Adopting a range of different range of skills and behaviours will help CFOs respond in the new business landscape
The role of a modern-day CFO has changed and continues to evolve.
As ACCA has examined in its research on the need for professionals to focus on value creation, today’s CFO faces complex, multi-dimensional problems that require a combination of technical, professional and interpersonal skills.
To meet the demands of the role, argues a new ACCA report, CFOs must display "integrative-thinking capabilities." Integrative thinking – the guide to becoming a value-added CFO – makes the point that many of the capabilities that form integrative thinking are already in the CFO’s toolkit.
The aim of the report is to help CFOs develop their skills by exploring what constitute integrative-thinking capabilities and describing the underpinning skills, behaviours and mindset required, and by examining development approaches.
Beyond the financials
Businesses around the world are working to achieve a fair balance between stakeholders and the proper use of resources, and their CFOs are on the front line.
"CFOs are accountable for well-informed decision-making in their organisations, therefore are key to successfully navigating these problems," says the report. "To fulfil this responsibility in today’s fast-changing and complex world, CFOs need to change their mode of operation."
In his foreword to the report, Raymond Jack, ACCA’s executive director, finance and operations, sets out an example of these challenges as he helps ACCA implement the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and net-zero targets.
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"The capabilities crucial to this task relate very much to my ability to think in an integrative way, going beyond just the financials, and to appreciate the different perspectives of ACCA’s stakeholders," he says. "The UN’s SDGs place a greater emphasis on multi-capitals thinking, including climate and nature, brand and reputation, and employees. All this is against a backdrop of the curveballs to which all organisations have to respond, such as geopolitical or economic circumstances well beyond our control."
In today’s world, CFOs may need to make judgements based on incomplete, complex, uncertain or ambiguous information.
Integrative thinking is an approach to making these difficult choices.
It is a concept that is closely related to the International Integrated Reporting Council’s integrated thinking – the active consideration by an organisation of the relationships between its various operating and functional units and the capitals that the organisation uses or affects – but encompasses additional philosophies including elements of design thinking (a problem-solving approach based on iterative improvements), systems thinking (consideration of the broader system or problem rather than individual components), and open innovation (purposively managed knowledge flows across organisational boundaries).
The report –
