The finance executive's goals have been to shorten the process so that it can be completed closer to the end of the year and to "produce a better product." One of the biggest challenges in meeting that goal had been to find a way to streamline the company's budgeting for cost reimbursements for such things as snow removal and insurance costs agreed to in the various leases of the company's 2,300 tenants, which range from Stop 'N Shop and Target outlets to smaller retail stores.

Would the company have to create 2,300 different invoices to be loaded by a hired administrator? Brausch wondered, surmising that such a job could take 10 weeks. One of his possible heirs-apparent, a whiz at Excel, however, created a macro in less than two hours that could do the job. "It was miraculous to watch," the finance chief said.

More and more, says Jay Jamrog, senior vice president of research for the Institute for Corporate Productivity, a firm that tracks workplace trends, relations between CFOs and their new staffers, has "got to be a two-way street."

To be sure, CFOs, controllers, and treasurers can remain true to their values in dealing with younger finance employees, according to Jamrog. But, he adds, "you have to challenge some of your assumptions about how work was done in the past." (To hear more about how senior finance executives and newer employees can communicate better, see CFO.com's video interview with Jamrog.)

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