Business Partnering Is About People…

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A few months ago, we spoke to a large manufacturing company that had recently launched a big transformation program which was supposed to simplify how the company operated and interacted with its customers. However, the business case only consisted of high-level assumptions, so Finance was asked to come in and validate the business case. The validation involved processing tons of data, building financial models, and making an estimation of the total monetary impact of the project. Everything was put into a memo and shared with the project team. Finance never heard from them again… 

Maybe they just did not like the number as it was quite a bit lower than the business case. Maybe they did not understand the work that Finance had done. The point is there was nothing wrong with the work Finance had done from a technical perspective. Finance just did not manage to influence the project team to act on the fact that the business case was not as solid as it seemed. The learning from the story is that it is no longer enough for Finance to excel at a technical level. We must gain buy-in and acceptance for our messages. 

Put black and white we can no longer survive only by being good with numbers. We must become good with people too and start building relationships from which everybody wins. Through these, we can influence decisions by communicating our messages in a clear and concise way. In short, we need people skills, and here are the three main ones which we have made a part of our capability model. 

What is your people-competence level? 

Most people did not choose a career in Finance because they like interacting with people and influencing their decisions. Most likely we did so because we like to work with numbers. Now that this is no longer what makes us successful, we must start to develop our people skills. Here is a small guide on how to start building these skills based on the four competence levels of foundational, intermediate, advanced, and expert. 

This is a basic description of each of the four competency levels for each skill. We have a full version and you are welcome to reach out to discuss how to implement this in your company. 

How can you develop your people skills? 

As we have described before we are proponents of the 70/20/10 strategy which also applies to people skills. However, here trying it out in real life is even more important because you can only really learn it by interacting with other people. Here are some suggestions for further developing your people skills.

These are only a few suggestions but there are many more ways to advance your competence level in these skills. Now you know more about what skills are critical to succeeding with business partnering and can start to perform a gap analysis. Once you have identified your main gaps you can formulate a training plan to close them. 

How are you developing your partnering skills and what do you find particularly difficult in this development? We know that these are not the most natural skills for finance professionals to develop hence sharing our stories can enable all of us to become better at people skills. Lastly, please share one tip you would recommend to others to practice their people skills.

Business Partnering Institute can help you succeed with business partnering and get closer to your business stakeholders and their decision-making. You can reach us at [email protected] or get directly in touch with Anders on +45 2926 6410 and start your journey today!

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This was the fourth article in the series about the Business Partnering Capability Model. You can read previous articles in the series below.

The Business Partnering Capability Model

Analytical Skills Are The Key To Generating Insights

Here Is What Business Partners Need To Know About Their Business

If you want to become a better business partner you should consider taking our online course "Business Partnering Explained - Value Creation Unlocked" to get a better handle on the role. It's accredited for 5.5 CPD hours.

You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum which is part of the Business Partnering Institute's online community where we will continue to discuss this topic and you can click here to follow me on Twitter.

Should We Keep Talking About Business Partnering? (part of a 17-article series where we deep-dive on the WHY, WHAT and HOW of business partnering by putting it on a formula)

Your Journey To Successful Business Partnering Explained

How To Create Value Through Business Partnering

Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)

From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)

Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)

How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)

The Future Of FP&A: Two Ways To Take The Reins

What Is The Accounting Profession Paradox?

What Defines A Finance Master?

The New Career Path For Finance Professionals

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance

How To Become A Finance Business Partner

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

Finance Business Partner Is A Bullshit Job

How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder, COO (Chief Operating Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 8,500 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger on LinkedIn with 48.000+ followers.