Great CFO's = Cultural Architects, Bad CFO's = Cultural Cops
CFOs creating an ownership culture with cool rules...
For decades, we CFOs have been cast as the bureaucratic barons of business rules and budget slashers; the corporate police who say “no.” (P.S. I’m an alliteration geek and couldn’t resist once I started…also guilty with the subtitle of this post.)
Like a knee-jerk reaction that creates a gap in engagement/partnership, startup founders swung the pendulum wildly in opposite directions and even came up with their own headlines: “No Rules Innovation.” “Let’s Move Fast and Break Things.” “Don’t Ask For Permission, Ask for Forgiveness.” “Founders Mode.” Just a sampling from my own career, I’m sure you can add your own!
Here’s the problem: Extremes kill culture.
Overbearing finance teams smother innovation. Total company freedom breeds chaos, inequity, burnout, dysfunction, and really bad behaviors.
So here’s a new thought model - one I personally experimented with at Mozilla, Netflix, and Intuit:
What if CFOs created rules that didn’t stifle culture… but actually helped design culture?
What if the rules, the right rules, could actually create a new Cultural OS instead of killing it?
The Best Cultures Aren’t Rule-Free; They Are Rule-Smart
Great companies aren’t “anti-rule.” They are strategic about the rules they design.
At Mozilla, we created a travel policy that said more about our values than our budget. It wasn’t about receipts or approvals. Our travel policy was about trust. We encouraged smart, global collaboration. We told people:
“You’re an owner. Spend like it’s your own money.”
That rule became a symbol of how we wanted people to manage their departmental budgets. From there, we consistently designed more rules to support and partner with the executive leaders to create the “1st Principle Culture” we wanted - Ownership.
We took the same approach when creating recognition and rewards programs. Small policies…big signals based on trust and ownership.
We spotlighted open-source contributions and innovative contributors from wherever they came within the company.
That sent a message:
“Your contribution and doing the right things matter here.
Not titles, visibility, or politics.”
Cook’s Cultural Rule Test:
If you’re in the CFO, COO, or CPO seat, here’s a test to use when evaluating a new policy or operational rule:
Does the “rule” or policy reinforce one of your cultural beliefs?
Does the “rule” or policy encourage the right actions?
Will the “rule” scale?
Next time you are creating a new policy or rule, think about applying this test before hitting “Send” or “Publish” on the Company’s Policies document.
Add Transparency Or Risk Losing Trust
I’ve written about this before, and I’ll continue to double down and say it 7 times, 7 different ways: Transparency Creates Trust.
When you give people trust, you give them visibility. You also give them context, clarity, and consequences.
Transparency isn’t just posting a dashboard of data.
It’s a communication system of shared truths, cultural beliefs of proper behaviors, and holding each other accountable.
At Mozilla, when we built open-travel and expensing policies, we paired them with radical transparency:
Budgets were visible.
Spending was open.
We created “Hall of Fame” and “Wall of Shame” leaderboards to model this transparency.
We didn’t need to recognize people publicly and punish people behind closed doors.
We simply operated openly and transparently, and treated people like adults with clear expectations.
If you broke the spirit of the rule, you didn’t get a slap on the wrist.
You got the cultural cost of visibility.
It’s amazing how people’s behaviors change when they know others are watching!
Our level of openness drove better decisions across the company, where the culture itself kept everyone accountable.
Trust scaled because everyone knew the rules for winning, which we defined as building great products and creating a great culture. To be clear, not everything was open and transparent, but we were open as to “Why?” we could not share that information, and people appreciated that kind of transparency vs. being silent.
Mozilla’s Recognition Systems as Operational Policy
We also reimagined recognition not as a feel-good HR initiative, but as a cultural lever. We built rules to spotlight open-source contributions.
Why? Because that’s what we wanted more of: open, high-leverage contribution.
So, we created a set of “Recognition Systems.” Everyone could see this very clearly through the highly visible actions our CEO and executives took on stage at all-hands meetings.
When they say “actions speak louder than words”. Turns out they are right!
Our resulting Mozilla Culture: Mozillians contributed more. They sought out new ways to contribute. People felt seen. People felt ownership.
CFOs: Stop Managing. Start Architecting.
If you’re leading finance or ops, here’s your power move:
Stop thinking like a compliance officer.
Start thinking like the Chief Architect of your Cultural OS.
Every policy you write is a design artifact of this OS.
Every rule is a chance to scale behavior and reinforce values.
The best CFOs don’t say “No”. They explain “Why” something can’t be done. There’s a gigantic difference with this approach.
We design systems that say: “This is who we are. This is how we win. This is why we made this decision.”
We’ve all seen the alternative to transparent cultures, which includes invisible decisions, backdoor exceptions, and secret handshakes ««« Don’t do these!
A Key Playbook
As the CFO or head of finance, take the time and effort to “model” this behavior by holding regular all-company walkthroughs and AMAs of your financial statements and various interesting aspects of the business.
Do this casually in a conference room. Buy a dozen or so sandwiches and spread them out on the conference room table. Create an open invite to “Lunch and Learn.” Then see who shows up, and the resulting response you get.
The Cultural Operating System
If you’re a CFO or COO today, here’s the opportunity:
You’re not just managing money or departmental operations. You’re designing the cultural operating system of the company.
The rules you actually write down, and even the ones you don’t document, the behaviors you reinforce around T&E, hiring, pricing, commission plan, or employee recognition, will shape a culture that scales.
If you haven’t heard this quote before, you’ve now heard it:
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
So don’t default to rules, red tape, and bureaucracy. Definitely don’t copy “No Rules” innovation.
Write cool rules.
Scale trust through transparency.
Architect a Cultural OS that lasts.
