Leadership Secrets for Every CFO
Resilience & Change Agility: 100 Global Finance Leaders Can’t Be Wrong
At one global company, equipping leaders to increase resilience and adaptive leadership in the face of rapid, disruptive change has strengthened the partnership between Finance and the business it supports. Recently, over 100 Finance leaders from twenty countries convened for a three-day conference to redefine a ‘new normal’ for the finance function of a global portfolio company. What happened was profound.
Picture this: 5 board members, 4 CFO’s, one Corporate CEO, 3 Presidents and 100 Finance leaders from 20 countries, all from a large portfolio of companies convening in Atlanta expressly to equip themselves to be more resilient and adaptive leaders. The goal: proactively build the organization’s ability to thrive in the face of change… all before it happens.
Resilience & Change Agility for Global Finance Leaders
This was a proactive step by an Executive Team who recognized that Finance represents a tremendous lever for not only ensuring the organization’s fiscal integrity, but also as a critical strategic asset in accelerating growth and profitability. The CFO partnered with LeaderShift Insights® to design a three-day event that would equip leaders with personal resilience frameworks, practical experiences and tools to enable them to return to their business partners – – more adaptive and resilient than ever before. What they did was nothing short of transforming the organization – one leader at a time. The introspective work involved is not something we often see Finance organizations typically challenge themselves with, let alone execute. This is what participants told us:
“I better understand my filters and how they help / hinder me in supporting my business partners”
“I need to be (more) authentic”
“I learned that in my whole life, I’ve been making decisions out of fear, and I need to start thinking about my purpose”
“Being resilient is a critical part of BOTH personal and professional sides of life”
“Being off balance is ok!”
Change Expert Keith Leust
The program began with discussions of ground-breaking research on the human condition in any change event. The program explored how participants experience change, and the dynamics that emerge in a volatile, uncertain environment. The agenda then shifted to how individuals can proactively build resilience before they need it…and how, in so doing, they increase the organization’s resilience. Program leader and resilience expert, Jennifer Eggers, kept the participants deeply engaged as they began to explore their own new personal resilience frameworks. As participants made the journey from their heads to the core of their being, being “Off Balance On Purpose” became the theme, presented by well-known speaker Dan Thurmon. Exercises pairing people together provided opportunities for individuals to explore their own experiences how to deepen their resilience, all in service of equipping the organization more effectively to drive sustainable change.
The program then pivoted to explore the role of a resilient leader as participants worked on real change cases occurring right now in their organization. No theoretical cases for this group! They spent all their ‘case time’ exploring how they could increase their capabilities related to their business and changes that will impact them. Application of pragmatic and proven tools including the LeaderShift® Transitions Toolkit and the Resilience Framework enabled participants to begin to create transition plans that would be implemented back at the office.
At LeaderShift Insights® we work with leadership teams to equip your organization to be more resilient in the face of rapid, disruptive change. We have worked with organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Motorola, Prudential, AmEx, BCBS Illinois, Oracle, Johnson & Johnson, Home Depot and many others. Call us. It’s what we do!
Keith Leust, Managing Partner, LeaderShift Insights®, Inc.