The CSO and the CFO: Creative Tension in the C-Suite
Author: Daniel T. London and Eric M. Lowitt
Here's how the CFO of one Fortune 500 company described this process: "I own the next 18 months, and our CSO owns the next 18 months to five years. And those two [periods] have to be integrated. Sometimes you want to make long-term investments, and we can't afford them in the short term. Sometimes we want to do short-term things that don't make sense for the long term. So it definitely has been a learning experience."
Of course, learning experiences aren't always fun. One CFO explained how some of his colleagues were frustrated by the commitments made by the CSO, which were less precise than those required of finance executives. More typical, however, were the comments of this CFO: "Our CSO has a lot of experience running global businesses. So there are myriad things where . . . bumping heads isn't the right word . . . but where we're working through things like, 'How do we work together most effectively? What do you have? What do I have? What are we working on together?' "
But there is genuine creativity hidden beneath this tension that companies shouldn't quash. Indeed, the CFO-CSO relationship exemplifies the importance of strong debate at the top, as described more than a decade ago by Kathleen Eisenhardt, Jean Kahwajy and L.J. Bourgeois III in "How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight," in Harvard Business Review: "Management teams whose members challenge one another's thinking develop a more complete understanding of the choices, create a richer range of options, and ultimately make the kinds of effective decisions necessary in today's competitive environments."
The creative tension between CFOs and CSOs is likely to become more prevalent as companies increasingly add strategy chiefs to the mix at the top. Chief executives need to ensure that these developments are a net positive for their companies. That means, first of all, clarifying expectations and responsibilities, and second, as the Harvard Business Review authors stressed, making sure that conflict is over substantive matters, not personal disagreements. By fostering tough, healthy debate, CEOs can get the most out of the CFO-CSO dynamic while building important new strategic capabilities.
Daniel T. London is the Atlanta-based managing director of the Accenture Finance & Performance Management service line. He has extensive experience in strategy, business architecture, systems integration, business transformation and outsourcing engagements across multiple regions and industries.
Eric M. Lowitt is a research fellow at the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business.
