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Andnow, onto theshow. From DataReels, this is FPNAtoday.
Now, I don't need to tell you that every day as FPNA professionals orCFOs, we have to turn the numbers into astory.
I, like manyothers, have made more than my share of mistakes in that storytellingprocess.
In this specialepisode, we bring together two heavy weights when it comes to getting to a winning FPNAstory.
I spoke with SufyanHamid.
Sufyan is a finance leader who runs the financial storytellingprogram.
And MatthewHerbert, head of FPNA atChewy.
And Matthew is a master of turning finance into astory.
And Chewy is one of the most beloved brands in theUS.
There was so much I got from this session from treating presentations like aworkshop, not a TEDtalk, to what questions to ask when starting any financial analysisproject.
I'm really excited to share this with youall.
And toreminder, if you listened to FPNAtoday, please give us a rating on your favorite podcastprovider.
Welcome back to FPNACon2024.
Today's session is on getting to a winning FPNAstory.
Today we're going to dive into the art and science of crafting and delivering a compelling FPNAstory.
We'll explore the key elements of a winningnarrative, share tips for developing and refining yourstory, and discuss strategies for effectively engaging yourstakeholders.
I'm GlennHopper, the host of FPNAtoday, and the head of AI Research and Development at Eventus AdvisoryGroup.
I was a startup CFO for 15 years and came up through the FPNAranks.
So this stuff is all near and dear to myheart.
I'm also an author and a lecturer on artificial intelligence and its implications and finance andaccounting.
And as passionate as I am about AI and its potentialbenefits, what AI affords us is the ability to spend more time on the storytelling parts of our jobs and less on themaths.
I'm excited to introduce our expert paneliststoday.
We have Sufyan Hamid and MatthewHerbert.
Sufyan is living proof that you can become a specialist in a topic that you went struggled with through dedication and hardwork.
With over 17 years of corporateexperience, Sufyan has made it his mission to help FPNA teams worldwide improve their presentation skills through his global consultingfirm, The FinanceCircle.
Sufyan's proprietary trainingmethod, the financial storytellingprogram, has been followed by more than 200 finance professionalsworldwide.
He has become a top storytelling voice on LinkedIn with nearly 75,000 followers who looked to him for insights andguidance.
Matt is the director of strategic initiatives within the commercial finance team atChewy, the online petretailer.
With a 17-year career infinance, Matthew has helped senior leadership positions at global brands likeWalmart, the LegoGroup, and CreditSuisse.
Matt has global experience from the US to South Korea where he lived as anexpat.
As a regular advisor to C-suiteexecutives, Matthew is also passionate about learning anddevelopment.
He taught himselfC-sharp,sequel, andVBA.
He runsBizTrix, which teaches business relevant technology and skills acrossExcel,VBA,sequel,PowerPoint, andWord.
He also enjoys analyzing financial markets in his sparetime.
Aboveall, Matt is a dedicated father andhusband.
Then, thus concludes myreading.
Mygentleman, welcome to theprogram.
You're greatreading,Paul.
Yes. Thankyou,Glenn.Yes.
So let's kick off the show today with apoll.
And this is kind of just a level set where we are with theaudience.
The first pollis, how confident are you in your ability to craft a compelling FPNAstory?
So we run the gamut here from very confident all the way down to not confident andunsure.
While people areresponding,guys, I think forme, no one ever told me early in my FPNAcareer,hey, you're astoryteller, but it kindof, itjust, it comes out of thejob.
And I think now people are embracing it and leaning intoit.
Obviously, no one more than youto.
But what do you think in yourcareer, when did you see that shifthappen, where it was really started to be understood more that FPNA really is as much about the storytelling as thenumbers?
AndSufian, maybe we'll kick off with you your thoughts onthat.
Well, it came like six or seven yearsago, because I was the puretechnician.
I was really interested in everything that was related to financialmodeling,Excel, powerquery, powerpivot,VBA, everything that I couldlearn, I learnedit.
And it worked until I decided to join a company as a finance businesspartner.
And at thatmoment, I realized that I was not invited tomeetings.
I was not involved in the business cases soon enough to be able toparticipate.
And I just thought it was that way that things weredone, and that was maybe expecting toomuch.
But the financedirector, just in the monthly meeting in which I had to present the result of the business unit that was responsibleof, was alwaysfrustrated, mypresentation.
He asked a lot ofquestions.
He asked me tosimplify, and I think that one day he just couldn'tanymore.
And he toldme,yes,Sufian, you're atechnician, but the people I will present it to arenot.
And so you had to bring me the story out of yourfigures.
And that was the first time I heard of story in the field offinance.
Forme, story storytelling was a marketing concept forsalespeople, to invent things so that they could convince others to buy theirproducts.
Buteventually, I realized it was important in our jobstoo, because when you don't sell yourjob, when you don't sell yourwork, it's basicallyhidden.
And if it'shidden, it's not worthanything.
So this is where I started to understand why it wasimportant, and I started totrain.
Matt, how aboutyou? What's your first exposure and your understanding of thetransition?
Yeah, I think mine's a little bit different in the sense that I started my career off in investmentbanking, and investment banking storytelling ishuge, because thefirm, the bank is in the business of either pitching opportunities toexecutives, whether itbe,say, a merger in acquisition or a debtdependency, maybe an initial publicproperty, or when they get to a stage that they want to move a crop forward tosyndication, they've got to pass that through the investmentcommittee.
And so the story telling would happen on twofronts.
It's pitch ideas from a salesstandpoint, and then pitch ideas from an execution enabled thatsyndication.
And Credit Suisse was very buttoned up in the sense that they had a rubric and a style guide for putting information and detailtogether.
So I feel fortunate enough very early in my career to be a part of the situation where it was storytelling is the meat and potatoes of ourbusiness, and our success hinges on our ability to craft that narrative and make it compelling for themarketplace.
Now, thatsaid, I didn't always live my career in investmentbanking, and alsoshifted, as younoted, to Walmart as anexample.
And very quickly sawthrough, as Sukhion hadsaid, as a businesspartner, how important it is in that setting to ensure that that message and that narrative comesacross, even though I wasn't selling a product like I was an investmentbanking, it was still helping to communicate thefigures, thestoryline, and enabling the business to be empowered with that information and thatnarrative, so that they can go make better informed decisions with thebusiness.
So forme, it's first began inbanking, and then I saw its direct applicability and shift in corporate finance when I shifted out ofbanking.
I think everyone is seeing the poll resultshere.
I lovethis. And I think this audience really likesus.
Thisis, could you find a poll that had a better standard distribution than thisdoes?
We've got the tails with a very confident and unsure both at6% and at7% and6%respectfully, and then somewhat confident in themiddle.
I feel like we'vegot, I guess we're not exactly even with confident and notconfident, but I love when we do thesepolls.
It doesn't happen a lot where you get this distribution likethis.
So do these results surprise youguys?
Is this about what youexpected?
Is this kind of what you say when you talk toaudiences?
Well, I'm a bitsurprised,honestly, because when I ran polls in the audience of finance stories and financepresentations,well, the result is somewhat different from what we observehere.
I understand from the results here that people feel quite confident in how to craft an FBNstory, but when I ask finance leaders like FPNAmanagers, FPNAdirectors, CFOs and financedirectors, like83% of them are not satisfied by the level of presentations that are offered infinance.
So I think there's a gap between the perception and confidence in our ownskills.
Are you referencing the Dunning Kruger effecthere?
How aboutyou,Matt? I would tend to agree with what Soutian hassaid.
As I've grown in my career and I've taken on more senioropportunities, I find oftentimes with what material ispresented, that there's often a pillar of context that may bemissing.
And so just using my own empirical information and the local discussions that I have with mypeers, it seems to align with what Soutian hassaid.
So I think individuals may tend to bias towards their capabilities versus what the leaders are actually ingesting and taking in as they have those meetings and they do thosediscussions.
And so forme, I look at that and that Soutian commentsresonate.
Yeah, and this is a great transition and this is why we're heretoday.
So let's go ahead and divein.
I want to talk first about the importance of a compelling FPNAstory.
We've got so many charts and graphs and there's so many ways to slice and diceit.
But thinking about why it's important for us as FPNA professionals to understand the message and get thatacross.
SoSoutian, let's start withyou.
Share your thoughts on what theaudience, theaudience, to your earlierpoint, what we think we're doing as technicians and we see all the numbers and we see all ofit.
But what does the audience get out of a well-crafted FPNAstory?
Well, thegoal, you have to think about the goal ofrepresentation.
Generally, we consider the goal of representation asinformative.
We present the results and we just want to throw the information assuch.
But what the audience expects is what to do aboutit, what to do about the information theyget.
Andeventually, this is not an informationanymore.
This becomes aninsight.
And this is what we have to inject in thatinformation.
We have to inject not only what's why it is important forthem, the emotion and also what to do aboutit.
Because people don't want to have to think in yourplace.
You have to come with somehow additional information to go beyond the simpleinformation.
You have to go towards thefuture.
And that's why I think that the message is not theinformation.
And this is where I think that a lot of finance peoplestruggle.
It's to go beyond simply transferring the information you got from youranalysis.
It's adding value to it that will make the difference instorytelling.
I want to just chime in because something that SuperN said is really in my opinioncritical.
With myteams, I'll often tellthem, our role obviously is here to be a business partner first andforemost.
So we need to ensure that we're managing our partners to bestpatients.
And we get lots ofquestions.
They come in and they come in about many differenttopics.
And irrespective of whetherit's,say, anaccounting, what I'll call anaccounting, or a transactional based F P and A question such as how I'm tracking the numbers versus the budget or something that's more strategic innature.
Like should we run thispromotion?
Forme, it's thesame. What Sufiang hadsaid, that informative partis, in myopinion, the answer to thequestion, should we run the market much andgreat?
I can go do the analysis and I can comeback.
The insight is where you really start to help your business partner understand the value that you bring to thesituation.
And that's where the Sufiang'spoint, the narrative and the story starts to comeout.
Running thepromotion, you may think as a binarysituation, but as apartner, I could come forward andsay,oh, ran theanalysis.
This doesn't have a great return on adspend.
But if we were to tweakit, maybe we could co-promote this with anotheritem, that actually has a spend that seems to makesense.
And when thathappens, the Sufiang'spoint, now you're bringing value to thetable.
And that's when the leaders and the partners start to see you in a differentway.
And so I mentioned that because that's a framework that can beapplied, whether you're recording the numbers from a budgetarystandpoint, or whether you're reporting the numbers from an analysisstandpoint.
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So you guys might have thoughts onthis, and I want to be careful with how I saythis, because thinking about what the stakeholders get out of it when you graph this narrative is onething.
Butalso, as those of us who are responsible for putting this narrativetogether, I think treating an assignment or what you'rereporting, understanding going in that it's a narrative isimportant.
But you also don't want to go in with sort of a predetermined outcome that you want the numbers tosay.
Then you get into that sort oflies, damlies, and statistics thing that weknow.
We've probably all been asked to do in ourcareer, but we want to go in andactually, but we want to think about thenarrative.
And so I guess with this storytelling narrativestructure, we know what we're doing for theaudience.
But as the people who are putting ittogether, what are the FPNA pros themselves get when they develop these storytellingskills?
AndMatt, we'll start with you and thenSufion, get your thoughts aswell.
Yeah, so we'll probably touch on some of what I'll say later in thepresentation.
But forme, I think the intellectual curiosity that comes as a result of doing that diligence is immeasurable andinvaluable.
Part of ourrole, in myopinion, is to to be knowledge consumers of thebusiness.
We should understand the business in a way that many of our partners won't get the opportunity todo.
Finance, tome, is this new intersection in the business becausewhy?
We manage the entirety of theP&L.
Everything from sales all the way down toprofit.
That's going to include things likeheadcount,facilities, operationalcomponents,marketing, all of these different components that sit outside of someone else'sdiscipline.
Let's take marketing as aexample.
Where withinmarketing, they may be very narrowon, I'm going to focus on what our role and function is to help advertise thebusiness, createawareness, whatever the objectives maybe.
Whereas finance sits with that whole spectrum ofopportunity.
And so forme, just to record the informative piece going back to just piggyback on Sufion's modelhere, is a missed opportunity to understand that whole spectrum of the P&L or the end of theprocess.
So jumping in with an open mindset tosay, what else is there here that I can learn or what other piece of information may help support the argument or there may be information that defeats it aswell.
That process of working through the collection of that information and connecting with the various stakeholders helps to build a multitude ofskills, whether it's relationshipmanagement, that knowledgegaining, the analysis perspective because as you talk toothers, they maysay,oh, this is how I viewit.
I didn't think about thatbefore.
And that's a really interestingpoint.
All of those pieces are things that you're just tacking into that toolbox to help make you more well-rounded and turn you into that forward thinker because at the end of theday, our leaders in thebusiness, they wear many differenthats.
Let me think about a CFO who reports into theCFO, the Chief MarketingOfficer, the Chief TechnologyOfficer, the Chief OperationsOfficer, the Chief FinancialOfficer, the Chief AccountingOfficer.
He's got this vision of the whole broad spectrum of the business and he's thinking about it from all those differentangles, angles as opposed to a silopiece.
And I think where we sit and help crafting that narrative as you move through thatprocess, you're building that skill set of turning into a leader who can provide the insight for the entirety of thebusiness, not just the narrow field like transactional at thenight.
Greatpoints.Great. AndSuvian,yeah, I like what Matt said because my answer will be in twoparts.
The first one is that in the map is totally right because to evolve into the CFOrole, you need to build a variety of skills and not only technical but also partnering seeing the world in different angles and also having to participate to different kinds of meeting by understanding all the audienceneeds.
That's one part and I think that Matt explained that in a greatway.
The other part and to come back to the original question of what do finance profession get fromstorytelling, I will have a more selfishanswer.
It's thevisibility. When you learn how topresent, how to pass amessage, how to communicate with non-financepeople, you increase your visibility and that way you also increase your career opportunities because it's hard to say and maybe you will excuse my English but you're no one if you're not seen in acompany.
You remain a sort of back-of-face department if you stay behind yourspreadsheets.
When you want topromotion, you better be seen because it's not only based on your technical skills that your manager willsay, you will now have a role in which you will be in contact with otherleaders.
You will be in contact with a BUdirector, you will be in contact with an MC management committeeexecutive.
They will have to be sure that at least you know how to communicate with these kind of people and other people will interfere in thatdecision.
When you want to work above and when you want to bepromoted, you have to bevisible.
That's something I've learned and I didn't know in the past and I was frustrated because I thought that only my technical skills would make the work butno, you have to be seen and working on your storytellingskills, on your presentation skills and actually do it is a way for you to reach thatgoal.
Yeah, there's two things that came tomind.
My wife has this greatsaying, it's a closedmouth, don't getfed.
So to piggyback off of SuperN'scomments, numberone, don't be afraid to ask forhelp.
Like a good leader is someone who's going to help you in that developmentprocess.
So to SuperN'spoint, if you want to beseen, you need to let your manager know that you want to be seen and you can come up with a plan on how to dothat.
Maybe in the weekly staffmeeting, there's an opportunity for you to sharesomething.
You could put together a lunch and learn where you're presenting to a broader audience and maybe you put together across departmental lunch and learn where you invite marketing to come in and you have a chance to do that to gain some of thatexposure.
There's some really safe spaces to dothat, to fail and get your nerves out without feeling like you're jeopardizing your career because somebody views youas,oh, they don't know how to command a room in terms of presentation or to control the audience to move the narrative towards theobjective.
That's one thing that I wanted to piggyback offof.
Two is SuperN's100%right.
I've been through every company has a form of what they'll call annualcalibration.
These are the meetings where they bring everybody to the table and maybe there's a PowerPoint slide with everybody's picture and they're going through this process of how do we rank these employees thisyear?
Youknow, where on a scale of zero to100% where did theyfall?
And to SuperN'spoint, because I've been in all thesemeetings, where you end up in large part is a function of the number of people in that room to advocate for you and to speak on yourbehalf.
And like SuperNsaid, it's a double-edgedsword.
You can have someone you want as many people to speak positively about you aspossible.
You may get some detractors where people have fourexperiences, but that canout, be outweighed by a larger population if people have goodexperiences.
However, if no one in that room has anything to say aboutyou, the probability that you're going to get ranked higher to the100% isreally, reallylow.
So if career progression and movement is of interest toyou, it's something that you should jot down and note and take action on as how do I create these opportunities for me to be seen across the organization by a broad set of individuals so that I can ensure that some of that progression can come tothem.
So I just wanted to add some additional color to SuperN's comments because they'revery, very relevant in real and in theworkplace.
Yeah, and I would experience that both ofus, Ithink, this is why I advocate forthis.
It's so important and it's not just the evaluation you get is how people knowyou.
And if you see as aleader, you will get promoted assuch, but without that you have nochance.
Yeah, and I think it's even more important now becauselike, there's so many software tools out there and whether it's an advanced ERP system or data rails or something that people are using to automate things that used to take a lot of our time or obviously with AI and the automation capabilities that are coming out ofthat.
It's where do we provide value in the value of entering data and transforming data and making these models as that becomes more and more automated or easier to do or moredemocratized.
Where is our real value going tobe?
And there's a quote that I use all the time because I think it's so relevant to how we need to look at ourselves as FPNA professionals and as we move up in our careers and add greater value to anorganization.
So there's this quote by Clifford Stoll and it is data is notinformation.
Information is notknowledge.
Knowledge is not understanding and understanding is notwisdom.
So I think about that as kind of a pyramid of the value that you'readding.
So taking raw data and turning it ininformation, that's first kind of the ETL kind of just gather this cleanit, turn it intosomething.
Now it'sinformation. What am I going to do with this information and where we are in our FPNA career and where we are adding value is the higher we can be up on thispyramid.
So if we're taking this knowledge and turning it intounderstanding, that's something that we can do instorytelling.
And so as more and more of those lower level items getautomated, then it becomes very very important that we're able to provide that human level value on top and be that strategicinfluence.
And George Ed is asked to repeat thepyramid.
So I'llgo, CliffordStolls, the guy who saidthis, he's a fascinatingguy.
If you don'tknow, I'd look him up after theshow, but it's data is notinformation.
Information is notknowledge.
Knowledge is not understanding and understanding is not wisdom is thequote.
I want to keep moving on thistoo.
And I think and there was a question earlier about bringing other members of the board to come in andcontribute.
And I think that when we think about theaudience,C-Sweep, seniorleadership, other departments in thecompany, who the audience is of thesestories, I guess let'sgo, let's go Matt to you on this and then Sufiam will get your thoughts aswell.
But in yourexperience, how does a compelling FPNA narrative influence decision makers and drive action within an organization and maybe as part of that thinking about getting other people to contribute to your story and to get those other insightsmade?
If we can break it into twoquestions, if that's too much to grapple inone.
Butyes. So I know Sufiam's big on what I'm about tosay, but audienceskeep.
He said early on in thepresentation, what's the objective of themeeting?
Critical. Who the audienceis, equally ascritical.
How you present to your line manager versus maybe the VP of the finance organization versus the CFO of theorganization, theCBL, themember,maybe, those all have different levels of attack from a storytellingstandpoint.
The closer you may be to yourpeers, the more you're going to get into the details because you're considering methodologies and how should we analyzethis?
What are the mechanisms or the tools that we should go about doingthis?
It's a little more free formwhiteboarding, if youwill, in thatsense.
But as you start to ladderup, no different than what you talked about in the terms of appearingit, you then have to put yourself in the shoes of thataudience.
As much as the CFO may care about the technical details and the way that you actually built thatmodel, that's not as important tohim.
If you're a strong finance group that he views your organization thatway, he's going to trust yourmethodologies.
He's going to want to know what are the risks and the trade-offs and how does this impact the dependencies within thebusiness?
To yourpoint, it's this higher level of insight as opposed to the lower level ofinsight.
I always take a step back andsay, who is it that's consuming this going back to SuperN'spoint?
What do they need toknow?
There's the informationpiece, but how does that information piece build into the insight so that they feel like they can actionforward?
I tell people often that when you give anarrative, you should always state your position and what your recommendation maybe.
It may not always be what leadership alignsto, and that'sokay.
But if you've empowered your audience to have that information where they can develop a point if you wantit,again, whether it aligns or it's in a rebuttal toit, then in myopinion, that's the greatestsuccess.
That's the greatest value that you can bring to the organization is packaging that information in a way that a leader can make a decision tomention.
So I'll probably part two of your question and then let's see if Beyond Go for partone.
Yeah.Yeah. I wanted to add up on what she said because everything you said istrue.
And I think that there's something maybe a tip that I would like to give to everyone is that in apresentation, in ameeting, it's a businessmeeting.
It's not it's not a TEDtalk.
You're not there to present one tomany.
It's ameeting. And in thatsense, you have to be a sort of thermostat and feel the moment you have the heart of the presenter and feel the moment you have the heart of thefacilitator.
And the facilitator inskills, is not exactly the same as the storytellerskills.
This is why you have to be able to switch the one and the other to make the othersparticipate.
And this is maybe something that I will defer withMatt.
When you come as a financeprofessional, you have a different set ofaudience.
Some are familiar withfinance, some arenot.
Some like financedepartments, somedon't.
And the safest way for you is to come withoptions.
Not state clearly what you want things tohappen, but come with a set ofoptions, a sort of Chinese menu in which you are not only have your recommendations with anS.
And the impact you think that they will have on thebudget, on theforecast, or on the futurestrategy.
And in thatmoment, you become the facilitator in which you come with the option youdiscuss, you ask theopinion.
And that way it will be an exchange because this is basically what youwant.
If people just are in the meeting and do notparticipate, there's a part of the goal that you didn'treach.
But if you are in that facilitationmode, and this is a different set ofskills, but it's somehow superimportant,well, you are able to animate the debate and you will not be theactor, but you will be the one in enhancing the acting of the audience in theroom.
Yeah, that's a really goodpoint.
From mystandpoint, that's the part of the trade offpiece.
I totallyagree. But if you come layering in with just your narrow point ofview, and I found this in my owncareer, veryquickly, the meeting may endearly, because oftentimes to yourpoint,Superion, it'slike,well, what did marketing think aboutthat?
That's very different than we went and talked to marketing and they instructed us that their strategy there objective isthis.
This is why we think an action as of such would be beneficial to theorganization.
Imean, those are two just even that simpleexample, two very different approaches in how you address theaudience.
Because Superion's100%correct.
The higherleaders, they sit with moreinformation.
Their job has many more different meetings that they're a part of on different aspects of thebusiness.
And they're going to come with their own perspective and their ownmindset.
But to hear and seeyou,oh, you think about that in ScottMartin, that's an interestingidea.
But what you don't know is we've made a decision to do this and that's why that might notwork.
But we could take it and pivot in this direction or can you go back and run this analysis onit?
Because that would be an interesting add-on that we might need to consider as anorganization.
So100%yeah, totally aligned with that commentary that'sthere.
Only because I saw it on the side where some of it kind ofsaid, how do you help an organization who's not necessarily aligned tofinance, get on board withfinance?
Some of that takestime.
If you're in an organization where finance is not a finance forwardorganization, meaning does finance kindof, are they viewed as the right hand to the CFO or to the CFO obviously theyare, but to theCEO.
Sometimes that relationship takes longer tobuild.
But if you can come to the table and understand thatgroup, where is theirposition?
Where are they comingfrom?
You learn theirperspective, theirculture, so tospeak.
Then over time you can start to think throughwhat, what is it that I can say or what is the information that they can help position my argument to be compelling tothem?
And those are ways that you can start to bridge those gaps and to build that continuity acrossdepartments.
And then as you bring other ideasforward, they'll view you get less as the no no sayer because often finance gets labeled as the nosayer.
And more as the collaborator who helps bring ideasforward, some will be yes and some will beno.
Yeah, those are great points because I think about what wedo.
And there's a big part of our job that is creating ourdashboards.
We have our standardreports.
We're tracking and reporting on theKPIs.
And these are allstandard.
And kind of once we set them up and we monitor them and we make sure that everybody's kind of singing from the same sheet of music as we go through and look at our KPIs and ourreporting, that becomesstandard.
But then thinking about when you a lot of times as an FPNAprofessional, you're presenting up your you may be the lowest ranking person in theroom.
If you're with department heads and with C suite executives and you're going in and so if you're on great point about you're not there to do a TEDtalk.
And this is veryhard. And you think about those of us who went into finance andaccounting, we normally don't associate public speaking and sort of the litigating and rhetoric withthat.
But being able and going back to career pathing to but being able to go into a meeting where you areprepared, you know theinformation, you know the narrative and you are the subject matter expert that's coming in to talk about the numbers of the business and be able to have this interactive back andforth.
Imean, if you're able to successfully dothat, thatsuggests, youknow, that's like the recipe forpromotion.
As you can come in and it's not just he's in the background building these greatmodels, it's able to communicate them and also bring clarity to some items but also give the back andforth.
So I think that's a great thing to think about as we as FPNApros, we're not just doing thedashboards.
We're notjust, youknow, reactively providing reports where are we adding that value to thecompany?
Yeah, because those dashboards to that end is a lot of times lower entry level waterwaterfunctions.
It's to create the dashboards to write the commentary for the varianceexplanations.
But you're in a position where you're learning the details at the lowest level and those details can act as a filter for you to understand where to inspect the businessfurther.
And oftentimes in thatinspection, you're in a position to uncover something that's valuable to theorganization.
Youknow, something verysimple.
Customer attrition isup.
Or maybe you start to see the trendchange.
Well, why is itchanging?
Let me dig intoit.Oh, there's a certain business unit that has a loss in customers that's greater thananother.
Why might thatbe? And it's just to say that you can use that to your advantage to go find that insight and then bubble it up and resurface it to the organization well ahead of when it may surface or build to a point that it's a breaking point and then everybodyrealizes,wait, customer attrition isup.
Like when did we first knowthat?
And they're trying to back into when that was and they wanted to man theanswers,well, why did you surface thissooner?
You can be empowered to do that andsay, I think that there's something here that'smeaningful.
Let's tease itout. Work with your leadershipteam.
I was a great point to develop that further or let's keep an eye onit.
I'll let my VP know about it and we'll just kind of test it as time goes on to see if it's a real issue ornot.
Yeah, I can't believe how fast time is goinghere.
I feel like we've got a million things left to talkabout.
I do want to throw another pollup.
This next poll question is what aspect of FPNA storytelling do you find mostchallenging?
Structuring thenarrative, presenting data andinsights, engaging stakeholderseffectively, tailoring the story to the different audiences and getting the message out of thedata, finding the signal from the noise orother.
So thisis, I'll be interested to seehere.
Do youguys,Sioux-Fion, do you have any guesses on what we might be sayinghere?
Super curious about this because in all my trainings about storytelling and the conferences I'vehad, I asked the questions and there are always five main points that come out but I won't saythem.
I will wait for people to answer and I will see theyalign.
But generally I know the one that's the most painful for financepeople.
Matt, we'll give them about 30 more seconds to answerhere.
What do you think we're going tosay?
I'm biased towards the firstone.
The structuring of thenarrative.
So our distribution onthis, we've got the highest being engaging stakeholders effectively and followedby, it looks like structuring the narrative and then getting the message out of thedata.
Which tome, that's the most fun part is taking through all that and trying to find where tosay, I'm just telling the story to differentaudiences.
I skippedthat. So what do you guys thinkhere?
It's aligned with the general knowledge I have on thisquestion.
The five points that were mentioned here are the five months that I generally get from the audiences I talkedto.
Maybe not in that order because generally where people struggle the most andagain, it's maybe on the other side of the spectrum because I ask the leader to tell me what they find is lacking the most in the presentations theyget.
And generally it's more about themessage.
When they go out of themeeting, they don't know what they have toremember.
They don't know what they have to actupon.
They don't know what was important toremember.
And so this is the number one issue that therewas.
But ofcourse, there were five main orders like the ones that are mentioned and the structure of the narrative is also key in those five main issues that weredetected.
Allright.Well, in the time that we are in the time that we haveleft, I really want to get into some kind of actionable things that the crowd can take away fromthis.
SoSufjan, if you'll gofirst, walk us through the key elements of a winning FPNA story and that story that the storytelling mindset that youadvocate.
Well, it goes along with the lack of main message of thepresentation.
And in thatsense, if I have one advice to give to the finance professionals that are with us today is to use the threewhat?
When you start before even touching your slidesbefore, before even understanding what how you will interact with theaudience, think of the three what of yourpresentation.
The what is simplyinformative, what what happened and why ithappens.
So there you already have to speak about the rootcauses.
And the second is the sowhat?
The so what is the emotional part of your yourpresentation?
It's where you understand youraudience.
It's where you understand why information that you will tell them is important and can become aninsight.
And then you come with the nowwhat?
The nextsteps. And this is the part in which you speak of yourrecommendations, of youroptions.
You become thefacilitator.
Only with these threewhat?
You have an insight that deserves the point of being told to theaudience.
And thanks to this three what you will limit the number of information you will tell because you will sometimes you will think an information isimportant, but you will not find why it is important to the people in front ofyou.
You will find an information that'simportant, but somehow you there's nothing to do aboutit.
Or we cannot correct anything aboutthis.
And so thanks to this selectionprocess, you will decrease the number of points you will mention up to two or three that people will remember from thispresentation.
So my big advice for a winning FPN story is to first think about themessage.
The rest willcome. But withoutthat, don't think about yourslides.
Don't think about the body language you would use or the public speaking skills you need todevelop.
Don't think about the narrative itself because without message those don'texist.
Yeah, that'sgreat. And I love the way that you frame that because I'veheard, youknow, thinking about who we are inFPNA, youknow, some people say think of yourself as an investigativejournalist.
Some people say ask why threetimes.
Butyours, I like it becausewhat?
Here's theissue. Sowhat?
What does itmean? What's theimpact?
Nowwhat? That's the prescriptivepart.
Now what do we do aboutit?
So I think that's a very clearframework.
So that'sgreat.Matthew, what are yourthoughts?
Yeah, totally aligned onthat.
Just to give some other thoughts forinspiration.
Another common framework that's used issituation,complication,resolution.
Also follows that that form of thewhat, the so what and the nowwhat.
Sometimes I also find it helpful to just go through the timeline where have webeen, where are wenow, where are wegoing?
Because that can help as you think aboutit.
And then just to echo what Sufion hadsaid, why is thisimportant?
What do we need to do aboutit?
Because at the end of theday, just presenting a piece of information for information'ssake, though it may bevaluable, it's less helpful than if you can state what the insight may be out of that or how it could be used with thebusiness.
Great. We be grossprofit.
Okay. There's this idea we've been thinking about for innovating with investment withmarketing.
Maybe we should take some of that excess and try it because we have it in thebudget.
So it's just to say that those are two very different ways to position the same piece ofinformation.
Forme, oftentimes that's what I'lldo.
And I totally agree withSufion.
If you don't step out of the trees to see the forestfirst, you will walk through theforest.
And then when you stepout, realize you're very far away from the destination that you originally wanted toachieve.
And so it's alwaysbest, and in myopinion, best practice to begin by stepping back and getting a broader viewpoint as opposed to stayingnarrow.
Youknow, I think of what we do kind of every day being in the models and working on our dashboards and explaining the variances andeverything.
But I really like thinking about the part because I was I was a CFO for solong.
I waswell, it was a two waystreet.
One, I had to be the recipient and taken all thisinformation.
But then I was the one that had to present it to theCEO, to theboard, to the investors and also that sort of presentation layer of this that's not just here's thereport.
It's here's the additionalvalue.
I do think one thing that I'dlike, especially if there's if there's people are maybe more junior in their FPNAcareer, I'd like them to get a little bit more about the the presentation part ofthis.
And I know we only have about 10 minutesleft.
ButMatt, I wonderif, youknow, I want to talk about the delivery ofstorytelling, not the writtenword, but when you were actually addressing thatgroup.
Could you share some tips on like how to how to most effectively deliver that FPNAstory.
And I'm thinking now about just like bodylanguage,engagement.
And I know we've we've touched on some of this before with the with the back andforth.
But as you're presenting to real people ina,well, I don't know how often it's in a real roomnow.
Maybe I'd zoom these days more than more more often thannot.
But so some of it to depends on the organization and the format in which they like to run thosemeetings.
And I bring that up because for the vast majority of mycareer, things werethere.
The narrative was delivered in the PowerPointformat.
Since I've been atChui, Chui is a very document driven organization where they want something writtenup.
You take the first couple minutes of the meeting to read the writtendocument.
And then you kick off into the discussion thathappens.
So just a just a side point that obviously you want to follow the style and the kind of accepted mechanism that your organization isdoing.
You can obviously work within thosecontexts, meaning get with your leaders and understand how that information should be packaged together and presented so that you're ensuring that the format fits what the organization expects toreceive.
So putting that aside now that we're all on the sameplane.
A lot of it for me is ensuring that you're speaking to the individuals who need theinformation.
So if I'm walking into ameeting, we're having a discussion about marketingpromotions.
Oftentimes I like to ask a question to the head ofmarketing.
We've done thisanalysis.
We're noticing these insights out of the information and thedata.
What do you think aboutthat?
To start tosolicit. Because I want them to give me thatinformation, understand theirposition, where are they comingfrom.
Because a couple of situations mayhappen.
Maybe they come in because they'redefensive.
They don't like what it is that you have tosay, and they want to protect their area or theirdepartment.
Or they need to have some time to think about it and digest it and consider whether they want to make a change in thedirection.
So oftentimes I want to give them an opportunity to explain to me what their position is and how they're thinking about thatinformation.
So then I can take the direction from there to whether it's to resolve a concern or add extra information that may help from the arguments standpoint or to help driveaction, whether I need to go find another piece of information or another stakeholder who's important to thatprocess.
So forme, I think it's structured ensuring that your structure is there so that you're meeting the mechanism so that you're not going to get blindsided by somebodysaying, you didn't provide the document like we're done with themeeting.
And then ensuring that you're soliciting the audience to help them for their perspective and their understanding so that you know how to address that and facilitate as Sufion said earlier to ensure that there's an appropriateoutcome.
It'sgreat. AndSufion, I really that really resonated with me that you said you're not giving a TEDTalk.
This is anengagement. And I just I'm picturing the difference when you're TEDTalk, you've got your 18-minute timer and you're basically reciting a monologue versus actual discourse andconversation.
So I'm wondering in thatframework, how do you recommend handling questions during or after thepresentation, youknow, sort of how you have that engagement when you know you have yourstory, you want to getacross, but you also need tobe, youknow, providing this this two-waycommunication.
And I guess adjunct to thatis, youknow, I'm thinking aboutagain, more junior people who aren't used to doing this kind ofthing.
And what role confidence plays in allthat?
Yeah,well, first it's it's important to to remain open for questions during the whole presentation because it's not that you are going to say leave your questions for the end of the meeting and there will be aQ&A.
It works for a bigpresentation, but if you are in an ex-com meeting or in a boardmeeting, it will notwork.
Or if youtry, I would like to see the reaction and see how itworks.
Butno, you have to be open to answer toquestions.
And ofcourse, it's a question of practice because when you have your structure of the narrative and I insist in speaking ofstructure, you have to have your bullet points in yourhead.
You will find in the way you respond to questions a way to transition to the nextpoint.
And that's a question of practicing because you know yourtopic, you know yourstructure.
And in the questions that thereare, sometimes it'shard, but it's always possible to make sure there's a link in your answer to go to the next point because you don't want to stay blocked on the question during like 30 or50% of themeeting.
Sometimes it'shard. But in thosecases, you have to use some techniques in order to diffuse thebone, let'ssay.
Youknow, there's a stinky bone in themeeting.
There's a question that would takehours.
Well, in thosecases, you can use the boomerangtechnique.
And that's a way for you to either throw the question back to the Asker by asking the opinion or throw back in thefuture.
Saying, ofcourse, it will require some moretime.
It will require some moreanalysis.
Can we do that outside of this meetingoffline?
And that way I will be able to answer you with more details and satisfy yourneeds.
Ofcourse, don't do that with every single question you get during the meeting because otherwise you lose yourcredibility.
You can use like one or two times in a meeting because you really feel that answering that question will not add a value to yourpoint, to yourstory.
And that it will take too much time toanswer.
In thosecases, it's a sort of facilitation skill that you have toget.
It's to be able to answer difficult questions or react difficultsituations.
And the boring technique is one ofthem.
And I think just to add on tothat, what Sukhya hadsaid, because this is something that I've watched and observed been a part of during meetings is oftentimes you want to be perceived as the person who has all theanswers.
And sometimes when those questionscome, you don't have theanswer.
But more often thannot, you know when someone is fumbling throughit, just to try to give a response as a way to answer thequestion.
Instead ofstating, don't have thatanswer.
Or I know I can get to that answer to Sukhya'spoint.
It's going to take me sometime.
Or I'm not sure and I need somehelp.
Is there someone within the organization we can dothat?
And forme, I've found those who are just forward withthat.
It helps to retain thatcredibility.
Instead of often they give an answer that may be a fluffanswer.
And then it comes with a follow-upquestion.
It's like you're digging the hole evendeeper.
Because then it'slike, I just somehow made it through that firstone.
And there's no way I'm making it through the secondone.
And they'll come a point in that line of reasoning and questions where it will become apparent that you don't have theanswer.
And I feel it's always best to just approach it upfront.
And maybe you head it off by saying we're going to take a follow-up and after action on this as opposed to lengthening that meeting and potentially embarrassing yourself in front of the audience because you don't have theanswer.
It'sokay. You're not going to have all the answers all thetime.
Yeah. My pro tip wouldbe, and I don't know how many boards I've talked to in mycareer.
But there's always the one guy and I don't have any paper inhere.
There's always the one guy in the board meeting who the whole time you'retalking, youknow, he's just staring at the spreadsheet orwhatever.
And he's not even making eyecontact.
And youknow, they're going to be the one that asks the tough question just out of the blue andnowhere.
So my approach to that always was whatever I'm presenting to the audience and I'm thinking of boards in particularhere, that's going to be onelevel.
I'm going to be prepared for two levels of questions below that becausethere's, youknow, you just need to like don't show all your cards right out of the gates because then you don't have anything else to answer the questionto.
So a way to sort of backstop itis,okay, if I'm giving them cost of goodssold, went up thismonth, youknow, and this is why I think itis, then I need to know who the vendor is that youknow,whatever, whatever other level of questions there just being ready forthat.
But then really quick tothat, going back earlier on early in the Femank career and how can you build the skillsets?
I feel like as you deliberately take those opportunities to build relationships across differentstakeholders, you're learning the types of questions that they'reasking.
And that gives you gunpowder in the scenario that you justdescribed.
Oh, I know marketing is going to show up in thismeeting.
What are the things I need to be prepared for that they mightask?
And then you can put yourself on theoffense, so tospeak, as opposed to potentially being on thedefense.
They may never ask thequestion, but then you know that you're prepared forthat.
And we have a bunch of questions we didn't getto.
We are right up againsttime.
I think if you guys are open toit, I'd loveto, if you guys could sharehow, and I think we're going to get it herewith,yeah, connecting onLinkedIn, how people can get in touch with you for follow-upquestions.
And that's open for me aswell.
There's a few things we didn't get totoday.
But Ijust, I want to say thisis, we could talk about this allday.
You guys have been great to ouraudience.
Thank you for your active participation andengagement.
And we hope this session's inspired you to embrace the power of storytelling in your FPNAroles.
And I hope you got some tools fromit.
And youknow, mastering FPNAstorytelling, it's ajourney.
We're all constantly learning and finding new ways to doit.
So keeplearning,practicing, and refining yourskills.
