Learn, unlearn, relearn
Forget chasing the points or beefing up your CV. Lifelong learning is now a requirement for executives and thinking professionals marching confidently into the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
It can be lonely and exposed at the top. The C-suite can – and should – band together to keep the company on track, but in an increasingly volatile world, they will also have to take on new skills and capabilities. Thankfully, most finance professionals have heard the call, and are incorporating continuous and broad learning and personal development into their lives – new skills, new requirements, new characteristics.
At the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), they are wholly committed to this idea. SAICA senior executive for professional development Mandi Olivier explains: “Alvin Toffler said in his book ‘Future Shock’, written in 1972: ‘The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.’
“This insightful comment from over 40 years ago is spot on for where the accounting profession finds itself today – in a world which is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, or ‘VUCA’ – a term coined by the US Navy.”
Additionally, with our continued focus on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Mandi argues, “accountants almost certainly start to feel like dinosaurs” if they have not committed to “undertaking relevant lifelong learning applicable to their specific role”.
They know that the profession as it is today is facing a significant challenge, and accountants are “in dire need of reskilling themselves for current and future roles”. Mandi says there is also the need to prepare “prospective accountants for jobs that don’t yet exist.”
With this in mind, SAICA, she tells us, has recently completed a significant research project (called the CA2025 project), under the leadership of Professor Karin Barac from the University of Pretoria. Through this they took the opportunity to reconsider the competencies (including knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours) for entry-level chartered accountants.
Accountants of the future will need critical thinking skills and the ability to collaborate and communicate. They will need to be comfortable with new technology that takes on some of their work more efficiently and more accurately. It led to the development of a new framework which “embraces the following [five] key changes” for accountants:
“Change is at its greatest right now and we need to be part of this ongoing evolution that is taking place.” – Mandi Olivier
1. Understanding and integrating digital disruption 2. Focusing on creating sustainable value for organisations
3. Creating a deeper understanding and renewed focus and interrogation of ethics and citizenship 4. Becoming integrated thinkers
5. Balancing learning and development of technical and non-technical competencies (enabling competencies and professional values and skills).
“These changes are equally, if not more, applicable to chartered accountants who have already qualified,” Mandi says.
Another change that this has driven is that SAICA has transformed its CPD policy from an hours-based approach to an output-based one “where members are required to become ‘professionally competent’ for their specific role”.
“Change is at its greatest right now and we need to be part of this ongoing evolution that is taking place,” she adds. Organisations and employers must support their accountants in making the necessary shifts.
A new world order
As we all should know by now, digital transformation is completely altering the world of work. Sharmla Chetty is the president of global markets for Duke Corporate Education. They have done extensive research into how technology has shifted the landscape. For example, Professor John Graham at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business has been doing a fascinating quarterly survey of global CFOs for many years – 93 consecutive quarters, in fact.
Sharmla is optimistic about the future tech-enabled workplace, saying “the future of work is going to be informed in large part by the number of jobs gained, not lost”. Yes, she says, technology “will assume certain types of roles performed by humans” but those tend to be the rote ones. With this in mind, she says, business leaders must help people “prepare for change in a constructive and engaging way, and not through fear”.
“We need to enable human beings to work with technological developments to achieve great things. As Dr Hanson, the creator of Sophia the Robot, noted at our Davos of Human Capital conference, humans created robots, not vice versa. We humans control the narrative.”
An ethical imperative
Sharmla believes that personal development and training should support leaders in developing their emotional intelligence (EQ) in conjunction with their IQ. But there is a third element that Duke calls DQ – which
stands for decency quotient. “It means that a leader has the genuine desire to do the right thing for employees, colleagues and society at large.”
This ethical leadership would apply to your workspaces, but also the larger environment. “If we don’t take care of our environment, our workplaces will look completely differently, if they exist at all,” she cautions.
From job displacements, to income disparities, and environmental concerns: “We all need to be proactive and debate these issues at every level in our society, from government to business. We are the only species that can imagine structures to control how we interact among ourselves. We have the power to determine how we wish to operate in this new future.” Any executive learning and development must be centred around this.
Adding a quiver to your bow
CIMA is another well-known educator and professional body. They recently “upgraded” their qualifications to reflect the real needs and changes that management accountants must deal with in modern finance, and the modern workplace.
According to Tim Simba, CIMA Africa
Regional VP, the CIMA Professional
Qualification is suitable and recommended for C-suite executives
“as it complements their existing skillset and capability”, and in equipping them with “the technical, people, leadership and digital skills they need to successfully lead an organisation”.
“The qualification will help them stay at the top of their field, develop broader leadership skillsets to influence and inspire their teams, and enhance their decisionmaking skills to create sustainable value for their organisation,” says Tim.
Senior executives can earn the qualification through CIMA’s exclusive CFO Programme offered only to CFOs, CEOs, and senior management. The in-take requirement is of a fittingly high standard: qualifying candidates will need 10 years of strategic experience in finance and business functions, hold membership with a recognised professional accounting body, and have a finance-related degree or an MBA/Master in Accounting.
“They need to take the Strategic Case Study exam and upon successful completion of the exam will earn CIMA membership and be awarded the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation,” Tim adds.
This is one of the ways that CIMA keeps their designation aspirational, and ensure their alumni remain on top of their game.
“CFOs should undertake continuous professional development,” says Tim. “We offer a suite of CPD
opportunities to choose from.” All CIMA members and CGMA designation holders are required to undertake CPD and keep a record of their development activities.
Re-balance your portfolio
It’s not just your investment portfolio that requires regular rebalancing. Paul Maughan, Executive Development Programme course convenor at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB), cautions that often, executives develop a preference over time for either technical or relationship skills. “During challenging economic times, however, both of these are required,” he says. “In these times, the issues that most concern senior executives should go beyond facilitating disruption or gaining a competitive edge.”
To his mind, the key is “in ensuring long-term resilience, through both hard skills – like finance, innovation and marketing – and softer skills, like talent management, client relationships, negotiation, executive wellness and self-leadership. And for long-term growth, nurturing the inclusive nature of innovation.”
But that also means considerable selfreflection – something that comes up time and again when speaking to the business schools. Paul believes that “breaking bad habits, changing leadership styles and approaches, and unlearning unhelpful strategies” are equally instrumental to maximising your impact as a business leader. Plus, he says, “building personal resilience is key. Burnout is a very real factor at the top.”
Strike a rock
UCT GSB offers a number of courses designed with just this kind of professional in mind, including – notably – a course aimed especially at women leaders. Liz de Wet is the course coordinator for the UCT GSB Executive Women in Leadership (EWIL) course.
This is great for the women on the course, sure, but it is also a boon for business. “Despite ample evidence that having more women in senior roles is good for business, women continue to face challenges in the workplace. The only leverage a leader really has is herself,” says Liz. “This is something that strong women leaders demonstrate very strongly. So this is what we look at in the EWIL programme – how to assist women transform the self to amplify impact both for themselves and their organisation.”
Liz says it is a unique programme that builds leadership capability and gives supportive coaching to participants to increase personal and professional impact.
“There are myriad reasons why women still struggle
to move from middle to senior management: partly because women may have more family obligations, lack confidence to pursue more senior positions, or fear coming across as unlikable if they are ambitious,” says Kumeshnee West, director of Executive Education at UCT GBS.
“Having a greater appreciation of the difficulties women face and overcome in different sectors can help build better strategies to support them in meaningful ways. Leadership is a practice, and this will be influenced by the environment in which women find themselves.
“The UCT GSB has relationships with many different sectors through its work in the customised education space and this knowledge translates into its leadership short courses, including the EWIL programme that is specifically constructed to give women the tools to increase their leadership impact and visibility wherever they find themselves,” she says.
What the professionals say
Cheryl Molefe is an alumna of the course. She is an engineer at AngloAmerican who currently works in business intelligence for the group. “To be impactful in my new role of supporting a new structured way of working in the organisation (which depends highly on people making paradigm shifts), I realised I needed more than the technical know hows,” she says. The EWIL course met those needs, she adds.
“The programme is all about building leadership practices for increased visibility, impact and contribution, with great focus on all the intangible leadership for which I was looking. I had no idea that the programme cut so deep into me as a person, starting with a personal foundation and then translating my personal practices into organisational value.”
Another graduate of UCT GBS is Wendy Parsons, the
CEO for Kouga Wind Farms. She says the decision to take on further studies was informed by her feeling like she was “struggling to transition” from a previous role in management to that of an executive. “I would get frustrated with colleagues that didn’t seem to have my drive and urgency, and I was keen to learn fresh leadership ideas and approaches. I needed help to slow down in order to achieve more and prioritise,” she explains.
Through the course, she says she realised that she was in fact doing other people’s work and taking on too much responsibility. “I learnt how to give the person with the problem the power to solve it themselves.”