Trust and Leadership Lessons for FP&A From 100+ Top Leaders with CFO Jon Laudie

The financial strategy sometimes is can be so disconnected from the actual operations of the business and what's actually going on and the way people are actually executing and what actually motivates them. So I think stepping into a president's seat in addition to wearing the CFO hat really forces you but it feels like this is becoming more common but it's not been common historically. Like I think Salesforce now has a chief operating and financial officer and I think that's becoming more common and actually love it and I think FPNA actually fits perfectly into that kind of track. Welcome FPNA unlocked where finance meets strategy. I'm your host Paul Barnhurst aka the FPNA guy. Each week we bring you conversations and practical advice from bot leaders, industry experts and practitioners who are reshaping the role of FPNA in today's business world. Together, we'll uncover the strategies and experiences that separate good FPNA professionals from great ones. Helping you elevate your career and drive strategic impact. Speaking of strategic impact, this week's guest has the opportunity to drive a lot of strategy as CFO of zero res. So John Law, you welcome to the show. Thank you. Great to be here. Good to catch up. That's been a little bit since we talked. Yeah, I think you were when I started this show as FPNA tomorrow at the time. I want to say you were my fourth or fifth interview. You were very early. You're one of the first five or so before you even knew what it was going to be and how I didn't ruin it, I guess. No, but I haven't ruined it yet either, I guess. People still listen to me. So I must be doing something, right? Love it. Why don't we start with your background? Why don't you take a minute just introduce yourself to the audience? I have a career that started in M&A evaluation work in an advisory capacity and then quickly after a few years jumped in house to corporate FPNA roles and built my career up through there and through that track. Primarily, I started mostly in technology companies, consumer and technology companies in California and then moved to Utah shortly after I guess a few years into my career and kept that going. There's kind of a big tech hub in Utah. So lots of opportunities to grow with thin rolls here. Spent time in corporate FPNA and in operational FPNA with different departments across the organizations that I was a part of and permitted it even transitioned into supporting investor relations and working really closely with quarterly earnings process and reporting to investors and sort of leading that effort around investors and road shows for investors and so on. So kind of a breadth of experience that was super fun for me and got me cemented deep into that finance world. Most recently joined zero res, I guess a little over four years ago now started there as a CFO and about two years ago actually stepped into the president's seat as well. So president and CFO at zero res, which has been a very kind of big transition in terms of my role and what the things I think about our every single day. But it's been awesome that the foundation that was laid throughout my career really has enabled me to do some fun things everywhere I've been but notably really right now where I am. It's been awesome to dig into the other areas of the business. It's been a lot of time there as well. So that's a bit of a. Love it. We'll definitely dig into that a little bit. We're going to dig into your book. But before we get into the question I want to ask you to get started. Tell our audience, I think we've mentioned this on a podcast before but I don't know that everybody's listened to the first one or remembers it. First time we met. It's kind of a fun story. So I'm going to let you tell it unless you want me to. So you lived in still do live in Utah. I don't know if you ever left at some point but you were in Utah. I was in Utah and we were both connected to I think I had created a LinkedIn group called like Utah FPNA profession. Correct. Yeah. And it was a lot of years ago at this point. 10 years ago probably. Yeah probably. I don't know that there's much activity in there but it was the goal was FPNA in Utah felt young. It felt like there were a lot of new kind of fresh upstart companies that were just starting to hire FPNA and it was a little bit of a let's create a community and learn from each other and sort of build what good FPNA looks like in Utah with each other helping. And so you were in that group. I was in that group. I think that's how we first connected but it was a Hey, let's grab lunch and just catch up. And so we did you recommended a place. I had no idea what it was called or what it was but it was like the jail time cafe or something. Yeah, something like that. Someone told me it was a good place and it was totally different. I'll let you explain more. And I was like, oh, let's give it a try. It's in the middle. There's nowhere else that's in the really in the middle. Yeah. I was in Probo. You were in Salt Lake. We're like meeting in the middle half an hour away. And so it was, you know, I punched in the GPS and then pull it up and suddenly I'm at the prison and we pull into parking lot. I'm thinking this cannot be it. But do I churn off? There was a little cafe at the prison and we walked in and I remember feeling incredibly uncomfortable like where are we and what are we doing here? But there was just a bunch of normal people who showed up to have lunch there and the food was actually pretty great. Yeah. And the staff is all prison inmates that are in good behavior. It was the most unique experience, the most unique first lunch that I've ever had with anybody. So congratulations to you for picking the best spot in Utah. The food was quite good. That's what it was really a good little place. But it was, I kind of felt a little weird when I pulled up as well. I think it was the first time I'd been there. Someone recommended me. Oh, let's try it. And I'm pulling up going wonder what John's staking? Who is this guy? And what are we doing here? It was great. And that was fun. I remember at that point being impressed with what you were doing and what you had, you weren't doing, you know, this yet. I think you were still, yeah, corporate practitioner in it. Nice. No, it was great to get to know you a little bit and love the conversation. Even though their venue was a little bit, you know, different, it was awesome. That's why you remember. It's kind of like, that's why I have the beer. It just makes me stand out. You know, it's all about being remembered, right? Yeah, that's the truth. What they say with marketing. And you're doing a great job of it, Paul. Well done. And I have fun doing it. All right. Let's jump into the kind of the questions we have here. I'd love to start. So you've been a CFO now for about four years, CFO and President for two years. I would love to know, how is your view of the role of FPNA change? So let's start there. How is it changed? I think the FPNA, it's had an evolution over the last 10 years for sure. I feel like, you know, and thanks to folks like you and others who are doing a great job of angelizing what FPNA can be and should be. And just generally the best practices and the AFP and all of these resources that have now come together to create sort of a playbook for what FPNA should be and can be and is, I think that's evolved a lot over the last 10 years. I think if I look specifically at over the last four years or five years in my current role and at zero res, when I first joined, there was no FPNA. And so we've had to create that and have hired a director of FPNA now who sort of leads that effort for us. It's really been fascinating to watch the organization that did not know how to use FPNA, did not know what FPNA was. And then we brought someone in and it was almost like this, what is this person doing here and why or why do I have to engage with somebody about these things? I don't want to think about that. I want to think about running the business. I want to think about, you know, doing this, I don't need somebody else to tell me what's going on or how to think about things. And credit to our FPNA leader and the way he's been able to build relationships now fast forward. He's been with us two and a half, I think years almost. And the team is completely reliant on what he's created. The data sources he's pulled together, the dashboarding, the visibility into what's working and not working in their part of the business, the forecasting and the planning that's now taking place that never was before. We've been on a journey and it's been fun because I grew up in my career in FPNA and I spent time at bigger companies that already kind of were doing this and knew how to do it and we had a cadence and we played the role. And then I was at smaller company where I sort of was building the team, but they had all come from other places where they were used to it and knew what we were going to do and how we were going to provide value. Well, this was the experience where it was like we're creating something. The organization isn't really sure how to use us or even if they want this. And now it's morphed from that all the way to this is a critical business function at zero rise and it's adding value every single day. When people start saying I don't have enough data or I need more of you, I need more of you, I need more of you, I mean we've morphed into that from, I don't know why you're here, get out of my way at the very beginning. And obviously nobody was hostile in that way, but it's a picture of the journey that we've been on as an organization and how FPNA has changed this organization that I'm a part of today. And I think it's been really fascinating to see that journey. I also think the technology has changed so much in the last five to 10 years. 10 years ago in FPNA, we were on an instance of Hyperion planning, which is at Oracle products. And I've been through multiple sort of over the last 10 years, multiple evolutions of technology implementations with Anna plan and adaptive and Vena and insert name here. I think I've been involved in some kind of a rip out of replacement or install of one of those along the way. And at our most recent, here at zero rise, we actually went with Abacum, which is a little bit of kind of the new wave of planning tools. And it's been great. It's so different. There's pros and cons to all of them. But it is enabling the business in a way that it couldn't before. And I think that's been incredibly powerful for us. So that's a quick answer. Maybe actually not a quick answer to your question. No, it's good. I think I'm going to email their CEO and say, "Hey, I got a clip for you for an ad. I'll sell it to you for it." I'm just kidding. There you go. Just tell him to give us a discount. We'll be great. Yeah, exactly. I'll tell him to give you a bigger discount. No, in all series, I love kind of hearing the journey. And the follow-up question to that is we have a lot of people that experience that journey. Whether ahead of FPNA, first FPNA hire in a small company, maybe at CFO and they have to to bring it in. What's the advice you'd give to somebody are there critical things you did or things you wish you didn't do the kind of helped transition from that why are you here I don't see what value you add to we want you in the room we need you we want more time because that's just that's a journey many people have to go through at some level I think the most important thing that that we have done to make this hopefully be successful and again credit to RFPNA you know a leader and team it's meeting the business sort of where it is in terms of it's where it's where it's come from where it is today and meeting there as opposed to expecting the business to come and meet FPNA where best in class exists I think starting in day one you know all of us would probably look around the table if we had a group of FPNA professionals all sitting on this call right now and say yeah the right way to plan is to do a rolling 12 month forecast or 18 month forecast and and be adaptive and and adaptive not the software but be adaptive and evolving consistently and we weren't ready for that as an organization at all I don't think that like we had set budgets historically and then you know in November it was still like how we track into the budget and obviously every single week it the budget becomes completely irrelevant when you're further into the year because everything has changed teams might not even exist anymore that existed at the beginning of the year yet the budget is still the same I think I think meeting the business where it was and not pushing those things too quickly was actually key day one it was data visibility it was tables it was it was dashboards I mean data is kind of in a big issue for us there there was a lot of data in an underlying CRM that was really hard to surface out and so creating the infrastructure and the tables and getting a tool that people could interact with that data was step one the second that they started to trust and see their data in a way that was you know new and insightful to them that they couldn't get before then it was like okay there's actually there's something here build me more of that it was the beginning it was one thing that the business needed it it wasn't changing all the processes at once I think from there then it became we're going to tighten up a little bit around the budget planning process we're going to introduce a quarterly reforecast sort of cadence we're going to start educating but by the way I we almost had we even had a misstep on that quarterly reforecast process because when we got to the end of q1 that first year we wanted to do that it was it was almost too disruptive to even do it because it felt like the goalpost removing and like the organization wasn't ready yet for how do I even think about an original forecast versus a budget and my teams are executing to one thing and now they have to shift and execute to another thing so again I think it was just this process of okay we're going to pause we're not going to do it next quarter but we're going to keep educating and learning about what this process looks like over time to get to a place where you know now we're looking forward it next year and saying we're ready to roll some real things that we haven't been able to roll yet and every year we've been able to sit and say okay now we're ready for this now we're ready for this and so it's bringing that those people along with you if you're not bringing the people along with you that the change management is nearly impossible and and and fbna is not going to be successful so what I'm hearing here basically is the key is change management understanding where your organization is at what they can handle and slowly moving toward what the ideal what you believe the ideal is what you believe the business needs versus I know what the business needs let's just push it all out and everybody's like go away correct yeah I mean I nobody wants to be pushed on and said this is what you have to do sometimes that's the reality we have to do that as leaders in an organization but I think that to affect change we you know there's the analogy of get everyone inside the tent like here's here is the here's a vision here's where we're going everybody needs to be inside the tent for us to be effective at even moving forward um you know fpna that exists holistically as a as a north star fpna has has their own unique challenge of going to those respective people who are going to be those champions in the organization who care who are going to be able to affect change in their respective teams and departments and uh it's getting the those people inside the tent so that they can then expand the tent and get the people you know in their orgs inside the tent it's it's a journey and it doesn't happen overnight and it depends on where you are in that life cycle I think once upon a time if p did this like fpna life cycle thing I don't know if that's still a thing or not but it'll have a maturity model that's the one I'm talking similar to light yeah they have one fpna trends has one I actually did one kind of similar tall there's that I have somewhere but yeah love it yeah I think that is critical because not not everybody is at the same place and you absolutely just have to like point to wherever you are and then give yourself plenty of runway to like affect change improve and add value to the business and influence people um but not expect that you're going to be at x level of maturity you know tomorrow because you just won't that'll that'll actually be the first step to failure yeah and one of the big things I've emphasized that a maturity model is not everybody needs or should be out of five you know if it's a scale out of five should be out of five you're going to be at different areas on different things based on your businesses need where it's data is that if your data and foundation is a complete mess there's no point of trying to be a five in technology for your for just fpna you got to go back and bring everybody along again the change management and maybe you need to get to a five as an organization but fpna is if I doesn't do a whole lot of good if everybody else is a two in their technology right then I think where you're actually adding value is by influencing the rest of the organization and helping guide them to get to a level of maturity where then the fpna process can apply and be relevant um and so you actually get to play a roll outside of finance and driving the organization towards uh what you're able to then add value after they get there um it's it's that actually pretty awesome to think about how that trains you as an individual uh if you're on that fpna team having to do that trains you and coaches guides you down that path of actually operating the business as opposed to just reporting on and or doing analysis on the business it's a totally different mindset and that's why fpna is positioned so well to uh to become kind of those operators down the road uh is because they have to do that along the way yeah no I totally agree all right so I want to ask a question before we get in we're talking a little bit about your book here in a minute but you're in a really unique position I'm not sure I know of any others I can think of where they're both cfo and president right you don't see that very often you see ceo and president are president and then the ceo is separate roles but you don't see cfo and president so I'd love to know we'll start with this what was the biggest surprise when you became president last time I asked you the biggest surprise you became a cfo like what you weren't expecting how about when you became president what surprised you most well I think the biggest surprise when I stepped in I guess there wasn't a moment in time where it was like okay now it's officially a new title yesterday was different now today's new this was a journey and an evolution that sort of naturally just happened and made sense um I think that the if I were to draw a line in the sand and say okay what was different point a to point b uh it was it was that the model and the the plan and the strategy and the forecasts the financial strategy um sometimes is can be so disconnected from the actual operations of the business and what's actually going on and the way people are actually executing and what actually motivates them so I think stepping into a president seat in addition to wearing the cfo hat really forces you and by the way I want to talk about that for a second if we get there in a minute but it feels like this is becoming more more common but it's not been common historically like I think Salesforce now has a chief operating and financial officer and I think that's becoming more more common and actually love it and I think fpna actually fits perfectly into that kind of track but I I think that this feels a little bit like that as well in terms of what it is and we can we can come back there but the idea that the financial objectives of the organization really so often aren't attached or connected to the operational reality of what's going on in the business and trying to bridge those two things has uh has been fun and hard like I said both fun and hard because I would expect it definitely to be a challenge what's so let's dig into that just for a minute what's been the hardest part but the biggest challenge of trying to bridge that was their kind of eye opening moments where you're like wow I thought the business was using the forecast a little better or was it more moments of why we didn't give them enough information or kind of what was the things you saw that you said we really need to bridge the gap maybe just dig into that a little I'll let you take that what we want. So we're still definitely figuring that out and uh are not there's no like we've solved it in any of this but um I think an observation is definitely that the communication and the vision uh casting has I think hasn't been fully there um and and I think the communication that like here's where we're going here's the why behind what we're doing here's the strategic objectives of an organization of the organization financially um here's the objectives of the organization sort of operationally here's the objectives of the organization for marketing I think the connection behind all of those it actually they're not that far off when they're laddered up to the broader company uh vision and objectives and so I think spending time on mission vision values like I think tightening all of that up at the highest level and then creating those those annual kind of we even did this this analogy uh about a year and a half ago where we sort of created the peaks. So Everest is kind of this perpetual out there in the distance where we're hiking Everest, right? But like you're gonna have Matterhorn and you're gonna have K2 and Denali and these other peaks along the way if you think about like hitting the peak of the world. And so we created this concept to sort of cast a vision around what the view looks like from the top of one of those peaks. And when you define what the view looks like from the top of one of those peaks and you say that's 2027, for example. Like you wanna, it's when we look back and say what have we achieved? And we're now at the end of 2027. What do we look like as an organization? What have we, what does our customer base look like? And what does our service offerings look like? I think creating that vision and then the laddering of the objectives each year to that vision has been an exercise that then is aligning those teams underneath to the financial objectives of the organization. Because ultimately those peaks also represent some kind of financial outcome. And we all have boards and investors and people who care about what the financial profile looks like along the way. So laddering to those objectives and then saying here's what that looks like financially, then pushes down and says everybody, we have to ladder to this. And everything that you do is going to ladder to one of these things that achieves the objective of the peak and that peak has a financial outcome that we're all gonna be really happy about. So I think the communication around that doesn't happen well enough in lots of organizations. There's just silos of information that aren't getting, they're not connecting to that bigger company vision. And maybe executive teams would say, no, we do a great job of that. And I think there's probably plenty who do. I think there's probably plenty who really struggle with it. And our experience was definitely this is something we needed to get better at. - Today's sponsor is Linios. Most finance teams I've talked to have built something impressive in Excel. Real models with years of institutional knowledge sitting in the formulas, then the data underneath goes style. The moment someone posts the journal entry and somebody spends a morning rebuilding it. Linios provides reporting intelligence by connecting your ERP data directly to Excel. Reports refreshed with current data, your formulas stay exactly as you built them and you can trace any number back to the transaction behind it. Everyone works from one version of the numbers, including whoever is building the board deck. Your team moves from assembling reports to analyzing them when you leave it to Linios. Learn more at www.insightsoftware.com/Linios/Solutions/Reporting-Intelligence. That's www.insightsoftware.com/Linios/Solutions/Reporting-Intelligence. It's funny as I hear all that. A lot of people like vision, mission, the leadership, the raw raw, that's all just soft stuff. It's fluffy and it doesn't really matter. Here's a lot of MBA programs. They're always like, "Why do I take my organizational behavior class?" Why don't I listen to all this stuff? The stuff doesn't work. And then it's funny. I talk to leaders like you and others. And so often what they talk about, it's not the execution and the tactics. And yes, those have to be done. It's, my job is to help manage that change and inspire people and to get them on the same board. And so often that's mission and vision. And where's that big peak we got to climb or that big hairy, audacious goal or whatever. And I think most people take some a while and do their career before they actually realize how important that is. And so I love you sharing that 'cause it takes a while for I think people to come along and realize, oh, it really is about change management and mission and vision. It doesn't mean you don't have to be able to do technical skills, doesn't matter. Other stuff matters. But the way you connect with people and inspire changes through communication and often that involves mission and vision and all those things that some people will call fluffy. - Totally, yeah, I agree. It's just, it's always been funny for me. So, and let's take one minute before we get to the book. I think the whole chief operating finance officer, you know, smaller companies has been really common, CFO and CO, I know when we met last time for lunch recently, we talked a little bit about this. Share a little bit more of your thoughts, obviously we're a president. So I'm guessing in some ways, you've kind of been a little bit of that operating officer even though you don't officially have that title. Why do you think that's becoming so much more common for CFOs to get that title or be so involved in operations, now having been a CFO for four years? Kind of share a little bit of your thoughts there. - I think that there are so many, so many valuable, what do I even try to say? There's so much alignment between what the finance function is trying to do and the way that the organization is trying to execute on the operational side. And if there isn't, then there's something broken, but there has to be so much alignment there. If you look at our organization, we sort of, four years ago, we did a really, really big transaction. We brought in outside institutional private equity, sponsorship and capital and concurrently on the same day, closed 12 M&A deals all at once. Like it was a massive M&A effort. - Welcome to your first CFO role at the same time, right? - Yes, seriously, it was wild. But that journey from the CFO seat really required deep integration and understanding of so many different aspects of the business, understanding how we operate, what the systems and processes are, what the best practices are in the organization to even just do a day-to-day service that we provide. And so by having to be so deeply embedded in that, which any good finance organization should be and any good FP&A team absolutely should be in that. And right alongside their operating partners, I think that naturally led to me having a lot to say around marketing and a lot to say around the back-end systems and procedures and the payroll process and the way we commissioned folks. And all of that sort of had to be thought through because of the unique circumstance we were in where we were building this massive integrated thing out of a ton of different M&A deals that came together at the same time. So that I think for me naturally pushed me heavily into the operational side of the business. Now, FP&A, I think what we've talked about is the perfect training ground for that because you spend your life with the CMO or with the COO or with whoever the business GM and you are literally managing the business alongside of them, providing the analysis and thinking through where things are winning and losing and understanding the economic engine behind the business and how the operations affect that economic engine. So any good FP&A kind of function is gonna help instill that in their people. And then when you get into the CFO seat, you start to do that at a little bit of a higher level at on top of that M&A integrations and capital allocation and the other things that a CFO has to think about, suddenly there is absolutely a world in which operations and finance absolutely need to be hand in hand. And in some ways creating that at the top, like I love what Salesforce did with their new hire there, I hope that's working for them by the way, if it's not then failed experiment or whatever, but I believe that it drives the alignment from the top down around everything that we do needs to have an ROI and it needs to have a formula behind it to drive economic value for the organization. I believe organizations need that. And I think that it breaks some silos down and I think finance and in alignment is in practice, super powerful. - Great. I couldn't have said it better myself. I loved the way you explained it there. I'm fully with you. I say again and again, the best thing FP&A can do is deeply learn the business. You obviously have to know the finances, all those type things, you have to be the translation. But if you don't understand the operations, you cannot be the partner of the business needs. You will fall short. I think it's as simple as that. So I really appreciate sharing that and it makes sense that if that happens, especially as more and more CFOs come from FP&A, we're seeing a switch in that. I think it's almost a natural because they've come from an operational mindset. If they've done true what I'll call water and whatever you want to call best in class FP&A, they've come from knowing they have to have a deep understanding of operations, which has become so important to the CFO role now as they become more commercially minded over time. - I also think it shouldn't devalue the importance of a good COO too. Like I think there is still an immense value and a good strong COO who's going to come in and challenge that CFO leader. And so what it requires if you're going to be a leader who oversees both of those and operating and finance leader, you have to be able to thread that needle and actually see both perspectives and represent both sides because there does need to be some push and pull and there does need to be investment in the future that there does need to be operational kind of rigor behind the business that maybe not every finance person is equipped to do, but bringing those two functions together and having a really strong operating leader and a really strong finance leader who are then collaborating under one leader who's helping drive that alignment I think can be really powerful. But yeah, I don't think every finance leader is going to be a great COO and I certainly don't think every COO can be a great finance leader. I think the role itself bringing those two functions closer with strong, leaders underneath that can guide their respective functions is where the power can be. And a hundred percent agree. More complex, the role, more manufacturing, certain industries where it doesn't make sense at all. There's others where it may be great, there's different businesses, but I think you made a really good point. If you do bring it together, you talked about you have to be able to that push and pull. And I think that shows the importance of you got to have people around you that aren't yes people, people that will challenge, because if you give someone's doing both CFO and CO role and they don't have those people that will challenge them, you're going to make sub-optimal decisions. It's human nature. If you make all the decisions by yourself and don't really listen to others and let surface what's best, it's going to hurt you in the long run. 100 percent. Yeah, I mean, there has to be push and pull, there has to be challenge. I mean, that's that's how that's how organizations improve and get better. Today's episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Linios. Linios brings live ERP data directly into Excel, allowing your team to build reports with fresh data. No still files in sight. More on that in a few minutes. Yeah, one of the best answers I ever got on Great FPNA was actually I know you've worked with Adaptive before. He's the General Manager at Workday Adaptive and he said, "I want my FPNA to challenge me. I want them to tell me when I'm wrong. I don't want them sitting in a room that hears the numbers. If they're not doing that then something's wrong. I need to be aware of things and they need to challenge me when they think it's the right situation." And so kind of goes along with what you're saying. You got to have that push and pull and that doesn't mean disagree or be disagreeable, but it means bring, allow different viewpoints to be surfaced and make sure you're discussing the different angles. Or greed. All right, so you wrote your first book. First, what were you thinking? How did you, how did you get into writing a book? Well, it's that's funny. It's funny. Anybody who asked me that question, I say, you know, if you rewound, in fact I had a friend who I texted. No, I think he saw something on social media about it. I didn't even text him. And he texted me and said, "This is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. If anybody who knew you in high school would have, you know, the high school rankings, most likely to, whatever, most likely to write a book, I would have been literally the last in the entire state that I was in in high school." So I had the privilege of working with a very remarkable partner at Zero Res today. He's our CEO and my friend and mentor now. And we worked very closely together running the business. He had a long career before joining Zero Res as CEO in leadership training and management consulting and had already, he's already written multiple books and just has this ability to take a concept of an idea and bring it into something that's really valuable and impactful for others. So what was I thinking, you know, Sean and I had some conversations and he said, "I really think this would be a fun thing. Let's work on this together." And I fell victim to, you know, the respect I have for him and the excitement of a project. And, you know, I'll say that it has been so fun and fascinating and, you know, really remarkable to spend time on this journey, on this project. And we can, I can share more about what that that is in a second here. But it has, it has been nothing like I ever thought it would be, nothing like I ever thought I would do. And also it has changed everything that I, you know, changed and reinforced. I'll say that changed a lot of things and reinforced a lot of things that I believe about leadership and organizations and what matters the most to people. So that's maybe that's, yeah, we can go from there. Yeah. So just for audience, the book's called "Rude's Relationships and Results." It comes out late August by the time this has been released, it will be out. We're recording this before it's come out. And so what I want to ask is, something you said just a minute ago, I want to go there. You mentioned it completely changed the way you see something. It also reinforced things. But let's talk about the change. What's probably the biggest thing it changed? You're, you know, the way you thought about your mindset on something. And what have you done because of that? So I'll give an example and maybe I'll set the premise first of kind of what what we did in this project. So there was a, there was a Sean, Sean sort of kicked this idea off. And I think this had been in ruminating on his brain for a while. The idea that, so there's this, there's this, I'm, I'm in circles here. There's this guy named Randy Pouch, who was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. And he, he's not the guy who died from, like, was the kidney he gave his last. His last one. I'll go ahead and tell a story. Yeah, you got it. So he was a professor well beloved at the university. And he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And it was like, that's, that's, you know, that's the one that goes quick sometimes. And it, you know, is is very low sort of recovery rate from, I might be describing that wrong. But he, he was had the decision to make, which was, do I teach my last semester or not? Because I've been given, you know, four or five months to live probably. And he chose to then teach his last semester at the university. And, and, and then sort of built the whole semester around this concept of his last lecture and then had his last lecture at the end of the semester. And then he wrote, he wrote a book about this as well. He even did a TED talk where he was up on stage and, and talking about how, you know, doing pushups on stage, talking about how I'm, I'm, I'm really healthy right now. I feel great. And, you know, in five months, I'll, I'll be gone. I'll be dead. And it was just this powerful idea of what is, you know, what is, what do I distill? Everything I've learned in my life. What do I distill down into my last lecture for my students? And, and that concept is the really the premise of, of the book, which is that idea of a last lecture, that idea of this is what matters the most. And, and, and for him, it was like more broadly just in life in general. We have, Sean, Sean had started thinking about this more in the context of if I had my loved ones around and I was passing tomorrow and I had been a successful leader, what would I tell my kids about leadership? What's the one thing in leadership that mattered? You, you know, you, we interviewed over a hundred CEOs, senior leaders, professional athletes, politicians, you know, member of British parliament, like a broad spectrum across kind of the globe of people who have seemingly arrived at the top of their field. And, and the question we then asked all of them was, you know, looking back now, you have your family around you, you're, you're, you, you've made it, if you will. What was the one thing in leadership that like you learned? You learned a lot of things along the way and you learned a lot of great things. But what was the one thing that mattered the most? So that's the premise of the book. And we gathered all of all kind of all this research by talking to all these people and everything to still down into one of one of kind of 11 themes, 10 themes, if you will, that sort of everybody ultimately, after around, you know, interview 30 or 40, everyone started saying something that was similar. And so we started to kind of aggregate those concepts and those ideas together. And there were three overarching themes. One was kind of like the inner work, the roots. And so the title of the book, roots, relationships and results, the, the, the, a number of folks talked about roots and the ordered life, the concept of leading an ordered life and focusing on your inner, the inner work of yourself first. And that being what matters the most, then the second kind of group of themes was in relationships. It was the interpersonal. It was mastering the work between and those, you know, engaging cross functionally and helping guide people and people for people and what that actually means. And then the third was the concept of results. And it was how do you actually go win? And so I, you know, the most important leadership lesson was here's how you win. And here's how you get results with your team. And so the research sort of guided down to really 10 distinct attributes that ultimately everybody sort of laddered to. And so really fascinating. And I guess now to your original question, what changed? I think there. I've always been somebody who I think leaned more into the people are important at work side. Even though I'm a finance guy and I know that maybe a little bit counterintuitive, the numbers should drive the day, the model should win. I've always believed you can solve the world's problems with the good Excel model. Like everybody that should resonate with, you know, most finance people in the world. But I believe I think that what changed for me was this understanding that from talking to all these folks, that stuff just doesn't matter that much. When you talk about guiding and leading an organization, it does matter. You do have to hit your quarterly guidance. You do have to close the books and get your audit and and hit the numbers for the board and everything like that all does matter. But what really matters in driving an organization? And when you're a leader at the CEO and above level, and when they're talking about what matters the most in their career, it wasn't anything about that. It wasn't who made the best spreadsheet and what the best hotkey was. And like that stuff just never, never bubbled to the, this is what really matters level. And I think for me, what has changed is this broader perspective now around the core principles and themes that motivate people and that that I have to work on for for myself personally. to be a better leader for those around me. And I think it's just changed the way I approach leadership. It's the change the way I approach my team and it's changed the way I think of what a leader really should do. It's not whole people accountable and I mean, it is that, but it's not only that. I think it's also motivate, inspire, trust, be grateful. I mean, some of these core principles that emerged, you know, I'll just read a couple of them, like, grad it to-- - Go ahead and read the 10, go ahead and read them. - Yeah, sure. - The inner work or the ordered life, the work that matters, which aligns to that, but it's moving beyond outcomes to kind of people and in gratitude. The next one, leading when no one hands you the mic, so leadership without having a title, which is so, so powerful. Trusting leadership. I love chapter six, the irrationality of love. This concept that actually love is so powerful and like, who would ever talk about love in a business context? But the reality is that's so much of the leaders that we talked to, it came back to love it irrationally, irrationally in business setting. Love is actually the most powerful thing that you can build and instill in your organization. Listening at full presence, it was the next one. The next one was failure, grace, and the long game. So how failure can actually, how having failure and receiving and giving grace can really play into the right long game for the organization. The ninth was define winning and then build humans. So layout the vision is a little bit what we were talking about before. The idea of casting a vision that's so clear that everybody's aligned to it. This is what winning looks like and then people can align and ladder and win. And then the last being sort of the power of small wins, stacking small win after small win after small win to build momentum as an organization. So I think for me what changed the most was sort of this concept of the roots, those first few around the ordered life and the inner work that you have to do as a leader to be able to then go and affect actually the interrelational work and then get the wins, this arc of leadership. I think that my inner work has needed work and I've been approaching it differently since these conversations. - It'll interesting. So is a listen to what you share there feels like it starts with yourself or things you need to change, or things you need to be doing, what's that foundation? Then it goes out to others and there are some principles you have to do. One of those core being is actually really caring and loving people. That's a part of great leadership. And then there's that vision and setting some of the things you talked about where you got the building blocks that allow you to translate that in a way that allows you to be successful in an organization. - Absolutely. We met with Steven and Mark Covey. We interviewed him for the book and he's kind of-- - Speed of trust. - Yes, Speed of trust. World renowned sort of leader in that capacity. And one of the most remarkable humans I've ever met, actually, it was fascinating. And he actually spoke at a conference that we did four or zero res a few years ago. And so when we had called him up based on that connection we had. And he talked, Speed of trust is his thing, right? And he speaks almost every week probably. And he wrote a book and it's really impactful. Check it out. But the Speed of trust, it talks about being trustworthy and gaining and earning trust in the workplace. Like that's the whole premise. As we talked to him for this book and he was sort of thinking, you know, what actually is the one thing I would tell my kids, he's like, you know, trust, that's what I do. It's what I talk about, it's what I teach, it's what I know and I believe in it. And he said, what I mostly talk about is being trustworthy and earning and gaining that trust. And he said, that's only part of the game. You know, as I think about this, the real thing is actually getting beyond that to actually being a trusting leader, not just a trusted leader and earning that trust, but actually now extending as a leader from being trustworthy to actually being trusting. And to hear him talk about that and sort of this unlock in his mind around what that actually means. He told some very great stories about leaders who had done that for him. And it caused me to think about stories where leaders had done that for me. And every single time that happened, it was this moment where everything changed. Like this point in time, someone extends trust in you in a different way as a leader and then everything changed for you beyond that. Or for me, at least I can tell that story. And he had examples of that story for himself. I think most people could probably think of a moment in time when one leader did something that shifted this model of trust and gave them a completely different trajectory and perspective on life kind of coming out of it. And it was powerful. And so trying to approach conversations with people you work with, with some of these kind of leading guiding principles, there was nothing about, let me help you with your analysis in the meeting where these life changing moments happened. It was this moment of, I'm extending trust to you in this way. And it's gonna put you in an uncomfortable position for a minute and also gonna give you a moment to really lean in and shine. And you're never gonna have that opportunity if you're just focused on the day job and churning out whatever you have to do. And you as a leader are helping your people do that. That's great, that's table stakes, that's the day job. But like giving somebody, extending that trust to somebody to do something different and take something to an entirely new level and break the model, that's where real change happens. And so anyway, that was one that stuck out to me as we were talking. - So as you said that, I can't help but think of when I was 20 years old missionary, I should have mission for churches, Chess Larry Saints and art. We have a mission president and the wife is speaking to all of us, reminding us of things we should and shouldn't be doing, mostly shouldn't probably. And she sets up that always stuck with me, and I think it goes along with what you're saying. And as I listen to you, I kind of take a different angle on it. So she goes, and she said you use the term elders, like elders and sisters, it's better to be trusted than to be loved. And her point was, I'm gonna love you guys no matter what. It doesn't mean I trust you. But as I heard you say that, I think if you flip that and also say, it's better to be trusting than to just be loving. Like yeah, the people that love everybody in the organization and they're great, but they don't, you're not being trusting of them and they're not inspiring and they're not pushing the best out of them. It's like you have to have both. You have to have the trust, you need to be able to trust somebody, but you also need to be trusting not just the loving side. And if I had had this long conversation about love and trust in a pod talk on FPNA. - Sorry about that. - And you try, no, I love it. I think it's fun intended. It's great, but your thoughts on that, I don't know if you've ever heard that quote, but just if you have any thoughts there as I shared that. That's kind of the thoughts that came to mind to me as I heard you talk. - Yeah, no, I love it. I think it's great. It gets at a broader theme, which is like, we're all humans here having this human experience together and we're building an organization together and these interpersonal themes, like trusting, loving is sort of not conditional, to your point, you're talking about what that looks like. I think it all gets at a broader concept, which is people are people and at work, sometimes we forget to see people as people. I think we start to see people as resources and people as tools that can get a job done for me. And I believe, and what these leaders have validated with all of the conversations we had, that isn't what wins. That's not effective leadership. That's not what matters. And the way you build people to get a win in your organization is to break that and it's to have the trust. It's to extend kind of the love and see people as more than just a resource. And I think trusting and loving, like those go together into that concept specifically of the human experience, if you will, the personal experience that we're all having together. - Yeah, got it. Now, great on that. So next, in a minute who we're going to get to the FPNC and the Get To Know You section, I think I can go for a couple more hours, but I know we both have jobs to do. So there's, I want to ask two things. Was there a, I can't believe I'm talking to this person moment. Are one of those moments where you're just kind of like, almost fanboy or like, am I, I'm actually interviewing this person. And you're laughing because I can tell there was a few interviews 100 pretty famous people. What was that moment like for you? - You know what, there were two. You know, I grew up as a, I grew up as a Kansas City Chiefs fan. And I grew up in Kansas City. So I'm not just one of those bandwagon people who jumped on in the last 10 years, but there's room for everybody. But in that growing up, I had two teams. Kansas City Chiefs were always my diehard number one, but I was a massive San Francisco 49ers fan. And they were in the NFC and the Chiefs were in the AFC. So it was okay to have a team in both divisions. And I loved the San Francisco 49ers because their quarterback was a guy named Steve Young. And, you know, before that, you know, Joe Montana, there's so much legacy there. And I, but Steve Young specifically was somebody who I just idolized as a kid. And so we met with Steve. We talked to Steve and he was a contributor in this book. That was one of the best interviews we had. In fact, he really, he wrote a book recently on love. And he's an incredible storyteller. I've watched him present. He's great. - Unbelievable, right? So he had written a book about love. And it was funny as we were talking about this book and this concept, it just went deep into. He's like, no, I'm really thinking about love a lot right now, but I feel like I didn't quite get there with my book. I feel like I missed a certain-- aspect to it. And now we're really getting into some of the stuff that I missed in this conversation around what that actually looks like in an organization. And so it was really fascinating conversation. And the other one that I, you know, from a finance upbringing and somebody who came up in the finance ranks in the corporate world, you know, Gary Crittenden, who was the CFO of Citibank, and he was at American Express when I, yeah, know exactly who he is. He was somebody who I had known about, read about, and sort of followed from a distance for a number of years. And we, we were privileged to be able to spend some time with him and interview him as well. It was just fascinating and remarkable. And again, example of some of the, some of the people who made it to the quote, pinnacle, if you will, of their profession. And, and then then looking back and he, he was just so thoughtful and insightful in what his learnings were. I can see where those VB fanboy moments, both of those getting to interview that, that's awesome. Love, love those. Last story I want to share before we get into kind of some of the more standard FPNA section questions. One of the leaders shared something that you said really kind of impacted you when we had lunch. And they said the whole idea of saying as soon as they talked about that concept, lay that one out for us. Yeah. So, you know, someone who we talked to, one of the CEOs talked about this idea of, you know, I don't live anymore. And I would tell my children to never say this phrase as soon as I X the point was we let less important urgent tasks crowd out the really important stuff. But less urgent people in priorities. So people in priorities in our lives are really important, more important, but less urgent. And we sometimes let the less important, but more urgent tasks override all of that. And this idea of as soon as I do this, then I'll do why. As soon as I finish this project, I'll hit as soon as I hit financial security, as soon as I get my degree, as soon as I have more experience, as soon as and I'm a victim of this in my victim, maybe I don't know, I've done this in my life over and over again in my career. Well, as soon as I get a few years into my career, I can, you know, I'll spend more time at home, or as soon as I, whatever. And as soon as I start reach X income level, then I'm going to, I'm going to finally feel like content and happy. And I think, I think it's so easy to do those things. And this, this CEO just talked about this is a complete, you know, lie. The milestone will always move. The person and the priority that you're neglecting will always be left waiting. And, you know, this, this concept, I think, was actually something else that really resonated with me a lot. And has, I saw myself in this and, and I continue to even now see myself in this. And it's something that I will always have to challenge. Yeah, even as I listen to talk, I was thinking of things where it's kind of changing how I might spend the rest of my day. Or, you know, because I, I get caught up in that as soon as it's been for the last four years. As soon as I get to business to this point, as soon as the revenues at this level, as soon as I have this time, we all do it. I'm very guilty of it. So I, that one really resonated with me. So I wanted to make sure we got that one in because I think it's one that if we're not careful, if we're not actively watching against it, we all do it. Our most of us do. It's just, it's so easy because we think, you know, or the grass will be greener when that whole idea of when this happens or when life is always happening, you have to live to a certain extent in the moment. I agree. And if you can't carve that out, it doesn't mean that there aren't certain times and priorities where they're going to, you know, certain times, you're going to be really, really busy and a certain thing because that's true. But also, you, as soon as I game, we'll just keep going. I think specifically to the beginning of, of, to the beginning days of my career. And I did a lot of as soon as I storytelling to myself. Because we're all crafting this vision of, okay, here's how my career arc's going to go. And here's what I'm going to do. And here's how I get to my whatever insert freedom here. And to the absolute detriment of my family, my children, my daughter, who I didn't even hardly see when she was her first couple years of her life, because I was just never, I was never home. And that's not, that's not to say that it was wrong. I don't know if it was right or wrong. I know that I was investing in early early in my career. I was investing in myself and the learnings and all the things that came with my first job. But I also know that it had a high cost. And I think if I had had a different perspective, in some ways, I might have measured the return on my time a little bit differently. So I'm going to share, you know who Larry H. Miller is. Yeah. He's been dead now for 20 years or 15 years, quite a while. But he taught a class when I was at NYU on an entrepreneurship class. And he brings in his wife one day. So entrepreneurs will have an understanding what it's like being the spouse of an entrepreneur. But he shared, he goes, I work 80 hours a week every week. He was diabetic. And he would leave the house with the candy bar and he'd often come home with nothing but the candy bar, having not eaten. Part of why, unfortunately, he didn't live as long as he should have. But that was his obsessive work, nature, I don't work, everybody goes, during that time, I was a terrible carrot. Like I made a lot of sacrifices to get where I at. And he said, was that the right thing? He's like, yeah, I should have been more at home. Of course, I should have. At the same time, I now have opportunities to serve and give people and donate millions of dollars and make a huge difference in the world. And that also matters to me. So kind of like what you said, it's like, should you have been, if you go back and do it again, and the answer is, yeah, I should have been more at home. But at the same time, are there things I am able to do now because of that? And you'll never know. That's just kind of the intertwined of life. So all you can do is look back and say, what should I learn from it? What can I do going forward? And it was a really good learning lesson as a young 22, 23 at the time to kind of hear that perspective to help you realize the importance of balance. But also, it's not always as clear cut as everybody thinks. That is true. And therein lies all of our unique story, right? Because some people are going to choose a certain direction and some people are going to choose a different response to any given situation. And that's how we get different outcomes in all of our individual journeys. It's really, it's kind of fascinating. My favorite thing to do is talk to people about those specific moments in their lives when it's like, when did, when, how did you choose to handle this situation? And how did you choose to handle this situation? And what did that result in five years down the road for you? And none of them are wrong. It's just, it's just you, it's choose your own adventure book. I remember those as a kid. Yeah. All right. So I'm going to switch up the questions I typically ask because I've asked you a couple of these before a few years ago. So I made tweak them a little bit. FPNA, what is the number one technical skill FPNA professionals should be focusing on or need a master with the idea of one day they want to be a CFO. So not necessarily for their job today with the goal of being a CFO. It's always going to be, I guess, we're saying technical only not soft. So we're doing technical. I'll get the soft next. You get both. So let's do technical first soft next. Yeah. I don't know how I answered this the last time we talked, but I'd have to go back and listen. I don't remember exactly either. Maybe it's the same. Maybe it's not. But what I think of right now as the most important thing if you want to become a CFO one day to understand is actually a simple thing. It's not a simple thing. It's a thing that I think everyone can do. Master the three statement model. And specifically it's understand what an income statement is, what a balance sheet is, and what a cash flow statement is, how they work together, but then build a DCF, a discounted cash flow using that model and understand how one change in your P&L or one change in your balance sheet affects the value of an organization in a DCF. Those that one thing, it's not one thing. It requires a lot of different skills to be able to do that. But if you can master that thing, build a three statement model, build a DCF and then play with scenarios of what happens when I change something here or there. I think that's exactly what a CFO's job includes a lot of the time is thinking about what happens to the business value when I do X, what happens to the equity value when I do Y. And being able to articulate that, understand that, speak to that in board meetings is a critical skill. So it's a technical skill I think everyone can do and should do. Good answer. I, there's so much value in understanding those levers that you can pull. You learn them by really understanding the interaction between those three statements. Yep. Soft skill. This one's going to be, we probably hit it 10 times already. It's partnering, it's building trusting relationships. I didn't say trusted by the way. I said, trusting based on our conversation with Mark. It's building trusting relationships cross functionally outside of finance and accounting. You know, CFO isn't just someone who's controlling the books and delivering accurate forecasts. You have to be a strategic partner at the executive table. And that has to run consistently through the whole finance org. You have to build a culture of that is who finance is at this organization. It's the single skill that compounds the most over a career. So 100% building trusting relationships cross functionally outside of finance and accounting, which I hope and believe everybody in FBA now understands or believes that to be the case as well. I think there's probably other answers to it, but this is the one that I think stands out. Great answer. All right. Here's the get to know you sections. I have three questions we have and then we'll wrap up here. First one, if you can have any job in the world for one week, what's it going to be and why? This one's so easy for me. Wimbledon Ballboy. I figured you're going to say quarterback of the chiefs. Well, that would be fun too. Now, I grew up playing and watching tennis. And now every year I watch Wimbledon, I am genuinely in awe of these people who work on the court as the ballboys and ballgirls. It's a genuinely hard job. to land. I think I looked it up a few years ago under 20% of applicants actually even get a spot. They have to do training. They, you know, I've always wanted to be right in the middle of the action instead of watching from the stance. That's what I'd want to do. So you still big kind of splire? I don't play as much as I would like to. Got it. Okay. If your life had a theme song, what's that song going to be? What's your theme song? You know the song "Land Slide" by Fleetwood Mac? I'm going to have to go listen to it. I'm not familiar with that one. So Stevie Nicks wrote this before Fleetwood Mac was really a thing, but looked she was in Aspen looking at a mountain and wondering if she could handle whatever was coming next. And that's kind of the context of the lyrics. And I think, you know, one of the chorus lines is, can I handle the seasons of my life? I think that resonates with me is sort of being a little bit introspective and thoughtful about what's coming and how am I going to handle it? And then having a little bit of like a triumphant moment, you know, I made it type of concept. So not that I've made it. I'm not saying that, but that journey is what resonates with me. So whoever's listening, John has arrived. He made it. I'm kidding. Well, it's perhaps that part. All right. So last question. If someone wants to get a hold of your book, you know, get in contact with you, best way to do that. Go ahead and plug that. Sure. So I guess by the time this comes out, the book will be available, roots, relationships, and results. Major book retailers, Amazon's probably the easiest, but it's available on, you know, Barnes and Noble and other places as well. Got a website out there, roots, relationships, results.com also just find me on social LinkedIn is probably the easiest. I'm always somewhere on social and you can't invite them to the prison cafe. It no longer exists. They move the prison and shut it down. So if anyone was thinking they would offer a prison time cafe or serving time, that was the name was serving time cafe. That's right. Well, yeah, I'm happy to go to lunch anywhere else, but that one's out. All right. Well, thank you so much, John. A real pleasure having you on the show. I have to do it again sometime. Good luck with the book. I'm sure it will do great. Love the example she shared. Thanks a lot, Paul. Appreciate it. Good to spend some time. That's it for today's episode of FPNA Unlocked. If you enjoy FPNA Unlocked, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's the best way to support the FPNA guy and help more FPNA professionals discover the show. Remember, you can earn CPE credit for this episode by visiting earmarkcpe.com downloading the app and completing the quiz. If you need continuing education credits for the FPAC certification, complete the quiz and reach out to me directly. Thanks for listening. I'm Paul Barners, the FPNA guy, and I'll see you next time.