And never the twain shall meet?

Be honest. Who among you hasn't faced an operations executive pressuring you to treat an item as revenue in the current fiscal year, when you know it belongs in the next year, just to get his bonus up?

We finance people can't believe the stuff operations people will pull. Once I discovered a program manager falsifying his flexible spending requests by photocopying the same bill over and over, simply changing the date on it. When confronted with the evidence, he carefully studied each of the phony invoices, as if trying to decipher a secret code. Then he put them down, looked me in the eye and said, "Looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"

The CFO position is unique. We have a control function and a service function. That may explain much of the notorious friction between finance and operations people. On the one hand, we audit expense reports and flexible spending plan requests and review time cards. On the other hand, we're supposed to make life easier for those doing the "real work," the ones generating revenues. We knock ourselves out to process their expense checks and travel advances in record speed (even when they're submitted late), and we create special reports to help them manage their projects (even though canned reports provide the same data).

So where's the teamwork?

Early in my career, I started working for a company whose month-end reports consistently came out around the 12th of the month. Determined to improve on that, I pulled an all-nighter and got the reports on top of the division directors' desks the first day of the month. Of course, the next morning I was extremely tired, but I had a real sense of pride that comes with doing a job well.

As I sat at my desk drinking several cups of coffee and waiting for the accolades to come rolling in, I heard one of the division directors heading my way. I knew he was coming to say, "Thanks, Robert, job well done. What did we ever do before you got here?"

Wrong. He did nothing but gripe about how some of the photocopying charges went to the wrong tasks. He said not one word about the prompt reporting and left my office muttering something about not being able to see the forests because he had to focus on the trees (an appropriate analogy because, after all, we were talking about paper).

Since the total of all the misclassified charges was less than a dollar and they all went to the right contract, just the wrong task - and since it probably was his fault anyway - I swore a vow of hatred toward him and all other operations executives of his ilk. To think, these people have the gall to call us beancounters!

BAD FEELINGS

A few years and many similar experiences later, I had an interaction with an operations guy that scarred me for life. A program manager I called Bobs (he was too big to be just Bob) came in my office at 7 o'clock one morning to loudly complain about my "extremely unresponsive staff." We'd just opened an office in Memphis under Bobs' direction and, according to him, my staff wasn't providing his staff the proper support. Because of this, his people were getting a very bad feeling about the company, he said, and thus weren't able to do their work.

His voice carried down the hall as he spewed one venomous comment after another, his face turning beet red. He didn't say anything about the forests and the trees, but I assumed there were problems there as well. Even though I wanted to slug him, or at the very least steal his doughnuts, I apologized profusely and promised to call the Memphis office manager and fix things.

When I called I learned the manager was unhappy about support from headquarters. But he wasn't mad at my staff. He was mad at Bobs. It seems Bobs was the one who wasn't responsive. I stormed to the office of Bobs' boss, Harvey, and told him how unhappy I was and how Bobs ruined my morning and made several members of my staff feel bad. Harvey just chuckled and said, "That's Bobs. He's quite a character."

PAINFULLY CONSTRUCTIVE

The stories are easy to come by. Misunderstandings between finance and operations run so deep and have persisted for so long, conflict is inevitable. Whose fault is it? The answer is simple: the men and women in operations. As a general rule, they have zero appreciation for what the people in finance do.

But instead of complaining, I'm taking another, somewhat uncharacteristic tack. I've come up with a list of things financial executives can do to make the relationship work. Here goes:

* First, give the operations staff the best support possible. Treat them like your customers, because they are. Everytime I bring on a new employee, I stress the single most important thing we can do is be responsive to other employees. Even if we have to tell others we can't do what they request, we have to respond promptly and professionally.

* When you have to say no, explain why. Blame it on the government. "I'm sorry, Harvey. Some of these government regulations are so stupid, it boggles the mind."

* Remember that operations' "problems" are one of the main reasons you have a job. "Everytime I turn around, that guy has another rush request." Maybe it's because his area is growing so fast.

* Don't fall in love with your department's rules. Our function is to figure out ways to help the operations people fulfill their mission, not to stick policies and procedures in their face.

* Take the initiative to understand how the operations person's job works. Hey, maybe there's a good reason for some of the ridiculous requests. (I doubt it, but this seems like the sort of thing you should say.) For instance, when I asked one controller why we do certain things, his stock answer was, "The powers that be." Maybe these powers aren't sure what they need, and we can help them decide - and at the same time reduce our workload. Guys like this controller give the rest of us a bad rap.

* Step into an operations job. I once began managing a $3 million-a-year contract that was losing $10,000 to $20,000 each month. To be honest, I didn't do it because I wanted a better understanding of operations. I did it because I thought I could make the venture profitable, which would lead to a bigger bonus for me and maybe even a promotion. But, regardless of the motivation, the experience helped me appreciate what it means to deal directly with "the client."

* Have someone on your staff who's not tied in with your department's cycles available to respond to requests. Several years ago, I inherited a finance and administration group with a reputation for terrible service. Before I started the job, I met individually with each member of the accounting staff. The payroll accountant had a huge pile of paper stacked neatly on her desk. "It's my to-do pile," she said. "I get to it when things are slow in payroll. Doesn't get slow very often. The staff just has to understand." It didn't.

* Don't make close friends with operations staff. (This shouldn't be too tough.) If you don't, it's a lot easier to exercise that control function. Plus, you won't be as disappointed when one of them unfairly maligns you or a member of your staff.

* Do make close friends with members of your own staff. This goes against the grain of most contemporary management thinking. But I think it's essential to retaining your sanity.

* And, finally, don't dress casual. Do I need to elaborate on this one?

Mr. Falconi is CFO of a defense contractor in northern Virginia.