课程: Presenting Financial Information

Effective communication in finance

课程: Presenting Financial Information

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Effective communication in finance

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- Many people think that effective communications are rooted in effective communication. Well, that's true, but it goes so much deeper because effective communication in business is all about trust, trust in data, trust in ideas, trust in recommendations, and perhaps most important of all, trust in people. If we fail in building trust, we fail in effective communication. Now, imagine for a moment that you go to a very nice restaurant in a major city. This restaurant has an amazing reputation for serving wonderful food. The chef has won numerous awards, and you trust her. You walk into the restaurant excited for this culinary experience. You're greeted by a smiling and well-dressed host, who takes you to a clean table with a perfectly pressed white tablecloth. A waiter comes by and shares with you that you are in for the treat of a lifetime. He promises to take your palate on a six-course adventure. You are thrilled about what's to come. The first course is of simple scallops and bisque, mixed greens and sauteed vegetables. They arrive perfectly cooked, prepared, presented, and full of flavor. Your enthusiasm for the main entree is bursting with anticipation. But when the entree arrives, the grilled meat comes delivered in a brown paper bag, and it's dripping with grease. You're not even given a fork or a knife, and the waiter, he doesn't appear for five minutes, so that by the time he does return, your food is ice cold. What a letdown, right? All of the work that the chef had done, the trust you put in this experience, and the expectations you had? Poof, gone in an instance. So what does this analogy have to do with financial presentations? Warren Buffett famously said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it." The restaurant chef built a reputation for excellence. You have built a reputation for excellence. That takes time, effort, and perseverance. Your reputation and credibility and the trust that people put into you, they are like gold, and you have to protect it. But imagine that you spend two months on an analysis that you're proud of and confident in, but rather than wrapping a bow on your work, you sloppily copy and paste hundreds of numbers and images and put them straight into a PowerPoint. Then you start reading through the slides. Sound farfetched? It's not. It happens every day in companies all over the world. It's true that financial professionals are responsible for getting the numbers right. So this means that finance professionals may spend the bulk of their time on the analysis, on forecasting, modeling, planning, and technical work. But too often, communicating the output is an afterthought, and this is a huge mistake and will be the focus of much of our course. Equal attention must be given to the technical work and to the communication of findings. It's about making the delivery impactful and upholding expectations, not like serving up a greasy brown paper bag.

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