Team players

As any football manager will agree, getting the right blend is critical in successfully structuring a team. A team solely comprised of individualists will soon run into trouble, while one based on constant consultation and without necessary leadership is unlikely to deliver timely and insightful decision-making. Given that the best staff will expect to be deployed in ways that nurture and develop their talent, ensuring teams are staffed with the right balance of skills is one of the more esoteric but critical parts of the CFO’s job.

No matter how close the relationship between the functions is, identifying and nurturing talent is not something that the CFO can outsource entirely to HR. Indeed, to do that leaves the CFO in a weak position if skills gaps emerge.

But are senior finance executives putting talent management and team building high enough on their agenda? A recent EY survey suggested there is further to go.

Among the survey respondents, 82% agreed CFOs have a duty to mentor and coach potential replacements within their company. “It’s a core function of the CFO role to make sure that you have capability in the organisation, and that you get involved in that at all levels,” said Helen Kilpatrick, director-general of financial and commercial at the UK Home Office. “You need to make sure you have that pipeline of talent over the long term.” Indeed, boards and investors now expect senior members of the management team to take responsibility for succession planning in their own department. But given the amount of time the CFO at mid-market level and above will be expected to spend on investor relations, technology, strategy and operational matters, it’s a wonder they would find the time to spot the next generation of finance talent.

For finance directors and their HR counterparts then, the selection of recruits and their deployment in the right teams has become both more subtle and scientific in recent years. That is in large part through the emergence of team-building models. Anne Gill, until recently HR executive director of home shopping cosmetics company Avon UK, used Belbin, a standard tool used to categorise staff into particular boxes, such as ‘the implementer’, ‘the co-ordinator’, ‘the team worker’ and so on (see The nine roles according to Belbin).

“In my experience Belbin really helped us to develop a balance of complementary skills in a team, as well as assisting team members in understanding their role in the team,” says Gill. “For some, the categorisation developed by going through the Belbin exercise helped them to focus on both adding to their strengths and working on their weaknesses.”

Pioneered by British management theorist Meredith Belbin in the 1960s and 1970s, the tool’s success has spurred other providers to develop programmes and tools to help businesses identify the gaps that exist in their workforce and how best they can be plugged. But Belbin himself is clear there is no such thing as the ‘ideal’ team – simply teams that are more or less suited to a specific task – it’s a horses for courses approach. The model can be applied to most teams, and Gill says that at Avon it was mainly used for junior teams being formed and for creating project teams for a specific purpose.

So how does it work in practice? “We used Belbin when putting together a company-wide project team in the UK, the remit of which was to enhance the Avon ‘representative experience’. It was an efficient way of quickly identifying the skills we had among the project team and where we had gaps. Using this information, we were able to supplement the missing skills, which, it turned out, were mainly ‘plant’ and ‘implementer’, to ensure the team had access to the full range of skills. As a result, the team was able to produce tangible service enhancements to the representative experience, including changes to the delivery box, making it easier to open for the Avon rep.”

In Gill’s experience, Belbin has the added benefit of being easy to use. “Team members only need to spend 15 minutes on the questionnaire where they complete the self-assessment module, which works well. Questions are non-threatening and in my experience the common language enables a good team discussion.”

Using Belbin – and indeed other models that aim to categorise skill sets (Myers Briggs was also a popular tool at Avon) – helps teams to acknowledge and recognise each team member’s contribution, something that can often get forgotten about or taken for granted in the day-to-day business of getting the job done.

“We also found that going through the Belbin process increases self-awareness of team members,” says Gill. “They gain a better understanding of how they are viewed by fellow team members, which in turn can drive better performance either through mentoring or training.”

More broadly, when adopted by the business as a whole, the Belbin team profile can be really useful in generating discussion on team strengths/weaknesses, which in turn can lead to the creation of an action plan to address roles that are under-represented. It can also be used in recruitment, especially if team assessment and benchmarking has identified some specific gaps. Avon did not generally use this as a recruitment tool – if used in recruitment, the individual report would be used as a basis for further exploration and validation at interview.

Clearly, Belbin has a lot to offer from a performance management perspective. However, the fact that it is geared towards achieving a balance of roles within a team has limitations. For instance, for the finance director looking to staff a specific project or workstream, Belbin may not deliver the required insight.

These types of projects may only need a selection of roles depending on the task. For instance where the FD is working on developing finance systems, he may, through consultation with colleagues in HR, decide that the project only needs a certain type – ‘the resource investigator’ and ‘monitor evaluator’, for instance.

So, for all its strengths, like all models, Belbin – in Gill’s view – has its flaws. “For a start, unless used properly, it can ‘pigeonhole’ people and limit them to just a few specific roles. By doing so, you may find you are limiting potential development. This pigeon-holing extends to stifling staff from stretching themselves – if someone finds they are the ‘completer finisher’ in a group, it can be an excuse for managers to let them always perform this role.”

It needs to be remembered individuals rarely fit neatly into the categories – team members need to adapt their behaviour to fit different roles; and of course, the converse is also true: individuals may fall into more than one category.

Of course, central to the effective selection and management of teams is the interface between the CFO and HR. In this instance, it’s worth asking what HR brings to the table.

“In the first instance, they should partner with the CFO to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the finance team,” explains Gill. “It is HR’s role to understand the business drivers as well as the external factors and challenges facing the finance team: the sluggish economy, the need to cut costs and respond to new regulatory and tax pressures.”

HR can also play an invaluable supporting role by developing its work on organisation design, where HR professionals can determine the most appropriate model to deliver on organisation strategy. For instance, does the business require a shared service centre for transactional processes or specialisms? At Avon, Gill helped create an EMEA shared service centre as part of a cost efficiency exercise.

The second major area of importance for HR is in talent management: that is, to define capability requirements (skills, behaviours, experience) needed to deliver on the business strategy as well as ensuring the right mix in the teams.

“HR must also support the FD in developing a competency framework to specify functional, technical, team behaviours and competencies,” Gill says. “HR has the ability to assess talent against required competencies, to identify gaps and develop a talent plan to assess team behaviours.

“Lastly, HR must take the lead on performance management. That means not only assessing team performance against team goals, but also aligning individual objectives to the team and business goals. These performance assessments also include team and individual behaviours across the business.”

These models are not going to deliver all the answers, but the good ones that are cleverly used can help CFOs and HR directors ask the right questions to improve performance.

1. Plant: creative, imaginative, and free-thinking, the plant generates ideas and solves difficult problems, but ignores incidentals, and is too preoccupied to communicate effectively.
2. Resource Investigator: outgoing, enthusiastic and communicative, they explore opportunities and develop contacts. This type is over-optimistic though, and may lose interest after initial enthusiasm.
3. The Co-ordinator: mature, confident and identifies talent, as well as clarifies goals and delegates effectively. They can be seen as manipulative. Offloads own share of the work.
4. The Shaper: challenging, dynamic, and thrives on pressure. They can overcome obstacles, but are prone to provocation, and can offend people’s feelings.
5. Monitor Evaluators: sober, strategic and discerning. They are open-minded and judge accurately, but lack drive and ability to inspire others, and can be overly critical.
6. The Teamworker: co-operative, perceptive and diplomatic. They listen and stall friction. However, they are indecisive in crunch situations.
7. The Implementer: practical, reliable, efficient, turns ideas into actions and organises work, but can be inflexible and slow to respond to new possibilities.
8. The Completer Finisher: painstaking, conscientious and anxious, but polishes and perfects. They are inclined to worry unduly and reluctant to delegate.
9. Specialist: single-minded self-starters who are dedicated and provide rare knowledge and skills. They contribute only on a narrow front and tend to dwell on technicalities.

Source: Belbin.com

Anne Gill outlines the various recruitment models available to businesses

MYERS BRIGGS
This model asks individuals to complete an online questionnaire, following which a team profile is created. Once that is completed, a facilitated discussion takes place on how the team profile supports the team’s goals, and tries to help understand how individuals operate in a team.

Myers Briggs is based on the idea of equipping managers with the ability to understand team dynamics, and in so doing improve individual self-awareness, and appreciate how each team member works, with the ultimate aim of improving team relationships. This model is only used for individual and team development, not selection, but Myers Briggs was the most commonly used model at Avon, and for good reason – it was effective.

FUNDAMENTAL INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS ORIENTATION (FIRO-B)
This looks at how personalities can influence team effectiveness, and as such principally focuses on ‘interpersonal need’. Firo-B is based on the theory that people play roles in teams depending on their own interpersonal needs in relation to the needs of others.

Managers using Firo-B look at the need for inclusion, control and affection (openness), and through careful use, the model can help predict the role a team member will play. It holds that if individual needs are met, then the team member is far more likely to engage, contribute, collaborate and generally be more productive.

Firo-B improves self awareness and team compatibility, and it can be used in selection only as part of other selection tools, as well as to support further exploratory interviews at the selection stage. It is quick and easy to apply and not too expensive.

INSIGHTS DISCOVERY MODEL
This is based on colour insights (Insights Discovery Model) and is a fun way to discover personality type through identification with four colours: Cool Blue (cautious, precise), Fiery Red (competitive, determined), Earth Green (encouraging, patient) and Sunshine Yellow (dynamic, persuasive). It’s a clever, shorthand and is an easy way to describe personality types.

GRPI – GOALS, ROLES, PROCESSES, INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Crucially, in common with the most successful models, GRPI facilitates a good team discussion on self awareness and how to understand behaviours of other team members. These models are not going to deliver all the answers, but the good ones (cleverly used) can help CFOs and HR directors ask the right questions to improve performance. Crucially, in common with the most successful models, GRPI facilitates a good team discussion on self-awareness and how to understand behaviours of other team members.

THOMAS-KILMAN CONFLICT MODE INSTRUMENT (TKI)

This conflict mode instrument tool is designed to help teams better understand the nature of conflict/tension and how to approach and manage team dynamics and conflict. It facilitates learning to use five practical, situation-specific styles for dealing with conflict effectively (competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, accommodating). In doing so, the TKI model claims to “help trainers, managers and other professionals open productive one-on-one and group discussions around conflict”. One of TKI’s main selling points is the speed and ease of use – the exercise only focuses on 30 items, and takes just 15 minutes. It is easy to understand, and requires no special training or certification to administer.

Anne Gill now runs her own HR consultancy, Kinisi Ltd, which provides HR solutions to businesses.

• Team players
  Finance & Management Magazine, January 2014

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