Financial controls are an essential part of any business. When I work with CFOs in my executive coaching London practice I often find this is the case.
First of all the finance team need to be competent. This can be surprisingly difficult in some situations. Part of the issue is that sometimes people hire based on historical performance, because it provides safety for the hirer and then they cannot be blamed by others for their hiring mistakes. This usually shows a lack of self trust.
Sometimes people hire based on culture. This initially sounds great and is great if the intended culture is a healthy nurturing supportive culture. In fact later in this article you will see that that is actually what I advocate. But if the hiring is done based on a culture of ego compensation then it creates a toxic environment. For example a weak leader whose sole motivation for her role is to maintain power, will only hire people who are weak, controllable and not a “threat” to her. Rather than seeing a coach to overcome her need for power, she will abuse her position instead.
However if hiring is done based on the higher goals of the finance team, and the organisation, then the criteria for candidates changes. Even if they don’t yet have the relevant experience, by having the relevant attitude and healthy cultural fit, they will contribute in the right way to the firm. This is what I tell my students in cfa tutoring.
This means that financial controls are then in place just to help catch mistakes and improve processes, not to catch people out, or hide problems or other motivations that are based on lack of trust of the ego compensation of the head of department.