Why Finance professionals struggle with transformation

“Time is a factor.”

Business As Usual finance work is naturally cyclical with reporting required each month, quarter, and year end. I’ve seen first-hand the effect this has on finance professionals’ capacity to think about anything other than the numbers when they are in one of these cycles. It’s difficult to approach change in a stop-start way, and we need to find more time for effective transformation.

“It’s not my role to look at change.”

I’ve worked with many accountants on transformation projects, and they tend to focus on the business case (Revenue and Capex, payback models etc.). Only a rare few believe their role is to address the commercial viability of the future vision. They perceive their role to be ‘the numbers’ and that it’s someone’s else’s job (e.g. Head of Strategy, Head of Transformation, Operations, etc.) to envision and execute change. The assumption that transformation is somebody else’s problem can often lead to neglecting the transformation of the Finance function itself.

“It’s beyond my skill set, I’m simply not qualified.”

I’m very sympathetic to this view. I’ve spent the last 30 years working in change and transformation focusing on how to do it well. I’ve seen a lot, tried different approaches often working with some brilliant people and I still don’t get it right every time. We like to use jargon as much as anyone but people who understand a process, with logical minds will instinctively know how to improve it. There is a danger that a good analytical mind over analyses things when others might just have a go.

A fear that change may impact the team or even the role detrimentally.

This view, combined with some of the other reasons will certainly put change in the ‘too hard’ box. And this fear is widely shared across many finance teams. Change has to have benefits, and we need to focus on the positives to engage finance professionals and overcome their fear of change.

“Where do I start? And stop.”

The problems around here go much wider than the Finance team. And I don’t have the time. I hear and see this a lot – it’s easier just to stick to the day job. Again this is a dangerous position and verges on neglect. As a leader of Finance, you have an obligation to develop the function.

Some of these are genuine barriers exclusively to Finance transformation, whilst others are very common amongst audiences beyond Finance. They are all reasons why change often fails.