So You Want to Business Partner? Essential Qualities of a Successful Business Partner

Business partnering seems to be the buzzword these days within the finance and accounting circle. I believe this is nothing new. Business partnering has been, is and always will be at the forefront of the finance and accounting profession. So what has changed for business partnering to gain such prominence?

Business partnering has become more relevant at a time when the traditional business landscape is changing at a phenomenal rate requiring a business to be nimbler and agile to respond to complexities introduced by the technologically driven accelerated pace of globalisation, innovation, competitive pressure, disruptive technologies, social media and other socio-economic changes.

Unlike the traditional finance and accounting role, newer challenges demand accountants to play a more strategic role, and to influence and drive high-quality operational and strategic decisions in a fast-changing business environment. Needless to say, this presents significant opportunities for those who are daring and willing to break the traditional accounting mould to get more involved in the business by going over and beyond the traditional transactional and reporting focus.

I always grappled with the question what makes someone a successful business partner. There are many research projects and surveys done on the subject, and there are plenty of articles and textbooks setting out ‘steps’ to becoming a good business partner. They were good materials to read. However, I still felt something missing.

Hence, I embarked on an odyssey by reflecting back on my career to see what made someone a stand out a business partner. I have worked with many technically brilliant analysts but only a handful whom I could regard as genuine business partners. They had a set of universal qualities that set them apart from the rest, and this is what I found;

Curiosity

True business partners are very curious. They are ‘hungry’ and driven with an abundance of energy. Their thirst to learn more and more about a topic or a subject is truly admirable, which extends beyond the realms of finance and accounting. I will not be wrong in saying that their curiosity is their Continuous Professional Development (CPD) on the job.

They are creative, and it is not surprising creativity follows curiosity. When you are curious, you seek out opportunities to blend your technical knowledge and skills masterfully to what you learn and produce outstanding outcomes that exceed expectations.

Interestingly curiosity is not a learned skill that a University Degree or a professional qualification can bestow upon anyone. As humans, curiosity is natural and innate in us. This is the foundation of our growth and evolution. However, as we acquire learned knowledge and skills through formal education and experience, we tend to lose that curiosity somehow as the former replaces the latter.

I believe in an era when businesses are seeking so-called ‘X’ number of years of industry experience from the candidates at the expense of versatility, it is your curiosity that transcends every ‘man-made’ pigeonholes, silos and boundaries, and ensures transferability of your technical skills from one industry to another with ease. Progressive thinking employers know this.

Interesting part when they gather information they resist the temptation to filter that information with a functional (i.e. finance) specific lens. Instead, they absorb that information holistically from a business angle. Call it wisdom or intelligence, they have an enormous capacity to absorb information. It is no wonder why they have a good understanding and appreciation of their customers, business environment, macro political and economic factors impacting the business, business strategies, systems, and processes. They are ‘walking knowledge reservoirs’!

So how do you know someone is curious, which takes us to the next point.

Conversation

It is not difficult to pick someone’s curiousness from the conversations they have. Conversations are non-technical in nature involving lines of inquiries in the form of questions or validating their understanding with the other party. These conversations form the bedrock of building a healthy working relationship as they genuinely demonstrate an interest in others and what they do.

Genuine business partners converse in a language that their stakeholders understand – not words used in finance and accounting ivory towers. These conversations can be provocative and challenge the status quo where they tend to connect disparate pieces of information in a very creative and insightful way leading to ‘light-bulb’ moments for managers from the non-financial background.

These conversations help functional managers to understand their performance better as they see the connection between the operational performances to the financial outcomes. Effective business partners have the ability to build an atmosphere of accountability and ownership in a collegial manner.

How do they do it takes us to the following quality.

Collaboration 

A business partner’s conversation demonstrates their collaborative approach. They go over and beyond the role requirements by taking the initiative to work with the managers to help them understand the numbers better to gain insights and also support the managers with initiatives to rectify problems and enable performance improvements. They take the numbers to the forefront of a business where it matters.

Whether it is a supplier negotiation for better terms, supporting a Productivity Improvement Program on the factory floor or understanding customer-market dynamics, business partners remove their functional finance hat assume a versatile role that is more relevant to the circumstance.

People are interested to know how their actions translate into results, most often in terms financial outcomes. This is where an effective finance business partner can use technical skills such as scenario modelling to blend masterfully with his or her collaborative approach to greater effect.

Collaboration transcends cooperation. When you collaborate, you take an interest in the overall outcome, not just what you did or produced, and the greater good of an organisation. When business partners collaborate with functional or process managers, they embed themselves in the process and support their stakeholders to take ownership and accountability for outcomes without removing responsibility.

For you to collaborate effectively, you need the following quality.

Confidence

An underlying key quality of a finance business partner is that they exude confidence without brashness. A confident finance business partner demonstrates that they are willing to take on new challenges that stretch them beyond their comfort zones consistently. They have a calm confidence that exemplifies their approach of ‘say yes and figure out the how later.' They take risks and persevere through challenges.

They trust their skills, knowledge and experience, and more importantly their ability to apply them to an opportunity to learn something new and continually improve. Their confidence also stems from the fact that they have a holistic view of the business and its environment, and an understanding of interrelationships amongst various variables.

I believe curiosity and confidence go hand-in-hand. Curiosity is a catalyst to learn and grow, which enables you to expand your knowledge, skills and experience. This naturally improves your confidence as it positions you as an expert in your field. When you have an expert positioning, you have credibility, and it becomes easier for you to engage with your stakeholder. Without credibility, you cannot win an audience with your stakeholders.

These days recruitment briefs include grit, resilience or mental toughness on the job. It is your confidence with humility what threads through your behaviours that demonstrate your courage. This shows that you have self-belief, patience and tenacity to remain composed under pressure and uncertainty.

Self-awareness

The self-awareness sits at the core of connecting above qualities. Capable business partners are self-aware, and they effectively engage with people in a workplace irrespective of positional title, power or authority. They are approachable and easy to connect.

Their engagement to the work goes well beyond at superficial level. They have emotional commitment and connection to what they do, and importantly passion. There exists a seamless connection between their jobs and rest of their lives as they view the work as a contributory factor towards their personal development as much as professional. They operate from a place of authenticity where, in simple terms, actions match the words.

My experience with genuine business partners is that they are transparent in their approach with an acute understanding of interconnection amongst various elements, and the connection between decisions and consequences.  

They work from a place of self-assuredness and personal power rather than fear, and they work to succeed not to avoid failure. They hold themselves accountable to highest standards they set for themselves. They own up and take responsibility for the outcomes. They are dependable and consistent in their delivery. I believe it is their self-awareness that helps to focus on task-on-hand while filtering out the ‘noise’.

Some afterthoughts

It is no wonder why businesses are after finance partners who could make a difference. In this day and age, you need to consider your hard earned degrees, professional qualifications, advanced skills training and knowledge as threshold requirements for your career and does not necessarily provide the edge. This is your passport for entry or tools of the trade. This passport may help you to gain entry, but your real edge to thrive lies in your soft skills.

Genuine business partners epitomise the culture and structure of a progressive business organisation and an entrepreneurial approach that is somewhat missing within the accounting and finance profession. Successful business partners with the qualities I have noted above tend to build a trusting work culture through their authenticity and simplicity in their approach.

Interestingly many think that the confine of business partnering is limited to financial analysis and planning or commercial finance areas. This is a fallacy and further from the truth. Business partnering approach must permeate every level and role in a finance team. This is all about building relationships and putting the customer at the centre of everything we do.

I have seen that outstanding business partners create their opportunities to match their passion, most often outside finance and accounting. Most of those individuals whom I reflected upon as case studies for this article are no longer in finance and accounting career they chose. They play a visible role and quickly ‘poached’ by other areas of an organisation due to their versatility or even by other businesses.

When you reflect, you will realise that these qualities are not something new to people. They are innate. I believe there are two critical factors play a part in building a finance culture that embodies these qualities – finance leadership and recruitment. Maybe for another article. I am keen to hear your thoughts.