FERF study finds executives score high on teamwork.

• Position: Financial Executives Research Foundation - From FEI

Skills like communication, negotiation and the ability to work with other people are just as important for financial executives to succeed as the technical skills traditionally associated with the finance functions. That's one conclusion of a new Financial Executives Research Foundation study, The Empowered Organization: Redefining the Practices and Roles of Finance, by Frederick C. Militello Jr., professor of international business and global banking at New York University, and Henry A. Davis, director and secretary of the Madison Financial Group in Baltimore. The study, which will be published in May, looks at case studies of nine companies that have embraced new organizational models and the effects of those changes on the finance function.

Militello says the premise of the study was "to look at companies committed to organizational change and to find out whether and to what extent the finance areas are involved in these changes." Happily, he reports, financial executives score high for their ability to adapt to new organizational values and principles like employee empowerment, teamwork and flattened hierarchies.

In fact, financial executives led the way in certain situations, particularly in companies with leveraged buyout situations in which the CFO later became the CEO, Militello notes. "In these cases, finance takes the lead first in financial restoration and then later cultural restoration."

That means finance is no longer on the outside looking in. Under old business paradigms, companies created competitive advantages with exclusive information. Today, companies recognize that information sharing, both internally and externally, is crucial to remaining competitive, co-author Davis says. For finance professionals, that translates to becoming involved in every aspect of the company's business, including business-unit management, reengineering, problem-solving and product-development teams, he explains.

Davis considers decentralization another major component of this sea change in business culture. "Decisions have to be made fast because the markets and the technology change faster today. Companies need people who are on the plant floor, who are closer to the customer."

To some extent, changes in Corporate America reflect greater changes in society, and that affects the expectations of a whole generation of employees, he points out. "Most talented young people today are used to a certain degree of autonomy and decision-making, and...