If you took a guess, what percent of all people in your organization really understand the leadership’s financial and strategic messages? Majority of people in most organizations do not. What CEO or CFO would not want all employees to understand what they mean by percent growth, percent cost reduction, percent profitability improvement, operating margin, etc? And more specifically, what leadership would not want all employees to understand the drivers behind these metrics and goals? Here we will look at the key reasons of why business acumen across all functions and levels is important and how it can help organizations grow. Below are most common wishes of the leadership:
There are deeper reasons of why business acumen across all functions and levels is important and how it can support organization’s growth and business goals. I also invite you to note your own thoughts about the impact of each ability/area on the people and organization. # 1. Understanding how the organization makes money, its value stream:
# 2. Understanding by every employee how each of them contributes to that value stream
# 3. Ability to explain impact of external and internal events, potential risks, challenges and opportunities on company’s results:
# 4. Ability to explain impact of ideas and solutions on company’s results:
It is this last factor that is one of the most important ones as it removes the fear of saying something wrong, be judged, not taken seriously and ultimately the fear of the ideas to be rejected. The belief “I am not a numbers person” blocks people’s desire to express ideas and solutions as they are not sure how to provide the rationale. As a result, ideas and solutions do not get expressed. If we know this, why don’t all people learn the business acumen? Here we introduce the next distinction: the belief “I am not numbers people” creates a subconscious obstacle to learn finance and most of the time is driven by the fear of not being able to “get it” or the fear of failure. In reality, it has nothing to do with the ability. It is caused by some prior experiences with math or, perhaps, an intimidating conversation with a finance person. Hence, we can overcome it. According to the growth mindset concept developed by Dr. Carol Dweck, we can learn anything with the right approach, tools, environment and our own effort. So, it comes down to how we teach business acumen. Here is what we recommend:
Business acumen has a special role in the current conditions of ever evolving forces driving companies to change strategy, business model, systems, processes. It helps people see the deeper “why” and “how” the changes will help the organizations. It helps people look for ways to support the changes, see where potential risks may be and how to prevent them. Feeling confident to express ideas and solutions with the rationale and impact on the organization’s results without the fear of being judged or rejected will propel creative problem solving, inventiveness and engagement in your organization, as well as substantiated decision making that will help drive your organization’s growth. Learn more: Copyright (c) 2019 Anna Samorukova All rights reserved.
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1 Comment
Anna
1/24/2019 08:20:00 pm
Good article
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