Why CFO communication is important in driving organizational change

In this episode of the Better Finance podcast, Phil Shelley, Chairman of docStribute, discusses the importance of having clear and consistent CFO communication with stakeholders to execute a company’s mission.

Key takeaways:

Understand the importance of clear and consistent CFO communication in attracting the right shareholders, stakeholders and employees for a business.
Recognize the role of effective communication in fostering successful execution of a company's mission and vision.
Appreciate the significance of developing and promoting the right organizational culture in the current market to attract desired candidates and shareholders.
Comprehend the need for striking a balance for CFOs between maintaining alignment and adopting new technologies in daily employee tasks.
Understand the importance of transparent communication in M&As to deliver smooth transactions and successful outcomes.

For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available.

Phillip Shelley

“You need strong leadership to show direction to travel and to take your employees with you, but you also need to be humble enough to accept that other people will have a view that may be better than yours, or maybe something you hadn’t thought about.”

Myles Corson

That was Philip Shelley, a global director and among other roles, Chairman of docStribute. I’m Myles Corson from Ernst & Young, host of The EY Better Finance podcast, a series that explores the changing dynamics of the business world, and what it means for finance leaders of today and tomorrow by sharing insights from global leaders on key topics affecting the world of corporate finance.

Corson

In this conversation, Phil explores the importance of nurturing strong and effective communication, with a commitment to transparency across all areas of an organization; emphasizing how this can impact the future trajectory of a business. Phil draws from his broad career experiences in the military, investment banking and technology start-ups to share rich insights, which, I hope, you find useful.

Corson

Delighted to be joined today by Philip Shelley. Philip, welcome.

Shelley

Thank you.

Corson

Perhaps as we get started, you could tell us a little about your roles and how you have ended up where you are today?

Shelley

I am currently Chairman of three small private companies, all tech-related — regulatory technology (RegTech), middle office tech and property tech. Though relatively young, one has just done a Series A and they are all revenue earning and they are even be profitable. So, reasonably advanced startups. I am also the Chairman of a young charity as well. That’s where I have ended up. I was an investment banker for 25 years. After 25 years, I think you either become unemployable or you get too good at your job. So, I left and did some public company work. So I was the Chairman of a small financial services firm in the UK, and I set up my own business to do some advisory and some consultancy work. I’ve always been very interested in the tech world, so it was a natural follow-on as I was meeting a lot of small tech startups. So, I joined them, and I have had a great deal of fun for the last two or three years.

Corson

Looking forward to exploring some of that diverse and rich experience, and that is the plural world that you are in now and I am sure it is an exciting and interesting one. One of the things we talk about in the context of finance is the importance of communication, particularly, in the investor world. This gap between what investors are looking for, what preparers are saying— the importance of strong effective communication and transparency is a theme that we hear about a lot. Can you share your perspectives and why that is so important, and the benefits and opportunities that it creates?

Shelley

It’s a very broad subject, but I think all constituencies involved in a business and its growth need to know, as clearly as possible, what that business is trying to achieve, why it’s trying to achieve it, why that’s a good idea. And it needs to align not only everybody involved in the business, but also people who own the business, people who look at the business in the same way. If you have misalignment between your investors and your business or between your employees and your business, you clearly don’t get the result you want because you want all of your resource. It’s hard enough as it is in today's business world, but if you do not get all of your resource focused in very clearly on a direction of travel, with a culture to reinforce that, with leadership that ensures that everybody is aligned behind that, then you won’t get the results you want. Exactly. I mean, investors are a particular case in point, where you are trying to persuade people to own your company and own them for a long time, and they need to be owning it for the reasons that you want them to. If you are not very clear with what you are trying to achieve as a business in your direction of travel, you will get the wrong investors and that creates problems for you as a business going forward. But it is as equally important for your employees and your other counterparties, for the people who partner with you or your suppliers or everyone needs to know what you are trying to achieve as a business. I think, that is very important.

Corson

When we were talking about preparations for this, you used the perspective that companies get the shareholders they deserve. What do companies need to do to increase the chances that they get the right shareholders for the long term, to your point?

Shelley

I’m afraid, I‘m probably going to use the word clarity and simplicity an awful lot in this discussion. You have to make your direction to travel, your strategy, your messaging incredibly clear and simple, and make sure that people understand it. And that needs constant reinforcement. You need to spend a lot of time getting it right in the first place, but then you need to be very consistent with that messaging. You need to measure yourself in a consistent way so people understand that you are measuring the progress that you said you would deliver, and you need to check constantly with your audiences. There is a nasty habit for people to behave a little bit like a goldfish. You tell them once, and by the time they come around the next time, they have forgotten what you told them the first time. So, you really do have to keep consistently messaging what it is you are trying to achieve, your direction of travel. And key performance indicators (KPIs) and financial measurements are a really important part of that because they obviously give people a really clear understanding of how you are making progress in that direction, but also reinforce the direction you are taking just by the nature of the KPI. So, that’s a broad answer. I think that businesses as a whole need to focus really hard on their strategy and why that strategy is the right strategy for the business they are driving in the environment they are in, and the changes that might happen in that environment over the coming years. That’s particularly relevant as you think about today's environment, where technology, in particular, is starting to accelerate in terms of its impact on our general life and therefore positioning of businesses.

Corson

You use the words clarity and alignment quite a lot and I think it is really important in terms of being drivers of good communication and, particularly, around the purpose and vision for the companies, as you described. So, can you share some examples of how you have seen that done well as we look at some of the results of our CFO survey, some of the feedback around disagreements with management teams that clearly there is a challenge to get people aligned. So, what have you seen management teams do well to get and stay aligned in your various roles?

Shelley

I think, inevitably leadership is an essential part of this discussion. So, your leadership needs to be very clear. And by leadership, that obviously includes the board and executive management, and you cannot communicate a strategy or direction to travel until everybody has agreed that that’s the right way forward and you can’t have disagreements about that. I mean, there will always be changes. There will be environmental changes to your business and the way it operates, or factors outside your control that you have to respond to that might change the strategy, and that process of transparency and discussion is very important. But you’ve got to start with a very clearly delivered strategy and messaging and vision, and that has to be agreed with the board and with the executive. And that needs quite a lot of work because boards come from different backgrounds, rightly so, to give different perspectives on your industry and the way that you are operating, and that challenge is essential for the success of a business. But once you have agreed the direction of the travel and why, and it is logically supported by a lot of thinking, that has to be the way forward and that collective move forward is essential. Then your board effectively shouldn’t question that strategy. They might question your execution. They might question what it is that you have done to try and deliver that direction of travel and even how you are doing it. But they won’t question the alignment and the direction of travel and the vision because that’s all being agreed and everyone is bought into that at day one and that’s essential. And if it is not clear to everybody, start again. Get the board, get the executive back together again to understand exactly what you are trying to achieve as a business and why. And get inputs from everybody so that it becomes much more of a consensual exercise. Engagement with all of those people is essential. Once you have got that, and the same thing happens if you have a new board member, you have got to go back to basics, get them to understand, invest time in new board members, new executives, to make sure they understand what we are trying to achieve at the higher level. Then it is about execution, which is a different element, and everybody can have a view on how to execute something. But again, each time you do something, you need to bring it back to that alignment. We are doing this piece of M&A and we are doing this approach to the way we are doing our business because it fits within our alignment, our direction of travel and our vision.

Corson

So that collective accountability really starts with the board and the executives and, as you mentioned, those concentric circles and start to build out as you start to engage with your employees and with other stakeholders. Anything you have seen that has helped with that communication and with engagement, and how you continue to share that purpose and vision?

Shelley

It is different for different constituencies within your business, but every constituency you touched on earlier, whether it is external or internal, has to have the same treatment. So, your process of delivering the mission and strategy and direction of travel needs to be done in great detail, and with a lot of work to get your board aligned with you. So that is not just one board meeting where the executive management tells them what the strategy is because the board needs to agree to the strategy, and everybody has to be completely behind it. You cannot invest too much time in getting that starting point right. There are a lot of businesses that, if you really look at them and ask them what are they trying to achieve, what are their strategy, they haven’t necessarily got that as clear and as simple and as uniform and consensual as it should be. And they, therefore, have problems because at every point, they try and do something that they have to explain why that fits within a confused strategy and direction of travel. But if you can get the first thing right, and that direction of travel could be very, very simple. It’s interesting, before I went to investment banking, I was in the army, which you would have thought was a very structured organization. But of course, the one thing that isn’t structured is once you get into a hostile environment, into warfare effectively, and so you will have to have an absolute clarity of direction. Very simple, because you are dealing with the soldier on the ground. Something, so he understands the direction of travel, but he has to have flexibility and freedom within that to operate within that alignment. It’s the same in business. If you can set a very clear direction, agree it with the board, agree with everybody, everybody has to buy into it, new people coming on have to buy into it, and that makes every other decision after that much simpler because you have a framework in which to consider everything and that makes life easier. Nothing is simple because there will always be differing views, particularly, if you have people from different backgrounds, which, as I say, is essential. But, if you have got that starting point and you reinforce that starting point on a continuous basis, it makes everything a lot easier.

Corson

It’s a fantastic analogy and that sort of clarity around mission objective, mission purpose and the framework within which people can make informed decisions in real time, understanding what the overall…

Shelley

This is the starting point and a bit like conflict. No plan survives the first two seconds of the engagement, and so one hopes in business it lasts a little longer than two seconds. But ultimately, there will be things that take you off course. One of the things I think I have learned from doing a startup or lots of startups is that wonderful concept of the pivot. So, in a startup, you are small and you can pivot, and you have to pivot because you work out that the thing you started doing was a great idea that isn’t going to work. But there are elements of it that could work, so you pivot business to do something potentially quite different. Then you need to be that flexible because you are small and you can be that flexible because you are small. Obviously, in a bigger business you cannot do that quite so dramatically. But if you think about some of our biggest companies in the UK, particularly, as an example, in the energy sector, they are massively changing their business from a legacy oil producer, say, to one that is increasingly focused on alternative energy in a huge scale. And they obviously have had to change their direction of travel and alignment to do that. And that is a significant management board exercise to make that step and to then communicate it to everybody and they're still in the process of communicating with everybody, and it will be a confused story while that change happens. It’s very important to have the alignment, have the direction of travel, but also be prepared to accept views, discussions about that direction of travel as things happen that inevitably will happen, particularly, as I say, I think, all businesses are going to face huge change with the advent of technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), big data, you name it. There are a number of tools now that are coming into general use and we can all see that ourselves, just in terms of what’s available from a commercial perspective. But it’s going to make a lot of businesses have to think very hard about their direction of travel.

Corson

Successful CFOs are differentiating by being effective communicators and that’s obviously —externally they play an important role with investors, but also internally. In your various roles as a banker, advisor, chair, are there certain things that you’ve seen successful CFOs do to drive that effective communication?

Shelley

I think without a laboring point, a framework is very important. And the framework needs ways of judging the elements within the framework, and your consistency is crucial. If you're going to be messaging, you must be consistent and you must have KPIs that you are judged on and you're transparently judged on, and you own up to things that go wrong and things that go right within those KPIs, within that framework. And the finance function is hugely important in designing those KPIs to match the strategy as effectively as possible. And obviously, it's the whole executive discussion, but the process of being consistent and of measurement is hugely important from the finance functions. Most big businesses, the finance function reaches all elements of the business. So, it’s a communication tool to take the broader executive team and employee generally along on the same direction, and obviously, numbers are a wonderful way of proving anything. So, the finance function is crucial to underpin the logic and the positioning and the direction and strategy of the business. All of that makes the CFO an absolutly essential for the finance function as a whole to make sure the business is aligned behind its strategy and objectives, and that it is simple and clear messaging that it's trying to put out there.

Corson

You mentioned culture, just want to get your perspectives in terms of how important creating the right culture is to actually delivering on that purpose and vision?

Shelley

I think it is very hard to pursue a direction to travel a strategy without aligning your culture to it. We are all well aware of cultures that have either gone wrong or have combined with cultures that don’t fit, and it is very clear that if you have a direction to travel, your culture has to match that. So, leadership, which leads on strategy and direction, also needs to lead on culture and that’s where your culture starts. It is really important. I mean, there are plenty of businesses. For years, I think, the pharmaceutical sector as a whole had a huge struggle between and you could look at every board and you could say those people are commercial and those people are scientists. And the balance between the two was a cultural issue across all of these organizations—between a finance-orientated element of a pharmaceutical business and a science-orientated—and getting the right culture and the right combination is really, really important. Do you have the financial controls and the right financial discipline and commerciality alongside what you are trying to achieve from a product or direction to travel or whatever it may be? Do you have a social purpose that maps all of that together as part of your culture because that’s all part of your strategy. A strategy is not “I am going to go from A to B,” it’s how you are going to get to A to B in terms of how is everybody in the organization going to think and act in order to achieve that. That's really, really important, and I would say that there are a lot of businesses that struggle with that blend of culture that they need to establish in a business that is very clear to achieve the aim and the objectives. And I think also even today, even with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and all of that good science and examination, making sure that your culture and your social purpose alongside that all align with the strategy and are clearly linked to a part of it is really important in today's world, not just for investors but also for employees, particularly for young employees. If you are recruiting new people to your business, they want to know what sort of culture they are joining. They want to know what is your purpose alongside your overall strategy and direction.

Corson

You've experienced this on the large companies, now increasingly in the startups. In the startup environment, you have an opportunity to start with a cleaner sheet and actually define what that culture is like. Transformation is perceived to be easier in those kind of organizations because you do not have the legacy of the larger organizations. As you look at what you take away from the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, are there other things you think are worth sharing across the dimensions?

Shelley

The thing about startups is it is very easy to imprint a culture because there are obviously far fewer people in the room and it may just be a room. So, it’s a much easier starting point. But I think there are some underlying themes that everybody would expect or should expect in a business. I think transparency, openness, being open to challenge, these things are things that are good in both small and large businesses. Much harder to do in large businesses sometimes, but the opportunity to get the best out of people's thinking requires openness to challenge, which requires a certain amount of humility from leadership. I mean, you need strong leadership to show direction to travel and to take your employees with you, but you also need to be humble enough to accept that other people will have a view that may be better than yours, or maybe something you had not thought about. That is very easy to do on a startup basis because there are probably a small number of people in the room and everybody has a voice at an early stage at least. I think, large organizations, as you get larger, and you introduce all the good things about large organizations, so process and structure and governance, which are all really important as you get bigger, maintaining that ability to be flexible, to listen, to be transparent is really important. Large companies have a lot to offer small companies, particularly as they grow. Just the mere fact of how do you manage growth is something that large companies obviously do all the time, whereas startups, quite often, struggle with that process of getting bigger because they need more people and they then need governance, they need controls, they need all of those things that anathema to a startup. But, there is a combination of the two. As long as you hold true to some basic principles, and, I think, things like transparency, things like open to be challenged, those are really important principles that you can have in any business.

Corson

What you are anchoring on is the human skills, the soft skills, the humility, empathy. We talk a lot around the need to balance the human and the technology aspects, particularly as you are going through a major transformation. To come back to this question of technology and obviously an area you are very focused on now, what do you see the role of technology being when you are responsible for making these investment choices? How do you make sure you are making the right decisions, and are there any particular technologies you see as being the most impactful, particularly for finance?

Shelley

I am going to pick you up on the concept of making the right decisions because the thing about technology is that you have to make some wrong decisions. Now obviously, you don’t want to make a wrong decision that closes your business down. So, there is a spectrum here. One of the challenges with technology is, innately, it is doing something different and it probably means that, you might well be, one hopes, it makes you do things better as well. It might well mean that some parts of your workforce no longer are going to be needed as part of what you are doing as a business. I mean, there’s all sorts of issues around the implementation of technology, which are quite human. And so, balancing those out when you think about technology is quite important because I think there’s a tendency to be very risk averse when you implement any technology. Now obviously, as I say, if it is a mainstream piece of technology that’s going to drive your business, you have to make sure it is going to work before you implement it. And that process of implementation is hugely skillful and many people can help you, if not your business itself who manage these things all the time. But, I think, the challenge is to embrace technology at a much earlier level, understand it, experiment with it and then deploy it and be more open-minded to change than perhaps a lot of businesses inherently have, particularly if they are large businesses. And by the way, particularly if they’ve been successful businesses and they’ve been successful businesses that have followed a very clear strategy and direction for a long period of time, it gets harder and harder to instigate change and technology change because it’s working. And if it’s working, your risk averseness just goes off the chart because why would I break up something that works and, obviously, every time you implement technology, there is a risk. But businesses, I think, particularly in the UK, need to get much better at embracing the opportunity of technology, find ways of experimenting, find ways of understanding what technology can do and then, obviously, move into the very careful process of implementation. But I don’t think, and this is a broad generalization, I don’t think business is particularly good at this, particularly if they are longstanding, particularly if they have got legacy, technology and legacy structures. So if you look at the financial services sector more broadly, it has really struggled with implementing new technology. And one of the reasons is, and you can look at many of the chief executives at the big banks who said as such, they change technology, major technology, hardly a dozen different types across their business a year, whereas your tech firms will be doing it every week. And it’s just that rate of change and the expectation that you will always change. That embracing of technology change is something that is very hard for businesses that have been well established, perhaps very successful over a long period of time. Not much as to be honest, if your strategy has always been in a certain direction, a certain approach, and you’re very aligned as a business and as a group of employees behind that, then getting them to change in some ways quite significantly because of the introduction of technology is hugely challenging. And therein lies the problems that many of our businesses have today as they try and convert their businesses to something different because there is so much resistance. So, breaking down that resistance, it’s a bit like the energy you have to put into the process of getting the business aligned and in one direction, you have to put a similar amount of energy if you are going to make changes to that to get everybody to buy into it. That’s a really important process. I mean, even as a startup, I was talking to a company that was a building society, that was going to implement one of my company's technology, and we went up to see the entire management team. It is not a big building society, but the entire management team and explained them through exactly what we were doing to help them get real support for that technology change. And it is a small change, but it is a meaningful change. It will make a big difference to their business, but it’s that process of accepting technology, making change happen in a way that is very collaborative as it has to be. Otherwise, somebody will find a way of making it hard to execute that change.

Corson

Great example and look, I think it pulls together a number of the threads of what we talked about. You need to create the cultural attributes of agility, comfort in the grey areas. To your point, because there aren’t right or wrong answers. You have got to be comfortable experimenting and then for finance people, I think, a lot of that can feel uncomfortable because they like certainty, they like clarity and so it's a muscle that needs to be learned, developed as you go through that cultural transformation.

Shelley

Yeah, different people that you have obviously seen have a plethora of big businesses set up and accelerators to allow young businesses in to effectively experiment on their operations aside from the bank, which is a great start point, but it is much more broader than that. I mean, inevitably, everyone is working very hard, running very fast. The last thing they want to do is worry about the new bit of technology that is going to make that easier, potentially, because they are focused on what they are doing and so, you do have to work at it. You have to create time. Quite a lot of this is about doing it right. And rather than giving it lip service or trying to force through change, you have to take the extra time to get everybody on board before you move ahead and take it forward. But at the same time, that is more about the execution. You've got to find a way of being faster with innovation, ways of getting new technology into the business without destroying the business, but at least allowing you to see it, test it, work with it. Even if it doesn't work and you throw it away, but you've got to be more open to that route. And I am speaking as a startup chairman who talks to lots of large businesses about the technologies that we are selling, that’s the very challenging bit for any startup is trying to get big businesses to take you seriously because it is just that they have got a long list of things they got to do, which is basically about improving the way that the ship is running rather than new ideas that might make significant changes, which obviously have a huge risk factor. So, they get put away. So, it’s very hard if you have got a new idea, particularly in some cases like financial services, where everyone is particularly risk averse, to make those inroads because businesses are inherently resistant.

Corson

One way, obviously, we see businesses try and solve some of their challenges is M&A, and acquiring in some of these capabilities, acquiring in access to new technologies. Obviously, there has been a trend in terms of portfolio rationalization focusing on core businesses, divesting of non-core businesses, supplementing. You’ve obviously had a wealth of experience in transactions and a lot of these promise great things and then do they always deliver? What are some of the things, that you would say, is a driver of successful transactions, some lessons learned that you say these are things to be avoided?

Shelley

Clarity and simplicity come to mind. I think the biggest mistake for M&A or two big mistakes, so the first mistake is that you are not absolutely clear about what you are going to do with the M&A. What are you trying to do with that acquisition? Does it really serve a purpose? It reinforces the direction of travel you had planned on your strategy or if it changes it, why are you changing it? Before you even do the M&A, what are you actually trying to achieve with that M&A and does that particular target or that piece of M&A actually fit it? And you have got to be ruthless about that because, quite often, M&A doesn’t. If it doesn’t, then you have to do a lot of surgery to try to make it work. The second element is that surgery, is that execution — being really clear with the organization that you are buying or merging with, about what is the endgame post-execution, what are we actually trying to achieve, as in what is the business that we are creating that then what is that strategy. That is probably the biggest mistake as people are slow to integrate and they are generous with employees. You have got to be really clear —I need these people, I don’t need these people. Right from the word go, you need to create the team that is going to still be there and drive the business forward as quickly as possible and be really clear about what you are trying to achieve with the M&A. That on its own, before you even talk about valuation and everything else and risk, just getting the direction of travel really clearly understood by the people you are buying as well as the people who are in your existing business. Both audiences need to then align together, maybe on the same strategy or maybe a slightly different strategy. But whatever it is, everyone needs to understand that before you, the first day of the businesses combined. And by the way, if that is clear and simple and easy to understand and logical and it works financially, you will find it 10 times easier to sell the transaction to your shareholders and every other counterparty. Again, it’s that effort and thought that goes into the process before you buy something that is by far the most important element of M&A. Because on day one, if you’ve got a plan that says we are going to achieve that, that’s what we want to look like. Everyone knows that. Then everyone will help you get that. It is about that clear and simple direction of travel. Just because you are buying something, it does not change. You just have to make sure that both groups understand it. And again, in an M&A environment, post-transaction, you’ve got a lot of nervous people —both existing employees and new employees. So, clarity is really important. Otherwise, you lose time, you lose focus, and everyone is worrying about what’s going to happen, where you need absolute clarity as quickly as possible. People sometimes say we cannot do that because you need to get under the bonnet and see the business. If that is genuinely the case, don’t do the M&A. You have got to be really clear about why you are doing it, and that is then aligned with what you told everybody you are trying to achieve.

Corson

Obviously, we have talked a lot about clarity and the importance of it. Just in wrapping-up, one of the challenges we all face, and finance leaders face is navigating economic uncertainty and disruption. Sometimes that clarity could be difficult to maintain and that obviously plays through in areas like liquidity and resource allocation, and how you think about those kinds of things. Just in conclusion, are there any final thoughts you would leave with the audience of finance leaders about how to navigate that uncertainty and get back to the clarity you have talked about?

Shelley

There are always bumps in the road and those might be big bumps, but there are always bumps in the road. And if anything, at a time when there is uncertainty externally and there are more bumps than you would like, then continued clarity of purpose is even more essential because that then gives you a framework to respond. So, if you have to cut half your workforce, you know which bit of the workforce you're going to cut because this is what’s essential to maintain the direction of the business and what we're trying to achieve. And you can make decisions within a framework that is much clearer as a financial services business going through COVID-19 where the market disappeared for several months completely. So no revenue, you have to make some very rapid discussion or decisions and by the way, this can often be advantageous because you can make change happen that perhaps could not have happened. Never let a crisis go to waste and so using it to reinforce what you are doing should always be part of that discussion. But ultimately, bumps in the road are better handled if you have really clear messaging and alignment on the direction of the business you’re trying to take. Now, clearly there are some bumps that are more than bumps. They are whopping great mountains. You are going to have to take a different approach in order to get past them. Then you have to have a reassessment of the direction you are going in, and you have to start the whole process again with board, executive, find that direction that you think is the right direction in light of completely new circumstances. So, what can we do with what we’ve got and potentially something else to deal with this brick wall that we are running into? There are degrees of change or degree of response depending on how significant those issues are and if they are economic sort of things we have been facing for the last two years, even COVID-19, although COVID-19, in some cases, represented real challenges for some businesses too in terms of their absolute strategy and direction. But if you have that framework, that alignment, that will serve you well in any crisis. But always be ready if necessary to think very hard about how does my original strategy work as a business, and the board can be incredibly helpful in that process too.

Corson

That's great advice and we appreciate you showing that and then wrapping up a couple of rapid-fire questions. Is there a particular all-time favorite quote that you have and any reason for that?

Shelley

I am going to give you two. The first one, it is not really a quote, it is actually a French proverb, which is “do not make perfect the enemy of good,” which I think is so important. In particularly in large organizations, there is a horrible tendency to spend hours and hours and hours trying to be something that could be done very quickly, maybe not as perfectly, but still very well. It is the 80:20 rule, sometimes getting things done is much more value than getting them done perfectly. I like that one. Another one was, “if you look closely, most overnight successes took a long time,” and that was from Steve Jobs. So, I think, that sums up a lot. It is great to think, and this comes from the startup world as much as anybody else. You may think you are going to conquer the world and even your projections may tell you, you’re going to conquer the world, but actually these things take time, and they are about detailed execution, getting things right all the time for a long period of time. There was a wonderful coach, the coach of British cycling team, and they suddenly started to win gold medals. And he had an incremental improvement strategy, which meant that he took apart every part of the bike, every part of the uniform that people wore, all the kits and made it just that one, two, three percent better. And that much as the same as overnight successes take a long time, it is the same principle, which is actually just making incremental improvements can take you a long way. I know some of those can be technology improvements. Little bits here and there will make you a very successful business in the long run.

Corson

You did double value there, so that is great. That is good. And I think it is Dave Brailsford, the cycling coach. It is. Yes, you are right. Is there a particular piece of advice that has been most impactful on your career?

Shelley

Yeah, I think this probably stems from early on through my entire career. I mean otherwise, which is don’t run away, don’t give up, keep trying.

Corson

And then obviously in the current world where we are under so much pressure, the importance of wellbeing and balance, was there anything you do to try and maintain some semblance of balance?

Shelley

I run, I garden and I spend time with my wife and family, both of whom are very good at making sure I remain balanced.

Corson

Fantastic. It has been a wonderful conversation. Really appreciate you taking the time to join us and thanks for sharing all of your insights.

Shelley

Enjoyed it. Thank you very much.

Corson

If you’ve enjoyed this or any episode of The EY Better Finance podcast, please leave a rating or review and don’t forget to subscribe so you get future episodes. You’ll find related links in the show notes or ey.com/betterfinance. As always, thank you for listening, and if you have ideas or topics you would like to see covered or guests you’d like to see featured, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I look forward to speaking to you next time.

Presenters

Myles Corson

EY Global and Americas Strategy and Markets Leader, Financial Accounting Advisory Services

Podcast

Season 6, Episode 7

Duration

34m 16s

In this series

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.

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Why CFO communication is important in driving organizational change

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Presenters

Myles Corson

In this series

Presenters