Finance Leads Talent Development

When the leadership team at MGM hired Karen Durkin to spearhead an innovative finance development program early in 2013, they specifically chose someone who represented much of the change that was envisioned for the organization. Although her background is in finance and accounting, Durkin’s first job in the oil industry morphed into developing technical engineers, and this trend continued as she switched to an accounting firm, where she solidified her focus on developing talent. She is a certified executive coach and teaches in the executive MBA program at the Lee Business School of the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Her background is unusual, she says, but makes her perfectly suited to the role she holds now. Barbara Hodge finds out why and how MGM is redefining Finance to take a more strategic leadership role within the enterprise, and to build one Finance community. The role of Finance is changing across enterprises, today often driven by Shared Services models that prioritize data-driven decision-making over plain, old-fashioned "accounting." MGM Resorts International is no exception. Today, the bulk of Finance employees is being shifted into the Finance Shared Services Center, and new initiatives focus on developing value-adding leaders for the business. While the SSC’s customers are still predominantly the property-based Finance teams, it’s a very thin line that divides the two parties – and it’s increasingly blurring, as Karen Durkin, who joined MGM to promote a brand new talent agenda, explains. "My role is really responsive to the broader Finance team, and not just the Shared Services Center," Durkin explains. "That adds an interesting dimension to talent management, which is very exciting." What’s wrong with Finance as it stands? Finance in general is in danger of growing out of touch with the business, if it continues to focus on traditional "accounting" activities, warns Durkin. Today, while the emphasis is increasingly on technical ability and expertise, Finance is also stepping into more of a partnering role. This is what’s behind MGM Resorts’ new vision of Finance as a driver of decisions and a proactive collaborator with the business. It’s also why there is an emphasis on oneFinance group, as opposed to multiple centers. "Our leadership recognized that if we didn't move ahead with talent management, we would be left behind," says Durkin. "And it's that attitude that drives business growth forward." At MGM Resorts today there is an increasing trend towards competency-based hiring, which makes individuals much more transferable in and out of operations and the Shared Services Center, and presents the kind of mobility that MGM Resorts wants to foster. "Today's finance roles are significantly different from traditional operational roles," says Durkin. "We expect more in terms of broad experience and leadership than was the case in the past." "In addition, the finance team of yesterday was generally siloed and focused on crunching numbers, whereas today our emphasis is on using the information at hand to help the operations make better decisions and to drive the business forward. It's a completely different role, and it requires a completely different skill set." Re-evaluating "Finance" talent It’s this understanding that led to a push, three years ago, to re-evaluate Finance and to redefine its role. A Finance Development Council, made up of CFOs and senior finance executives from across the company, set themselves the challenge of developing a talent management program that would better meet the needs of the business, and to help filter a new talent management strategy across the enterprise. Thus emerged the Finance Career Developmentprogram, encompassing about 130-150 Directors and above, who progress through a closely monitored and guided talent management program. As part of this initiative, these leaders are brought together in Finance Talent Review discussions to talk about MGM Resorts' current talent requirements and to look ahead at how the business’s growth impacts these requirements. This new strategic approach means that there is heightened awareness of the Finance talent available across the enterprise –in Shared Services, at corporate areas, as well as in the properties – at any given moment. It also means that everyone understands career opportunities and how and where existing resources are deployed, as well as the impact of these resources on the business. So successful, in fact, that it spawned another program, the Finance Leadership Program, which identifies 15 high potential individuals, and takes them through nine months of intensive development, including executive coaching, presentation skills, innovative thinking, and high-level mentoring by senior property or corporate leaders. Part of the program includes developing "stretch assignments" which place these individuals into unfamiliar areas. "The idea is to expose them to parts of the business which are not usually the remit of finance," explains Durkin. These assignments have included stints in marketing, where an employee joined a team developing an iPhone app that would attract new customers. Another individual was assigned to the "comp" analysis team, which was evaluating the impact of offering complimentary rooms, show tickets, or meals – a key aspect of resort marketing – on the business. Yet another individual was seconded to the new HR Shared Services consolidation, where the experience gained would feed back into the Finance Shared Services. Although Durkin is still working on appropriate metrics to measure the impact of the program, its success can be illustrated in part by the fact that half of the first group of 15 employees has already been promoted. A third initiative fast tracks new talent through a Management Associate Program(MAP), which identifies 40 high potential new recruits (recent graduates) each year, five of who are in Finance. These graduates join an intensive, one-year rotation program during which they are exposed to as many of Finance’s components as possible. They also take on special projects, and interact with senior level management. "What drives this program is the need to link the various points of Finance together, so that we are really one Finance community, and flexible enough to provide resources wherever they are needed," says Durkin. 4 Tips: How to get more out of your Finance team 1. How can you make Finance staff more effective in their roles? KD: There are a couple of approaches we are taking that work towards achieving that goal. First of all, we are leveraging executive coachingto a large degree. In fact, Finance is taking a lead within the broader organization in using executive coaching. We bring in outside coaches and, through 360° feedback, we target an individual’s strengths, constraints, and areas for improvement. Coaching is very effective as part of our Finance Leadership Program, and it’s also offered to the leadership of the Finance Shared Services Center. We are also reassessing our Finance managers, with a view to training them to become leaders. The skills of a manager – delegation, following up, etc. – are not the same skills required of a leader. Leadership training is all about identifying how to give employees the tools to contribute and innovate and develop their talent. By redefining our Finance leadership team we're encouraging our Finance executives to become business partners, and to collaborate with the operations to drive revenue for the business. After all, we're all on the same team, and our revised interpretation of Finance leadership means that we are ultimately all working towards the same goal – namely, for the end customer to have a great experience at our resorts, so that he or she comes back and spends more money. Finance can do a lot to make that happen. A final point I would make is about the broader aspect of talent management. We leverage a concept called "team familiarity," but in a slightly different way. Normally, team familiarity is the idea that you build greater trust and goal alignment in teams that have worked together for a long time, and therefore results are better. When it comes to talent management, though, you are pulling more or less in the opposite direction, because it's all about change, rotation, stretch assignments, etc. These reduce familiarity, but at the same time increase job opportunities for employees, and therefore serve to retain talent. At MGM Resorts we see "familiarity" as a valuable tool but in a more long-term sense. It’s not so much about the immediate team, but more about developing "familiarity" with the enterprise team. We're also passionate about fostering networks and collaboration to support familiarity. Collaborative software, which we are just introducing, will enable these networks; but collaboration also happens through our Finance Development Program, which is all about building strong networks among the finance executive team. 2. To what extent does the fact that the hospitality industry is enormously customer focused allow you to leverage tactics already in use at the front-end of the business? KD: This is an interesting question. First of all, in terms of coaching, Finance is actually taking the lead in the business. We are working closely with HR so they can pick up on what we have been doing. One thing that is quite different at our company is that we have made a big effort to train everyone, including Finance staff, in customer service. Finance employees generally don't have direct contact with the ultimate guest, but what we are doing is tying finance as directly as we can to that end process. It's the reason we're in business. Customer service can, of course, also be about serving the internal customers. The main point is that we, in Finance, are not directly tied to the end goal, so we must align ourselves into the service profit chain. 3. What are some immediate pressure points for Finance and what are some solutions? KD: Although our journey toward Shared Services began 10 years ago, our Shared Services Center is just over five years old now, so we're pretty much in the mid-range maturity and still developing. Our priorities going forward are to implement lean processes, provide scale as our company grows, and leverage data and analytics. A lot of MGM Resorts' growth has been through mergers and acquisitions, so getting on top the shared technology is a big challenge for us. 4. As a qualified executive coach, can you share tips on how to get the most out of coaching? KD: First of all, executive coaching is not a remedial strategy for stagnated or troubled staff. There tends to be some confusion between performance management and coaching. Performance management is what you would use to improve results for staff whose effectiveness is limited. Coaching is an accelerator for employees that are already successful, and helps them to break down whatever barriers or constraints they face, so that they become even more productive. Coaching is about investing in the future. Performance management is about fixing trouble spots. Coaching turns managers into leaders, and that is what we at MGM Resorts are all about. NOTE: Learn more about how to develop F&A talent, and deliver greater value, from leaders like Karen Durkin at SSON’s 14th Annual Shared Services for Finance & Accounting Conference and TECHNOLOGY EXPO – June 23-25, 2014, in Dallas, Texas. Download the brochure to read about global optimization and end-to-end process management. [inlinead]

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