It is funny how many times I have found myself in a new position at a company or getting a promotion in my job and realizing that I really don’t understand what everyone else does in the business. I mean, I know what their title is and sort of get the function they play, but as to exactly what fills their day—err, ahh, no.
Here is a good example, your company probably has a finance department. Depending on the size of the company that may be very large or just one or two people. So, you obviously know they work with numbers, manage P&L’s, handle accounts payable and accounts receivable; right? But what does that mean relative to what happens in sales? Marketing? Procurement? This is where it gets a little funky.
Here is an example, I was working for a mid-sized company, about 500 people, and we had a finance team of about 20 people. There were business analysts, finance managers, accountant types and a CFO. As a salesperson at the time, I really had no clue of what they actually did—so when I needed approval on a program I was building for a customer the fact that they did not get back to me immediately was a travesty. I remember thinking to myself, “Seriously, if it wasn’t for me closing these deals you wouldn’t even have a job, and it takes you 24 hours to approve what I know my customer will buy?”
So, I am sure it is not lost on you that my point of view was one-sided, but I really felt that way. Why in the world would anything else be more important than this? So, I acted like a baby until I got my way. The deal closed, emails were sent around about how wonderful I was, and the finance person who helped make sure the deal fit our P&L model was not thought of again until I was working on the next deal.
Do you think that person liked me? Well, probably not. But in my mind, who really cares. I was making my numbers, the business was hitting its numbers, and that person was just stroking the keyboard. Right? It is not like I called them an idiot, or told them their opinion did not matter, I just pushed through my agenda because that is my job. Realistically, that person was balancing a heck of a lot more than I ever realized.
I ended up running into this person at a corporate event, held up my glass to do a “cheers” with her and she put a smile on her face and said, “Hey, how are you?” I responded with the typical small talk. That same week, I saw her frantically working on something. She looked flat- out stressed, so I backed off a bit and just smiled. She looked at me and said, “What do you need?” and I replied (in as charming a voice as I could muster) “Ahhh, nothing, thanks, everything alright?” She replied, “No, I am trying to work on this acquisition due diligence, I have to do variance analysis on our monthly numbers and need to leave early for my daughter’s play.”
I was silent.
All of a sudden I remembered how I acted I was when I needed my program approved. I really had no clue that she was working on all of this other stuff. Well, in fairness, I guess no one ever told me. But that was sort of an excuse, wow, I was “‘that person.”’
This was my first experience (25 years old) of realizing I had no clue what everyone else was doing at this company. She was working on due diligence for an acquisition? What the (blank) is due diligence? We are acquiring a company? Am I supposed to know that? Is variance analysis what the words would imply? Or is it something else? Do you mean to tell me there is more to this place than me selling some stuff? OK, time to rethink this, man I am being a jerk. And she has kids? Who the heck knew that?
This set me on a bit of a mission. I remember going home that night to my apartment and considering how I would act if I actually knew what was taking up her day, as opposed to just thinking about my priorities. And what about those people in product development? Web development? Marketing? Procurement? Oh man, I really don’t know what any of these people do.
I decided to learn.
I started asking questions instead of making demands, literally, like “So, how do we create one of the mini -P&L’s for a project like this one I am working on?” To my astonishment, people actually wanted to tell me. Things like “costs of goods” (COGs), time allocation, sales commissions, and more went into the analysis. This made me realize there was more science to business management than simply stroking cells on the excel spreadsheet.
I started taking it further; picking up the occasional sandwich for folks on the product side (in this case an editorial team of writers) and talking to them about the state of the market, and how they create their content. This was cool because they sort- of seemed aloof and distant from anyone on the revenue side of the business, but just shooting the breeze over pastrami on rye broke those walls down. It gave me an appreciation for what they were working on, and I learned (later on) that it gave them an appreciation of what I was working on.
Let me be fully clear, none of this was directed from the top or put in as a policy for the business to be more “collaborative” (I hate that word), instead, it was just a know it all kid trying to be less of a jerk.
Interestingly, I started to become a person that would come up with ideas on the marketing side, or special content sections for our editorial product and started creating my own P&L’s that I would share with the business analyst group as I started building a program. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was teaching myself how to run a business all because I was trying to be less of a jerk. I started learning about the processes and strategy while sharing what I knew as well.
This was really the beginning of my emotional intelligence journey —and it had nothing to do with trying to BS my way into being liked, it was just the fact that I wanted to learn what made the business run (and realizing I was not being cool).
I didn’t even know I was creating emotional intelligence.
Can you relate to the
Till next time,
@realS2UI
