Thriving In Uncertain Times: Evolving The Finance Function
How do specific business functions adapt to rapid change or disruption? We created an immersion experience for a team of finance leaders, designed to help them address this question.
Finance is one of the organizational functions that needed to pivot at speed during the pandemic. We were approached by a multinational organization that wanted to evolve its finance function into something more agile and adaptable, while treating the leaders as thought partners in this transformation. What could our team of finance leaders learn from other organizations?
The Client – A Multinational Healthcare Company
This client really is a giant of an organization. Open up your bathroom or medicine cabinet, and you’ll see half a dozen of their products instantly. However, giant or not, the organization recognized that it needed support to transform.
The finance leaders put forward for the immersion experience came from a specialized department within this organization. They had spent the pandemic having to adapt and evolve on the fly, as increasing demands were made of them. How could the ability to pivot be built into the function?
Their Situation – How Can They Evolve The Finance Function?
The immersion involved 20 finance leaders from the organization participating in immersion meetings with carefully selected hosts, each one recognized for their transformative, innovative, and responsive abilities.
What did the participants need to take away from these conversations? The objectives of the program were:
- Exploring ways to evolve the finance function
- Accelerating learning from leaders who are able to thrive during periods of uncertainty
- Seeking an external perspective to help with critical judgment and decision-making
- Looking at the finance function as thought partners with a key role to play in shaping the organization’s future
The program immersed the participants in an environment of rich and diverse insights, which they could adapt and use in their own organization.
What We Did
With this immersion, we set pre-work for the participants a week before the events. A program about adapting at speed still requires preparation. Sounds like a contradiction, but the right foundation needed to be set from which change could be realized.
Actually, by going through the self-guided preparation module we designed, the participants arrived at the immersion with the best possible mindset: a willingness to learn from others, and a greater understanding of the value of external perspectives. This openness is essential for a successful immersion experience.
The program consisted of two days of virtual meetings. The theme of Day 1 was Transforming now, transforming for the future, while Day 2 looked at Disrupting & reshaping the ways we work.
Who were the hosts? We chose finance leaders from diverse but relevant organizations who could provide analogous learning experiences in addition to valued customers to hear their “front line” perspective.
For example, one of these leaders was described as “a finance leader from an organization recognized for embracing and cultivating a culture of innovation”, while another was an “unconventional finance leader…recognized for challenging prevailing wisdom and scaling at speed”. Just what the healthcare team ordered.
The Immersion Learning Experience
The 20 participants were divided into four teams. Each was to have two remote meetings over the course of two days. The sessions followed this model: welcome and prep, the immersion meetings (75 minutes), team debrief, plenary debrief. This allowed plenty of time to reflect as well as engage in active discussion.
The first day addressed how reactive responses can have longer term benefits. These were led by leaders known for their innovative approaches.
Day 2 took this further, looking into how organizations can innovate to reshape themselves. We chose diverse hosts for this aspect, including leaders recognized for innovating during times of uncertainty.
During the debrief sessions, the participants were able to reflect on their learning and identify what resonated for their organization. Sharing this was an essential part of moving the finance function forward.
The Impact – Innovation From Constraint
If we’re allowed to use an old saying for a moment: necessity is the mother of invention. These successful hosts had used the immediate need to respond to a situation or a constraint as a springboard for future growth. The participants came away with new perspectives on the relationship between short-term and long-term leadership: the first can pivot into the second.
What were the outcomes?
- The ability to manage short-term responsiveness and recovery – while pivoting into new ways of doing things
- Innovating during times of great constraint in order to lock unprecedented growth
- Embracing and cultivating a culture of innovation.
Our clients were so happy with these outcomes that they are thinking about running similar programs for other functions. The participants feel able to embed their learnings into current and forthcoming projects. Here’s the client feedback:
I think it was a great experience for our team. I thought the conversations among the group were excellent, and I believe we have some deep insights to help take us forward.
Does the client now have a finance team for the future? Thanks to the participants’ willingness to embrace external perspectives and unlock alternative approaches, yes, they have.
Immersion experiences can develop business functions as well as individual leaders and teams.
To find out more, contact us at The Immersion Lab. We’ll work with you to create a program that can help transform your organization.