There’s Always Time For Business Partnering

Quite the statement to make. When everyone complains there’s not enough time for business partnering how can you state that there’s always time for business partnering? Ok, stay with me for a moment and I’ll break it down for you. Then you can tell me if you agree and we can start action planning together.

We’re about to explore how to break down the barriers to successful business partnering and we start by addressing the challenge with lack of time. Before we get going though let’s agree on one thing. 

“You cannot create more time – time is a finite resource” 

Maybe that’s stating the obvious but if we don’t make this critical realization we can’t start exploring the solutions. Instead of trying to do the impossible there are three things you can try to do. 

1. Start doing the right things (this means you need to stop doing a lot of things)
2. Start doing the right things right (this means mastering your job)
3. Create more energy to get more done with the time you have available 

Feel free to suggest other things you can do to solve the challenge, but these would be the main ones I think you need to address. Now let’s get started. 

The right things, done right 

It seems like such a fluffy statement, but you can break this down into concrete steps. 

1. Map out what you’re doing today, and I mean do a really detailed mapping
2. Ask yourself why you’re doing things i.e. are they legally required, required by stakeholders or just some pet projects you take joy in doing?
3. Now ask yourself if the things you do create value and if they don’t pass the value creation test then what would happen if you stopped doing them?
4. Now simply try to stop doing them for a week or two – stop sending the report – stop doing the analysis – stop participating in the meeting
5. Now you’ve found the boundary for what are the right things and that’ll leave you with roughly 20-40% of your time free to do what you want
6. Then go to your business stakeholders and ask them how you can help them solve their most critical business challenges
7. After that, it’s about doing this right which we’ll get back to 

Have you ever done this exercise? Or do you just keep doing the things you’ve always done? To give you an example not so long ago I was preparing a weekly report for the leadership team which we used for a bi-weekly meeting. It did lead to some discussions in the meeting but rarely were they of high quality. When the leader of the team left I simply stopped producing the report. Nothing happened. However, people kept sending me the input for the report. Never did they question if it was still needed. Never did they try to just stop it.

We need to challenge ourselves from time to time with a reality check. Is what we’re doing still needed and is it creating value? In this example even when the report was still needed it didn’t create a lot of value. When it was not needed it continued to generate work for people. I wonder what they started to spend their time on when we put a stop to it altogether? 

Increase your capacity and get more done 

You can’t create more time, but you can increase the capacity to get things done. Here are some essential questions to ask yourself. 

• Physical energy:

1. Are you physically fit?
2. Do you get enough sleep?
3. Do you eat right?

• Emotional energy:

1. Are you emotionally balanced?
2. Do you have people you can talk to when you’re off balance?
3. Do you know who are the toxic people in your life that you need to remove or neutralize?

• Mental energy:

1. Are you able to keep distractions at bay?
2. Do you know your capacity for being able to concentrate and when breaks are needed?
3. How good are you at focusing on solving what’s right in front of you?

• Spiritual energy:

1. Do you understand your professional purpose i.e. your WHY?
2. Do you know what your passions are and are they interlinked with your work?
3. Are you in charge of your life or is it run by others i.e. your boss, your business stakeholder, etc.? 

People with high energy levels have a lot more capacity to solve challenges and get things done. If you have low energy, it’s impossible for you to perform at your best.

Looking at myself I’m guided by my purpose statement which is to help finance professionals be successful in their careers and help finance functions drive value creation. This purpose statement guides everything I do in my career at work and off work. It increases my capacity to get my work done. That’s an indisputable fact. If I didn’t have this I would be doing things at random and I’m confident that I'd be less successful in the long run. 

To be effective as a business partner you need to take care of your time but even more importantly your energy. If you do both well there’s no challenge within your area of expertise you can’t solve. You’ll find becoming a master is the easiest thing to do. Reality is that most of us are stuck in a place where we’re not even close to mastery.

Make the commitment to change today and you’ll find that not only will you become a better business partner but you’ll also be more engaged in your work and getting up Monday morning will be as fun as leaving work on Friday afternoon! 

This was the second article in the series “The Path To Successful Business Partnering” where we tackle the most common challenges to effective business partnering. You can read the previous article(s) below and next week we’ll tackle the challenge of the finance function focusing on the wrong thing i.e. cost instead of value.

The Path To Successful Business Partnering

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.

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

You’re A Finance Business Partner, Now What?

Building A Team Of Finance Business Partners

Anders Liu-Lindberg is a Senior Finance Business Partner at Maersk supporting our largest product and I have more than 10 years of experience working with Finance at Maersk both in Denmark and abroad. I am also the co-founder of the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 7,000 members. My main goal at Maersk is to show how to be successful with business partnering and drive value creation as a trusted partner. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger with 31.000+ followers.