One CEO I work with (I’ll call him Dan) has been struggling with his CFO for the past 2 years.

As his organization has been growing, their growth has been limited by one major bottleneck – a lot of their financial processes are still manual.  

Not only that – but as they recently hit a huge barrier and needed to go through layoffs, his CFO doesn’t have the skillset to build out financial models and create different “what if?” scenarios.

This has resulted in Dan spending way too many hours trying to figure it out himself.  

As we were talking about it, he came to accept something he hadn’t wanted to admit:

“I’ve been letting it fester too long”

This CFO has been with Dan for the past 8 years, and of course they’ve grown close and he’s been instrumental in helping Dan grow his organization.

But, now that the needs have changed, so have the expectations.  

What worked 8 years ago, won’t work in the new reality.  

And what does Dan get for not addressing it?

• He spends nights and weekends trying to figure out a skill he doesn’t need to
• Funders and partners are getting impatient
• Other executive leadership team members are frustrated that he’s not being held accountable
• At a time when they need to be nimble, the work is getting slowed down because the finance department can’t get their act together

What have you let fester for too long?  

Because the longer you delay – the more credibility you lose.

Who have you needed to give feedback to, but keep waiting for “the right time?”

When will it be enough?  

After our talk, Dan finally addressed it with this CFO, who admitted he was burned out and agreed that he needed to leave.  

Together they came up with a transition plan that wouldn’t leave the organization in trouble, but would allow them to get the next person set up for success.

Who do you need to talk to today?

PS – This is part of the course I’m running next month, TRUST – all about leading through tough conversations. I’d love to have you in the first group, but I’m only limiting it to 10 people. Reserve your spot here: [https://www.myleadershippotential.com/trust]