Even the best CFOs have blind spots

Two weeks ago I said you can't see your own blind spot when you're standing in it and I promised to show you how we do this with our CFOs.

I want to share a session I had with one of my experienced, Playmaker CFOs. We were working through her team structure, because for weeks she'd been sitting with the gut feel that it needed fixing but in her words, she'd been avoiding it. She needed a reset and a way to assess the structure in a way that was simple, with clear actions to takeaway.

We worked through the ideal structure. We were agnostic to the people in the seats, we just focused on answering the question 'what structure do you need to support you?'.

That was easy. It took about 5 minutes (remember she's been stewing on this for weeks).

We then added another layer into the thinking. Tell me who, if anyone, is in those roles now and if they are the right person for that role.

3 out of the 4 direct reports in the structure were not the right people in the right role. They were good people, yes, but not for those roles.

I could see the resigned look in my CFO's face.

What's going on?, I asked.

What follows are 2 moments that followed, talking about 2 different direct reports in her structure:

CFO: I can't replace that leader until I've sorted out the structure underneath them.
Me: Really? Why do you need that in place before you pull the trigger?
CFO: Silence. "I don't know... I think it's a belief."

CFO: Well, I can't replace that leader because he's holding his team together.
Me: Really? If he got hit by a bus tomorrow, could they continue? Could they deliver at least 85% of their work?
CFO: Pause. "Yeah - about eighty-five percent."

In the space of 20 minutes, we'd dismantled 2 beliefs that were holding her back from making progress in her team's structure. The right structure was a key success factor in delivering a challenging financial mandate for their business - she could not afford to avoid this any longer.

Dissolving these false and very limiting beliefs occurred not because she'd missed something obvious, but because no one had asked her the question that would test them. That's what someone else in the room does.

I'm curious - what tasks are you avoiding, or making harder than they need to be, because of a belief you've never actually tested?

We proved two beliefs my CFO held false in twenty minutes. The structure was simple. The belief was the only obstacle

This is what a session in the room sounds like.

The question is, borrowing from Aaron Burr in Hamilton, do you 'wanna be in the room where it happens'?

If so, The CFO Boardroom is the room. Here's the door.