Unlock Doors to Opportunity

TLDR: Having financial acumen and speaking the language of business will ensure that you aren't locked out of career opportunities.

You might have noticed in a past podcast that I recorded several in the town of El Rompido in Spain, where I had quite an adventure.

I was in an Airbnb and when I checked in, the caretaker said, "If the winds pick up, please close the awnings." 

About three days into my stay, I was sitting in the living room in a sundress and bare feet, when the wind started blowing quite intensely.

I Got Locked Out

So I got up, opened the living room door, went out to the patio to close the awning and a gust of wind blew the door shut.

Now, this was one of those European style doors that are always locked.

Needless to say, I flew into a mild panic, but I remembered having seen a police station on my walk around town. So here I am in a sundress blowing hither and yon by the wind gusts, bare feet walking down the main road toward the police station. 

I also remembered  that small town police stations often are closed. So I had in the back of my mind that I might not be able to find a police officer to help with my situation.

At the first corner, I found a woman standing outside of a lovely shop and I explained what had happened in my wildly deficient Spanish. And I asked if I could use her computer to maybe find the Airbnb host and get in touch with her that way, because of course I had left my phone in the living room. 

Long story short. I couldn't reach the host. The police station was indeed closed. She had to call police from the next town over, who saved the day by borrowing a ladder from the restaurant across the street, going in through the master bedroom slider, which luckily I had left open, and letting me back in to the house.

Learn the Language of Business

Why am I telling you this story? It's because I've been thinking about the importance of financial acumen And the tendency of so many women I've met to dismiss it as unimportant. When in fact, it is the language of business.

I don't know what would have happened to me or how long it might have taken to resolve my situation if I didn't speak Spanish albeit imperfectly. I had the confidence that I would be able to resolve my situation because I did speak Spanish. I was able to speak up and ask for help because I did speak Spanish.

There's a very real danger in dismissing the importance of financial acumen when it comes to all of the career enablers that help women have rewarding, fulfilling careers.

Speaking the language of business:

• Enhances your ability to self promote.
• Will enhance your confidence.
• Adds  to your leadership brand.
• Assures that when it comes to delivering business savvy messages, you are able to demonstrate executive presence.
• Makes it easier to figure out  who to connect with inside and outside the organization to solve organizational challenges, thereby strengthening your network.

And I could go on.

It's funny, so many years after starting my career, that I'm here talking about the importance of financial acumen because, as with so many of the women I meet, I always thought:

• I was a people-person, not a numbers-person.
• That leadership success was about human interaction - never thought it had to do with business savvy.
• Financial reports were indecipherable, and
• That all hands meetings talking about the performance of the business were just so much blah, blah, blah.

When in fact, I would have been so well served if someone had said to me then, as I am saying to you now, the language of business is the language of outcomes.

Financial reporting is one of the most important ways that your executives and the board,  analysts and shareholders understand how well your organization is doing. That's not to say that there aren't other non financial metrics that matter. And I do talk about those  in the Business Savvy You! course.

There I pair financial acumen, with the course on strategic acumen because you cannot build strategic acumen or demonstrate strategic acumen without a grounding in business acumen that gives you your grounding in financial acumen. 

Avoid Getting Locked Out

No actionable tips in this podcast. Instead, I want to leave you with this important final message, 

If you want to thrive inside an organization (whether for profit or nonprofit) you must enhance your financial acumen so that you are speaking the language of business and so you don't stay locked out of career opportunities in the way that I could have stayed locked out of my rental house.

Catch you next time,
Susan