available.

Development Programmes

Our flagship Future CFO and Finance Leader programmes provide structured curricula to identify your skills gaps and accelerate your career development action plan. Learn from inspirational CFOs within regular group sessions, alongside your peers.

Online Lessons

Our extensive course library comprises hundreds of online lessons across a range of courses, designed by experienced finance leaders. We are constantly adding new lessons to support your continued career development. Choose from dedicated programmes and self-paced modules.

Professional Mentoring

Our mentors are experienced CFOs who have made the journey before, conquering the challenges that you will face. Mentoring will support your personal growth by ‘stretching’ you, helping you to move out of your comfort zone and closer to your full potential. Once you join GrowCFO you can request a chemistry call and find out if mentoring is right for you.

What's Next?

GrowCFO started on the mighty networks platform. We found that wasn't good enough if we wanted to deliver CPD accredited courses. We developed our own website to host courses. The community and learning centre were in two different places, with two different logins.

The result? Confused members, and difficult for us to administer. We wanted to solve this and improve user experience. We've taken the decision to move everything to the website. This is in progress right now. There's a huge amount to move so please bare with us, it might take a little while to migrate everything.

The exciting development is a new mobile GrowCFO app. Its going to be tailored to your needs. Hopefully we can launch it by the end of quarter 2.

And who knows......we might eventually be able to work offline as well, and meet some of you in the flesh!

If you are a GrowCFO member you will most likely have come across Patrick Dunne already. When is comes to boards, and how they work, Patrick is pretty much the leading authority. Inside GrowCFO, Patrick frequently talks about the dynamics between the CEO, the CFO and the board. But today we find out about Patrick Dunne the person. He tells me about his career, and why he wrote the book "Boards: A Practical Perspective"

Who is Patrick Dunne?

Patrick has very humble roots. He hails from Toxteth in Liverpool. He is one of 6 children of an Irish immigrant family. None the less, he got a place at university to read maths, and this led to a very successful career. His executive career started in Chemicals, but he made his name in Private Equity. Patrick's career eventually took him to the Operating Committee of FTSE100 3i Group plc.

These days Patrick Dunne owns and runs Boardelta which advises boards around the world. Since retiring from 3i in 2012 he devotes a good deal of time to charitable causes. He is passionate about education in Africa. Patrick is Chair the EY Foundation; ESSA-Education Sub Saharan Africa;. and he is the founder of Warwick in Africa.

He serves on the Board of the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Visiting Professor at Cranfield School of Management; a visiting Fellow at Warwick Business School as well as the author of "Boards".

https://youtu.be/RHXS2rFWwMY?si=5z2gdHYcnxBMuncy

Boards: A Practical Perspective

Boards provides a practical, realistic, thought-provoking and useful guide to life as a board member. It is split into three areas, 'Purpose', 'People' and 'Process' reflecting the three key areas of concern for any board. We go into these in more detail in the podcast.

A fourth section sets out a series of real life dilemmas for readers to practice on. The book is an ideal companion for anyone who is an aspirant, novice or seasoned board member. This makes it great reading for any future CFO.

Patrick draws on his extensive range of experience working with and on boards in many sectors, in the UK and internationally. The book is equally applicable to business, charities and social enterprises, professional services firms, public bodies and universities.

The book is also written in a highly accessible and engaging style. Patrick's aim is for the book to be practical and to be read by board members. It isn't an academic tome, instead it brings life and fun to what is a very serious topic

The CFO and the Board

Patrick sees the CFO as one of the most important people on the board. While the CEO runs the executive team and the chair runs the board, the CFO is often the glue that holds it all together. Patrick sees the role of the board and the executive team in the form of a Venn diagram. The two cant be separate, nor can they overlap too much.

Want to find out more about Patrick's view on the role of the CFO on the board? Then why not join GrowCFO today?

Tony Talbot is an experienced headhunter turned podcaster. He's the host of the Career Move Secrets podcast and he joins me on The GrowCFO Show to talk about the hidden job market. He gives us the inside track on how most senior roles are filled and exactly how a headhunter will draw up a shortlist of candidates.

Tony specialises in helping the owners and leaders of consulting companies hire senior, hard to find, and niche talent. From time to time he also handles c-suite roles.

The advertised job market is broken

Today's Advertised Job Market is BROKEN for senior candidates. Your average odds when you apply to a job online are 250-1.  

In reality your Resume is highly unlikely to be read by a real human being as the ATS (applicant tracking system) is designed to filter out 80% of applicants.  Worse still many of the jobs online are FAKE, duplicates or filled by candidates from referrals and recruiters rather than job advert applicants.  

What is the hidden job market?

The truth is 80% of all hires are made in the Hidden Job Market (the jobs that are not advertised online or anywhere else). The more senior the role the more likely it is to be recruited this way. Far fewer than 20% of CFO roles are ever advertised.

The hidden job market is split in two and comprises:

Roles that are filled by people already known to the CEO and his team, or are recommended by their networkRoles that are filled by candidates sourced through a head hunter like Tony.

CFO roles are commonly filled through either of these two routes.

Networking your next CFO role

Being well connected has never been more important. Lots of c-suite roles are filled by people already known to the organisation or through recommendations of trusted advisors.

Building your network is key. Go out of your way to form relationships with auditors or professional advisors, and with senior executives in your chosen sector. Who you know is important. You should build connections and relationships both in person and on LinkedIn.

You can find out much more about how to build your network in module 5 of the GrowCFO Future CFO programme

Know how to get noticed by a headhunter

If you want to increase your chances of being found by a headhunter you need to know how they operate. Tony went into lots of detail about this in the podcast.

LinkedIn is absolutely critical to the process. Nearly every search will start with Sales Navigator and a key word search. You must make sure your linkedin profile contains the right matches otherwise you will fall at the first hurdle.

There's much more to it than just key words. Once you have made it to the long list an a human is reading your profile you need to stand out. Tony has lots of tips for doing this.

Linkedin is a vital tool in the hidden job market

You must make the most of your headline, it isn't just your job title. Use all the space available to say a little bit more. Then you need top make maximum use of the summary section. Don't just list skills talk about some specific successes you have been involved in, problems you have solved, and other key achievements.

You can elaborate further in each of the job descriptions you include. Make sure you use all the text available to you in each section.

You need to keep your profile up to date. A profile that hasn't been updated for more than a couple of years will soon be discounted by the headhunter.

Show the headhunter you are active and have something worthwhile to say be posting regularly, or by commenting meaningfully on other peoples posts, particularly when key people of influence in your space are posting. That might be fellow finance professionals or leaders in your industry.

About the Career Move Secrets podcast

Career Move Secrets is your insider's guide to getting hired in the hidden job market and beating the global economic downturn.

The show delivers insider advice on job searching, interviewing and career enhancement.

In each episode, Tony interviews a special guest from his global network. Guest include seasoned recruiters, experienced hiring managers and successful individuals who have developed great careers through making great career moves. 

Tony adds his perspective to the mix and together with his guests, provides some genuine, actionable advice that will help you land your next senior role.

Is 2021 the year you aim to take on the top finance job? If so the Future CFO Programme can help you get there. Dan Wells, founder of GrowCFO explains how

We have upgraded the GrowCFO Future CFO programme and moved to a new platform for 2021. We've made the material and workshops easier to access and more flexible to use. The changes will give you an enhanced learning experience thats easier to tailor to your needs.

The Future CFO Programme equips you with the different skills you need to step up to the CFO role, work strategically with your new C-suite colleagues and lead your own finance function.

What is the Future CFO Programme?

The Future CFO programme is a blend of workshops, self assessment, and online learning. The programme is designed to take you from your current role as a senior finance professional to being an impactful CFO.

There are three key parts to the programme:

The Insightful Leader focusses on the core skills you will need as CFO rather than head of finance.C-Suite Ready moves you from being one of the crowd of finance professionals to becoming a trusted board memberOwning the Top Job will help you win your dream job and create your identity as an impactful CFO in your first 100 days

We've broken down each of the three sections into three modules. Nine modules in total. You can find out more and take your first steps to join the programme here

Future CFO Programme online learning

You will find the online training programme within the learning centre at GrowCFO.net. The 9 modules are broken down into around 200 separate lessons. The Programme is CPD accredited. You can gain 40 hours of CPD by completing the programme.

One of the big changes we've made for 2021 is in the Learning Centre. We've upgraded the learning management system to add some new features and to allow us to implement some of the recommendations from the CPD assessors. We've discovered that a CPD assessor is just like an auditor. You get a certificate, but it always comes with the could do better list! Learndash gives us lots of new features which will make your learning experience even better as we turn them on over the coming weeks and months.

Future CFO Programme workshops

Every module also has a workshop. You can attend workshops over Zoom. Each workshop is led by an expert in that particular area. Since the start of the programme in March 2020 over 200 prospective CFOs have enrolled in the Future CFO Programme. It goes without saying that we've learned a thing or two and listened to a lot of feedback. The big change for 2021 is to give you more flexibility. You will be able to attend workshops in any order and at a time that better suits you. Workshop sessions for each module will be scheduled regularly across the year so you can book them when you are ready.

Our original approach was to place you in a cohort of 10 or 12 peers and take each cohort through the programme at roughly one module a month. While working with a small group of peers and learning from each other is a great idea it doesn't always work when you are busy. We know people struggle to keep up with the monthly schedule. Finance people are some of the busiest there are, so we have to give you the flexibility you need top fit your learning around your day job. In the future if you are busy and need to skip a month it really doesn't matter.

How do you get started?

The first step is to become a free member of GrowCFO. Once you have done that you can sign up for a programme launch session. We hold a launch session every week over Zoom. During the session we go through the programme in more depth, and you can decide whether its right for you.

If you want to continue then you will need to upgrade your GrowCFO membership to premium. At the moment this costs £300 a year or £30 a month. Besides access to the Learning Centre and the workshops you will get access to all the GrowCFO premium events and resources. There's much more in GrowCFO than just the Future CFO programme. We're developing resources to help you thrive throughout your career in the top finance job.

Are you ready to move up to the top job? Is this the year to actually win your dream job? Why not increase your chances and join GrowCFO today?

We're all back at work after the festive break, refreshed and ready for whatever challenges 2021 will bring. Did you set yourself any new goals for 2021, or perhaps some new year resolutions? I caught up with Mark Channon for some help on turning those goals and resolutions into reality. Mark has some great advice to help you achieve your objectives.

About Mark Channon

Mark originally trained as an actor, before becoming one of the first 8 people in the world to become a Grand Master of Memory in the 1995 World Memory Championships. These days Mark works as a performance coach.

How does Mark plan his year?

Mark uses the 3-3-1 model. Three years, three months, one month. While he has a 3 year vision he never plans in detail for any more than three months at at time. He then breaks his objectives down into monthly goals. We focused on technique for goal setting in the last episode of the GrowCFO Show

Achieve your objectives with Tiny Habits

Mark is a huge advocate of tiny habits as a way to achieve your objectives. He has produced a free course inside GrowCFO that explains how to use the technique.

https://growcfo.mn.co/courses/2178470/content

B J Fogg devised the Tiny Habits method, and Mark has worked with B J for some time. Mark was originally fascinated by B J Fogg's claim:

"Create new behaviours without the need for willpower or motivation"

Focus on tiny

In the Tiny Habits method you always start with a tiny behavior. Below are some examples:

Floss one toothPour a cup of waterRead one sentence in a bookPut on walking shoesTake one deep breath

At the end of this page, I'll explain how to translate a difficult habit (like 25 pushups each morning) into something tiny. But first, let me explain why tiny matters.

Why start tiny?

Difficult behaviors require a high level of motivation.

You've seen this in your own life. If there's a tough task facing you, such as cleaning your entire home, you won't do it unless your motivation level is high.

As human beings, our motivation level for any behavior goes up and down over time. That's natural. And you can't always rely on having a high level of motivation. Your motivation is often low for cleaning or exercising or cutting vegetables. That's reality.

Relying heavily on motivation to create a habit does not work.

Tiny gives you success

When a behavior is really easy, like putting a magazine back on the shelf, you don't need to throw a party to succeed. In other words, when a behavior is easy, you don't need to rely on motivation. You simply put the magazine back on the shelf, and you are done.

This was BJ's insight: "Okay, BJ. You already know how to floss all your teeth. That's not the problem. You don't yet know how to do this automatically." So I scaled back flossing to just one tooth. I then focused on making this tiny behavior automatic in my life. Soon I created a solid habit, and then I grew the habit to include all of my teeth (hooray).

Simple is powerful

Simple is powerful. You’ll experience that next week.

You can grow your tiny behaviors in later weeks (for example, expand from flossing one tooth to all your teeth). But for this next week, to benefit your own success and learning, please, please keep it simple.

Just like with plants: You start small. It takes root. And then it can grow.

Simplicity changes behavior. The most important three words you’ll read today.

Achieve your objectives with Pomodoro

Mark uses Pomodoro as a way to develop a tiny habit into a much bigger behaviour. He's currently writing a book, and uses the technique extensively to get work done

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. You use a timer to break down your work into intervals. These are traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Each interval is known as a pomodoro, from the Italian word for 'tomato', after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that Cirillo used as a university student.

There are six steps in the original technique:

You decide on the task to be done.Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes)You work on the task.You end work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes) and then return to step 2; otherwise continue to step 6.After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.

Why does Pomodoro work?

A goal of the technique is to reduce the impact of internal and external interruptions on focus and flow. A pomodoro is indivisible; when interrupted during a pomodoro, either the other activity must be recorded and postponed (using the inform – negotiate – schedule – call back strategy) or the pomodoro must be abandoned.

After you complete a task in a pomodoro, you can use any time remaining for activities such as:

Review and edit the work just completed.Evaluate the activities from a learning point of view: What did I learn? What could I do better or differently?Review the list of upcoming tasks for the next planned Pomodoro time blocks, and start reflecting on or updating those tasks.

Cirillo suggests: 

Specific cases should be handled with common sense: If you finish a task while the Pomodoro is still ticking, the following rule applies: If a Pomodoro begins, it has to ring. It’s a good idea to take advantage of the opportunity for overlearning, using the remaining portion of the Pomodoro to review or repeat what you’ve done, make small improvements, and note what you’ve learned until the Pomodoro rings.

The stages of planning, tracking, recording, processing and visualizing are fundamental to the technique. In the planning phase, tasks are prioritized by recording them in a "To Do Today" list. This enables users to estimate the effort tasks require. As pomodoros are completed, they are recorded, adding to a sense of accomplishment and providing raw data for subsequent self-observation and improvement.

Achieve your objectives by focussing on less

Simply having too many goals can stop you achieving what you want. We talked about Essentialisn by Greg McKeown in the last episode.

You can go an inch in a hundred directions or a hundred miles in one direction. The pursuit of less can be extremely powerful.

In Essentialism, Greg McKeown, CEO of a Leadership and Strategy agency in Silicon Valley who has run courses at Apple, Google and Facebook, shows you how to achieve what he calls the disciplined pursuit of less. Being an Essentialist is about a disciplined way of thinking. It means challenging the core assumption of ‘We can have it all’ and ‘I have to do everything’ and replacing it with the pursuit of ‘the right thing, in the right way, at the right time'.

By applying a more selective criteria for what is essential, the pursuit of less allows us to regain control of our own choices so we can channel our time, energy and effort into making the highest possible contribution toward the goals and activities that matter.

You can use this technique to claim back your own time. Think about all those meetings you are invited to as the CFO or head of finance. Are they part of your agenda or somebody else's? Do you really need to be there.

Look at your approach to email as well. Responding to other people's requests can easily divert you from your own priorities. Can you choose when you respond? Maybe there's sense in looking at email later in the day and doing your own deep work first.

Achieve your objectives with 5 Minute Journal

You can achieve more with less. 5 Minute Journal will help you seamlessly create positive habits without investing years in experimenting and research to achieve the same results. Its a straightforward app available for your phone that allows you to focus your mind on your purpose. Its a great tool to add to your morning and evening routine.

The Five Minute Journal App asks you three morning questions designed to instill gratitude, set purpose for your day, and create empowering beliefs. When you start your morning off on the right foot, days seem to go by smoother.  

At the end of the day, two night questions ask you to reflect on the amazing things that happened throughout your day and how you could improve for tomorrow. Sleep easier ending your day on a high note.

Goal setting is something that should be very personal. As you move to senior finance roles you need to take charge of your own destiny. You set your own goals, independently. We believe that goal setting starts with understanding your why? Only once you understand your why can you move to the what? The specific goals you want to achieve. Setting the goal is all very well, but you also need to address the how? How exactly will you achieve your intention?

Do you plan for a whole year?

Both Kevin and Catherine agree that a year is much too long to plan. A year looks too far into the distance and there are too many unknowns. Catherine plans monthly. Goal setting for Kevin is the next 90 or 100 days, but then he breaks this down into months.

What is your why?

Both Kevin and Catherine believe you need to understand your purpose, your own particular why? Only when yo have this can you naturally start goal setting. Do you understand what motivates you? What excites you?

Kevin has a single motivating purpose. A single motivating purpose isn't a destination its a state of being. Its expressed as "I wake up in the morning to do xxxxx in order to xxxxxx"

A number of resources to help:

If you are looking to better understand your own why? The following books will help:

Strengthsfinder 2.0

https://amzn.to/3hiOHjF

Unique Ability

https://amzn.to/37Kdhqq

Goal setting: around your strengths or your weaknesses?

Kevin believes you should focus your objectives around your strengths. Strengths are things you can develop to mastery, while weaknesses are things you are likely only ever to be mediocre in.

Catherine points out that to really develop you need to get out of your comfort zone, so don't interpret strengths as just things you are comfortable doing. Think about new skills you might need to develop.

Goal setting. The what?

Once you understand your personal why? articulating the goals you want to achieve becomes easier. Catherine has two or three big goals. She breaks these down into intentions.

The goal describes the outcome you want Catherine writes down 10 intentions each month, written as if they already happened. The intention breaks down the goal

Affirming the goal is very important. You need to enjoy the journey to achieve your goals and intentions. If you believe in what you want to achieve you will achieve it

Goal setting. The How?

Think of goals as projects. Organise your tasks and activities as you would a project. Think also about people. Who are the people I need to engage?

Make your goal setting smarter:

SpecificMeasurableAchievableRealisticTimeboundExcitingRelevant

Focus on one or two key things: Whats the most important thing to do today / this week?

Don't have too many goals. Less is more. You can go an inch in a hundred directions or a mile in a single direction.

Further Reading:

Essentialism - Greg Mckeown

https://amzn.to/3nQpgsg

Dream bigger

Most of us don't think big enough, we limit what we can achieve simply by thinking small. You need to dream big and have a great vision, the vision needs to capture your attention. Where attention goes energy flows.

How do I want to feel? Who do I want around me?

State your intentions to others, this puts accountability in place.

The power of your vision

Catherine shared her recent blog post:

The power of your vision is in seeing yourself doing the thing you want to achieve. Be the leader, the director, the owner of a successful business, the person who helps others. If you can see who you want to become and why, you can be that person. You can step into their shoes and and stride purposefully forward.Never lose sight of what you want to achieve, It is the glue that holds every small step together. It is the light that you keep moving towards, that stays lit even when your motivation fades. Your vision is what drives you but you must never forget that you are the driver of the car and along the way you can choose to go in any direction. There is no sat nav with a preset A to B, it's back to the map and back to choice.Your vision isn't the outcome though because even the outcome is part of the journey. It is a successful achievement that becomes the stepping stone to something even greater.It will take energy, dedication, determination and smart choices but if you surround yourself with those who believe in you and keep your dream alive you will believe in yourself and then anything is possible.

At the end of 2020 you may well find yourself reviewing your finance team. Its been a very unusual year. A test of character. Some of your team may have struggled while others have flourished. The team has adapted and survived, but the start of 2021 might be the time to make some more long term changes. Andrew Waters joins the GrowCFO Show to help us navigate our way through the review.

What do you intend to do long term

Our finance teams have been operating under unusual circumstances since March 2020. By and large we've adapted and survived. The next 6 months lare likely to be very similar. Beyond that we might be returning to a more normal situation. But what lies beyond? Are you now a remote team? How likely is it you go back to exactly how it was?

Your high fliers have had a taste of alternative way of working which they may have loved. There are risks to bringing them back into the office 5 days a week.

We've been ducking and diving, muddling through with the current team. There have been few opportunities for CFO to take control of situation. Now is the time for that to change. What should the team look like in 6 or 9 months time.

Is your finance team still motivated by the same things?

Dont assume you know what works best, ask the team, involve them in designing the future

Motivations may well have changed. Are individuals still quite so motivated by career progression and money as before. Is Friday afternoon off to play tennis much more important than it used to be.

How do you deal with individual finance team member's performance?

Top performers need to be rewarded. Some people will have flourished during the pandemic. They will have thrived in the new conditions and will have gone the extra mile. Your 9 and 10s need to be recognised. Is it time to stretch these people further. Are there any new responsibilities you can pass their way that might help the next step in their development?

Likewise solid performers at 7 or 8 will be doing great things to hold the team together. What can you do to make sure this continues? Can you better support these individuals?

What about poor performance?

Poor performers, 6 and below are more difficult. Who has done much worse than expected, or worse than previous years?

Nobody shows up at work to do a bad job. Its been a tough year and some folk have been in a difficult situation. You need to understand what's going on under the surface.

You need to avoid similar conversations in 6 months time, so look to see how you can help. A sudden drop in performance will have a story behind it. You need to know that story and investigate how to change its ending.

Ongoing poor performance is a different matter. If somebody has performed consistently badly you may need to take more drastic action. Its likely that the pandemic is more excuse than reason for the current year grading.

How do you reward people?

Saying thank you is sometimes enough. Don't forget the simple recognition. Think about giving your best performers more challenges and opportunities.

Make sure you take money off the table. Pay sufficient to make sure your folk are well rewarded, but beyond that remember that money isn't always the best motivator. Lack of money or lack of parity with friends may well de motivate so make sure that doesn't happen.

We discussed the effectiveness of bonuses in a recent GrowCFO members Situation Room. One of our members referred us to this excellent video from Dan Pink. Take a look before you conclude that bonuses work. Dan argues otherwise.

https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc

Think about benefits as well as bonuses. Gym memberships; mental health wellbeing coaching. Make sure people working remotely aren't disadvantaged by the geography of supplying the benefit.

How do we need to evolve?

Take time to reflect on 2020. What have you learned about your team? Are there things you could have done differently? What extra could you have done to support them?

Some common themes are emerging from finance teams. A common cry is for more time to do the job. Often the communication has been over done. Many people are zoomed out.

Do you need to move away from the strict 9 to 5? Many folk are achieving outcomes but not necessarily within those hours. It doesn't really matter what time of day it gets done as long as the outcome is there.

Some folk are starting earlier because not commuting but also struggling to turn off in the evening. Make sure that some boundaries are set and expectations aren't set too high to be unrealistic.

Do you need to change the structure of your finance team?

As well as looking inward to your finance team you need to think about the business context. Whats happened to the wider business? what new demands has that placed on finance?

Many tech businesses have accelerated, and on a faster growth trajectory. The team might be stretched to its limits. What extra skills and capacity do you need?

Now is the time to think it all through and start laying the post pandemic foundations. The foundations you will build upon in the new normal.