Global Family, Local Roots

Whether you work for a for-profit or nonprofit organization, like IMA, which I lead as CEO, it’s a challenge to be relevant and valued in serving diverse needs and cultures around the globe. A starting point is to have a global network, a family or community if you will, for sharing common needs, advocacy, and values at a broader societal level but also to make sure that you “sprout” local roots in serving unique needs in specific markets. Both are necessary for
global and local market relevance, but, as is the way of business, it’s often easier said than done.

Global Family
Most global organizations are networks of offices spread throughout the world. The headquarters serves the global membership from a central location(s) and communicates with its individual locales to serve their local needs, demonstrate the highest standards of integrity and professional ethics, and serve the public interest.

One way your organization can achieve this is by being involved with standard-setting bodies or advisory panels. Your organization will have a voice in the decisions shaping its industry and will, therefore, affect your stakeholders. And once you become a part of these bodies, make sure to maintain an ongoing dialog and active participation.

For example, IMA is involved with a variety of influential bodies. We’re currently a full voting member of the IFAC (International Federation of Accountants), which has helped us increase our global influence and relevance on matters of public policy, support for emerging economies, standards (e.g., accounting, education, and ethics), and best practices. Recently we were named a full voting member of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), which focuses on corporate reporting and analysis for internal and external stakeholders.

Local Roots
As organizations are becoming increasingly global, they can’t overlook the value of in-person connections to sustain the growth of engagement with the organization. Some nonprofits, like IMA, offer their members local chapter groups that provide a personal, in-person experience for networking, best practices sharing, and continuous learning and growth. Understanding local needs in a genuine and intense manner and how they may vary from “the corporate template” is key to local engagement with your global network of products and services.

To connect your global organization to its local members or staff, think about their needs and how you can address them within the local area. For IMA, our chapters serve as our local roots to communicate the universal language of business but with different needs, customs, and cultures specific to each region. Other global organizations host periodic global summits or board meetings, provide online forums for discussion, or offer volunteer opportunities to engage their stakeholders.

In turn, these chapters and local community groups foster the need for volunteers. They devote their time and talent to spread the word about the organization and are the link between their global network and the people they serve. Volunteers make serving the mission of the organization possible, particularly in a nonprofit, through their ambassadorship.

A Time of Thanks and an Inspiring Look Forward
This is the time of year when organizations of all types reflect on the strides they’ve made and hold aspirations for the future. This year, IMA has been advancing the management accounting profession by becoming more active in joining global bodies, and I’m proud of IMA’s growing community of volunteers and chapters around the world–truly a global family with local roots. But, like any family with diverse needs and backgrounds, it’s an ongoing challenge to be aligned on a common purpose.

I’m personally grateful for IMA’s global community of volunteers who have worked tirelessly to create stronger organizations and a better society. IMA’s volunteers are truly a competitive asset for the organization. We’re fortunate to have a network of more than 300 student and professional chapters to learn, grow, and contribute.

How is your organization dealing with the challenges and opportunities of being globally relevant? What are some of the approaches that have worked and some new approaches you may try in 2015?

Written by Jeff Thomson, CMA, CAE
Follow me on Twitter @ima_JeffThomson

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Code of Ethics: Making Your Business Valuable

As children, we were taught right from wrong, good from bad. Then we took those values and modeled ourselves from that internal code of ethics. Over the years we develop and build our personal codes, and organizations should apply that same approach in designing standard ethical guidelines for conducting business.

Enforce the Code from the Top-Down
Leaders have to create and enforce a standard code to have a solid and realistic set of guidelines. Then, they should implement these guidelines throughout the organization. If it starts at the top, the example can trickle down through the organization, creating an ethical business culture. Every employee should be equipped with the knowledge to handle daily moral dilemmas using this code without exceptions or deviations, which is where many organizations’ ethical codes tend to fall apart. Annual employee training also will help enforce the code.

Create Core Values
A well-thought-out corporate mission, vision, and core values statement are important in driving business strategy and creating company values. Senior leadership must regularly and clearly communicate these messages to their team and continuously endorse them. The companies with the highest ethical values win customer trust, gain employee loyalty, and benefit from increased revenue over a sustained period of time.

Value = Ethics
Without a definitive set of guidelines, organizations will inevitability try to boost their bottom line however they can. But don’t ever compromise your values to get ahead. Instead synchronize your values with your plans for the future of your business. If you have a great commitment to values but not the right leadership and strategy, you’re doing a disservice to customers and all other stakeholders. Your emphasis should be on doing both. Ethics is at the core of what makes a business successful.

How do you make your business valuable? How do you implement your company’s code of ethics?

Written by Jeff Thomson, CMA, CAE
Follow me on Twitter @ima_JeffThomson

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How CFOs Can Achieve a Vision of Success

In today’s rapidly changing economy, senior leadership teams and CFOs are taking on greater roles in terms of strategy and sustainable growth. We were once considered mere “bean counters,” but now we are becoming “bean sprouters.” And with this added responsibility, we’re expected to get constant “vision checks” to keep an eye on the future.

As a prominent global accounting association, IMA has an obligation to improve the CFO team’s “line of sight” to help preserve and create organizational value. I fell upon an idea by Nancy Axelrod in her book The Governing Board: Key Responsibilities for Association Boards and Board Members, in which she lays out four sights that you should keep in mind to ensure a vision of success. The four sights she described – foresight, insight, hindsight, and oversight – will lead you to a successful vision.The two stages most pertinent to management accountants and financial professionals are insight and foresight, as they are the most forward-looking. With these in mind, CFOs are able to act as trusted business advisors and leaders to help create sustainable growth.

Foresight

The foresight stage is where the CFO plays a leading role in anticipating the future, building a curious and adaptable mindset, and helping organizations envision a great future that serves both mission and societal purposes. This could take the form of financial planning and analysis, mergers and acquisition analysis, or risk management during highly competitive times in a turbulent economy.

Insight

The insight stage is truly where business partnering begins and business analytics takes over the process, turning information into intelligence and good companies into great ones. This could take the form of predictive analytics, business intelligence, or data mining. Organizational leaders count on their CFO teams to envision the future (foresight) based on a sound analysis of today’s reality (insight).

Make sure to always keep your vision clear and to get it checked by the team regularly. Doing so will give you a clear view of success!

Written by Jeff Thomson, CMA, CAE

Follow me on Twitter @ima_JeffThomson

CFOs Must Tackle Technology in the New Year

CFOs and football players have a lot in common. They plan their route around competitors with strategic thinking, they evaluate their previous decisions for future success, and they’re continuously learning new techniques to stay ahead of the curve. The biggest “play” CFOs can make in the future is becoming sharp with new technological advances.

Big data, cyber security, cloud technology, digital service delivery, and even artificial intelligence and robotics are the linebackers in the room who are changing business strategies. Who would have thought 10 years ago that these trends would become part of the CFO’s role?

Because of the ever-evolving role of the CFO, and the fluctuating business landscape, IMA^® and strategic partner ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) have marked January as “CFO Month” with this year’s theme being technology.

IMA and ACCA are always thinking ahead. This means we realize the impact  technology has on how CFOs do business, and it’0s our joint goal to provide the most informative resources possible to aid them in their roles.Together we support CFOs and aspiring professionals as they step into broader, more strategic roles. In the year ahead, we could also see the rise of the chief financial and technology officer (CFTO) as an important member of an organization’s leadership team.

IMA and ACCA research reports, such as “Digital Darwinism: Thriving in the Face of Technology Change” and “Big Data: Its Power and Perils,” revealed technological trends that will affect business in the future. There’s a future of opportunity out there for businesses that embrace technology and harness the increasing amount of data available for decision making.

Organizations of all sizes can use technology and big data to gain a competitive advantage. CFOs are at the forefront of this exciting business transformation. Like any other business transformation, CFOs need to take a balanced approach that includes technology enablement for information delivery, risk management, internal controls, fraud/cyber security, and ethical concerns to help lead organizations successfully into the future.

While no one has a crystal ball to predict the future, we can confidently say that tomorrow’s finance profession will have a distinctly technological flavor to it. How do you think technology will affect how you do business in the year ahead?

Written by Jeff Thomson, CMA, CAE

Follow me on Twitter @ima_JeffThomson

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Earning Value through Trust

Following my initial year as IMA^® (Institute of Management Accountants) president and CEO, I intended to move the organization to the next level by creating more sustainable value outside of what’s defined as “economic” or “monetary” value. I recognized that we focused on what we do on a daily basis; that’s the easy part. It was time to place more focus on how we do it.

Here at IMA, we promote ethical behavior through daily actions—not hollow words—and thus the mantra of “creating value through values” was formed. I recently contributed a chapter on this subject to the book Trust Inc.: Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset. In this post, I’ll summarize the key takeaway: creating a value statement is only the beginning. Leaders must have an internal strategy for ethical leadership and accountability in order to increase business value and overall performance.

Making Values Your Anchor

As the world’s leading management accounting association, IMA raises the bar with how we serve our members, volunteers, staff, as well as regulators and other external stakeholders. Our organization was going global after my first year as president and CEO. This meant that IMA’s values and culture would go far beyond our U.S. headquarters, reaching our growing markets in China, the Middle East, and Europe. Our values would attempt to cross various cultural norms and, while nothing is ever perfect, it’s critical to make the substantial effort in initiating foundational principles of how we do business.

Ethical Leadership Starts from the Top

It’s disheartening to reflect upon the many public scandals that have negatively impacted the reputation and perception of corporate leaders and the accounting and finance profession. This particular issue was the reason I decided not to outsource the process but draft IMA’s initial Core Values statement myself. If exemplary behavior and ethical leadership is required and expected to start from the top, then the genuineness and authenticity of the values become evident through the whole organization.

But in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni advises that people have to weigh-in before they buy-in. So I took my initial draft and invited input from different levels of the organization for two months. This process involved personal feedback from my leadership team, then from a confidential comment period with the entire global staff.

IMA’s Global Core Values

The final draft of IMA’s Global Core Values reflects the ideal values of the organization as a whole and the inner strength of trust, ensuring its survivability beyond the current management. The following five Global Core Values can be read separately but are mutually dependent, reminiscent of the relationship between the IMA organization and its members.

1. Respect for the Individual
2. Passion for Serving Members
3. Highest Standards of Integrity and Trust
4. Innovation and Continuous Improvement
5. Teaming to Achieve

These five Core Values and their in-depth descriptions are framed, distributed, adopted, and hung all over our headquarters and in volunteer leaders’ hallways and offices. It serves as a symbol of unity and trust. While it may be easy to talk about Core Values, enforcing these behaviors in action is the next step in generating value for the organization.

Individual Accountability

Organizations must create ways to recognize and hold individuals accountable for their behavior. For example, IMA has incorporated the Global Core Values in our staff performance reviews and volunteer selection and recognition processes. They also serve as a guide as we evaluate and pursue strategic partnerships with other organizations.

The Good Guys Can Win

The results of enacting Global Core Values show our dedication to the qualitative investment in our human capital and growth. In time, we’ve seen high employee and volunteer retention, promotions of exemplary leaders, an increase in continued education and certification, new partnerships with like-minded organizations, and a visible self-regulating culture. These successful signs reveal that Global Core Values have transitioned from symbolic to being “real.” It’s our proactive approach to promote the old saying, “the good guys can win” in the end.

Written by Jeff Thomson, CMA, CAE

Follow me on Twitter @ima_JeffThomson

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My First 100 Hours as CEO

Abrupt changes happen overnight…

It was April 18, 2008, my birthday. I was on vacation with my family when my phone rang. It was IMA’s Board of Directors, asking me to take on the title of acting president and CEO, an “overnight promotion” of sorts. 

And what a challenge it was. I was faced with restructuring the organization’s management and its strategy in order to remain competitive in a changing market.

Nothing quite prepared me for the task: not any advanced degree or my leadership experience as CFO at a major telecommunications company.

The first 100 hours would include the decisions that defined me as a leader.

Make Each Hour Count

Establish expectations and confidence.
First I had everyone (stakeholders and employees) look me in the eyes and not only agree that there was a need for change, but that they believed in the transformation.

With the understanding that this entire process was being watched and critiqued, I tried to be genuine, transparent, and authentic. It was essential for building trust.

Choose your priorities.
I couldn’t lose focus on the things that mattered most: cash and culture.

You can’t move forward as a company until you are in a healthy financial position. In order to put IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) on this track, I needed to eliminate excess spending. Things like renting plants and having a caretaker for them were no longer part of IMA’s agenda. So I bought the Senior Leadership Team plastic watering cans from Wal-Mart.

Neither cash nor culture can change overnight, but it was important that people started to see progress. Actions tell a story.

Create a “We will…” list.
I knew that to do my job, and to do it well, it required courage, conviction, and laser-like focus in achieving results. A “We will…” list communicates your non-negotiables with a set of actions that the entire staff is committed to achieve, not just consider. My list became the common thread that united our organization – they weren’t empty promises or feel good statements. We were defining our culture minute by minute, hour by hour.

Decide who will have a seat at your table.
Keep company culture and values in the front of your mind, now and always. The first item I crossed off my list was choosing my leadership team (who would “sit at my table”). This team should have skills and values consistent with the future direction of the organization, as well as the ability to tackle unexpected challenges.

No one plans for the unexpected. But with transparency, conviction of purpose, and reciprocal trust, difficult circumstances can become opportunities for organizational growth.

That birthday five years ago is one I’ll never forget. I was given an invaluable gift. I began my journey as a leader overnight with the support of the people around me. Together we created an environment, strong enough to give us a visible future again.

Until next time…
Jeff Thomson, CMA, CAE

Follow me on Twitter @ima_JeffThomson