I wanted to share with you something that I recently read in a book that’s been written by a lady who used to run a social media agency.
The author says: “During the last three years, I owned my social media agency, Joanna managed the show. She kept a document on her desktop with the title ‘improvements’.”
“She opened and updated it every day. If Joanna found herself unable to answer a question well or didn’t know what to do in a scenario, she made a note.”
“Every few weeks when we caught up, Joanna and I went through the additions, she asked questions about alternative ways she could have phrased her words, or handled a situation.”
“I asked her questions and told her what I thought, I referenced articles or books she could read and gave suggestions on concepts to check out. She always did.”
I think that’s what’s so amazing. It goes on to talk about Joanna’s role has progressed to include managing many of the company’s operations.
She wasn’t limited by her current self, she was always improving and always learning, she learned new ways of introducing topics or phrasing things and wrote them down.
She learned frameworks that changed how she thought, how she spoke and how she managed.
I think this is just so important for Finance Business Partners everywhere.
I used to keep a list of things in terms of what I wanted to improve and so on.
But I just didn’t take it to that those next steps that Joanna did so brilliantly: talking to a role model or mentor, which might be your boss, but it also might not be.
I know in places I’ve worked sometimes my boss has been the right person to speak to about improvements and these open honest discussions.
‘How could I have phrased this differently with a stakeholder?’
‘How could I have answered this better?’ In order that you keep learning, developing and improving.
You can even earn CPD points from doing this as well as part of your own growth and development in your role.
This can be such a super-simple way to really grow and develop as a Finance Business Partner.
I hope you can be inspired by Joanna’s story in terms of having a document, either electronically, on paper, on post-its or wherever, called ‘Improvements’. And clearly document things like:
- how could I have dealt with this situation differently?
- how could I have dealt with this conversation better?
- How could I have dealt with this email better?
- How could I have dealt with this report better?
- How could I have dealt with this meeting better?
- How could I have dealt with this presentation better?
Capture everything, write it down and speak to your mentor, whether that’s your boss or some other role model – someone whose opinion you trust, who will help you, who will guide you to the right books, the right articles, the right podcast, the right learning resources, the right frameworks and so on, to help you keep growing and developing as a Finance Business Partner.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the inspiration this week!
Wishing you every success on your own Finance Business Partner growth journey this week! 😊
