Emotional Intelligence in Finance. The art of Communication

The Consultant Conundrum: Breaking Stereotypes

How does your team react when a consultant walks in? Fear, trepidation? Discover the common pitfalls of consulting and why a more compassionate approach matters.

The Consultant Conundrum: Breaking Stereotypes

How does your team react to a consultant coming in? Fear? Trepidation?

I get it. Because over the years, I’ve seen a lot of consultants come through the door and throw people under the bus. Saying teams aren’t performing, not hitting targets, going over budget, and generally causing everyone’s morale to nosedive.

I never want to be that guy. The outside guy who is seen as the CFO’s enforcer. The bad guy who comes in trying to find errors in all your work, then taking all your best ideas and turning them into a fancy PowerPoint slide as if they were his own. I can honestly say that I’m not that guy.

And this is one of the reasons I set up Numbero. So you didn’t have to use that guy any more!

The Pitfall of Numbers-Driven Leadership

I’ve also worked with my fair share of CFOs who also fell into this trap, trying to please the CEO, but pissing everyone else off in the process.

And it always ends the same way: with people leaving. Either the finance team who can’t do their job because of the micro management from above, or CFO because he didn’t get the results he so badly wanted.

These ‘leaders’ all lacked a key thing: emotional intelligence. They got so caught up with the numbers that they never saw the bigger picture.  Their job was to hit targets TODAY, and worry about the consequences later.

The constant drive to hit targets at all costs, and the hero worship of ‘hard work’ was so demoralising for teams, and stifled innovation.

To me, that’s not a leader. That’s a drill sergeant. Someone with little empathy or understanding of how to grow a business and develop a team. Stifling progress, and losing good people along the way.

Case in Point: Choosing the Right Growth Strategy

Instead, a good leader should be able to communicate with everyone and think BIG.

I’ll give you an example.

Let’s say I’m working with a CEO and our aim is to add £5m to the turnover, and increase the profit margin by 4%.

I have two options:

1. Look to make cuts to lower overheads, whilst increasing demand on sales to get more business in
2. Understand how each team works and make decisions to empower the teams to be accountable for the part they will play

I will always go for option 2.

The Long-Term Value of Empowering Teams

Why? Because as well as growth, I’m also looking at the long term stability. If I go in and make everyone life harder, will we grow? Of course not. Now, that’s not to say that some cuts wouldn’t be a good decision, especially if that resource was better spent elsewhere.

Increase in turnover comes from either more customers, increased spending by existing customers, or increased pricing.

Listening to Understand: Why Communication Matters

Let’s say you’re looking at increased pricing as a quick win to boost profits – a 10% increase across the board. If you do this without talking to the sales team, do you know what impact it will have?

Granted, the mantra is to never sell on price, but if you’re in manufacturing for example, a change in price could be catastrophic.

Before we made that decision, I’d be talking to the sales team and the account managers and understand what pressures they have, what the market is doing, what budgets they are working to and get their feedback- after all they are the ones talking to clients every day.  

I need to go in with an open mind and understand what’s going on in their world.  I need to listen!  But it’s also my job to respectfully challenge any perceived constraints they have – after all if we continue to do things the same way we’ve always done them, we will never grow.

The same goes for every single team in the company.

Without the emotional intelligence to build relationships, to have empathy, to put yourself in their shoes, how can you know the impact off your decisions? You can’t.

If the sales team are struggling to hit targets at the moment because a new competitor has entered the arena who is 10% cheaper than you with a similar product, what would a price increase do to them? Would they be able to sell? What would it do to the existing customers?

Conclusion: Success Through Connection

This is why a CFO who is working towards a big goal and the long term security of the business needs to be able to communicate with everyone, no matter what level.

Because ultimately, they will only succeed if everyone is on board and feels heard.