Business Acumen Blog

Kevin Cope, the owner of Acumen Learning, has the tradition of a company dog pile for each employee birthday boy. On his 50th birthday, out of justified fear of getting taken down, Kevin hired 2 bouncers and his three sons to protect him. Unbeknownst to his employees, they were to keep him from hitting the couch. But Acumen Learning men are not to be beaten, and with all the energy of honoring their boss, Kevin was taken down.

We understand our jobs. The big picture, on the other hand, seems so complex.

Complexity is an underlying challenge in any business, regardless of size, industry, or stage of development. Large companies, especially, have many moving parts—departments and divisions (always reorganizing), product lines (always changing), layers of management, unclear decision-making processes, shifting budgets, new strategies. A small problem within any single element might produce a ripple effect throughout the organization, requiring major repairs. But without knowing the true source of the difficulty (not always readily identifiable), we might “tinker” and fix the wrong thing.

Developing business acumen helps us cut through this complexity, get a bird’s eye view of a business, and understand our specialized roles within it. Simplifying complexity and broadening our understanding of our business better enables us to fix present problems, prevent new ones, and take advantage of opportunities to grow.

How do we simplify the complex? By looking at the key drivers that make all the parts run. When you break down even the largest, most complex multinational company—like Exxon Mobil or Boeing—into its most fundamental elements, you’ll find the same drivers that power your business, or any business. What are those drivers?

How did we distill it down to these five? We used the core financial statements—the income statement (profit), the balance sheet (assets), and the statement of cash flows (cash)—as the foundation. These are the statements every company uses to judge its current strength and its future prospects. The fourth driver—growth—is reflected in all of these statements and for public companies is an important objective for shareholders. And the fifth driver is quite simple—without good employees and vendors providing value to paying customers, the other four drivers cease to exist.

Like the twenty-six characters of the English alphabet, the 5 Key Drivers combine in a multitude of ways to form the foundation of organization, products, market position, financing, human resource decisions, and every other strategy or decision in a company. Leaders must set and achieve goals and obtain results in these five areas in order to achieve the most important objective for any company: long-term, sustainable profitability.

The 5 Key Drivers will help you to understand and visualize how even the most complicated business can be analyzed and improved. And to learn how you can better contribute to your company’s success, to become more visible and valuable.

You’ve probably heard of these essential elements, but you may not really understand their full importance and interdependence in creating sustainable financial success. While each driver is unique, it is also completely dependent on all of the other drivers. You cannot affect one without influencing performance of another. Leaders have to take the connections between the drivers into account as they make their decisions, or they risk becoming overly focused on one driver and leading a business into the ground.

Your ability to understand these relationships and affect these drivers through your decisions and actions can increase your own ability to contribute to the long-term profitability and growth of your company. But to do this, you need to understand how people communicate about these drivers.

The language of business is finance. And finance means numbers. And numbers intimidate many people. But if you think of financial statements like you would a health report from your doctor, you may not be as intimidated. You don’t need to understand every number or how it was calculated, but recognizing a critical few pieces of information—those that reflect the 5 Key Drivers—will help you understand the health of any company.

• If you want to be more visible and valued, then demonstrate that you understand how your department or unit fits into the big picture of the overall business.
• If you want to influence the thinking and decisions of your supervisor or manager, address the topics that senior leaders, including your boss, are concerned about. Communicate your ideas and proposals in language that he or she understands.
• If you want to be seen as a major contributor, show that you understand the relationships among the key drivers of your overall business—not just how your department works.
• If you want to be a more effective leader, better able to engage your team, link your team’s actions with the overall needs and strategic goals of the company identified by senior management.

Keep in mind, even your manager might not be as knowledgeable in some of these areas as you think. But I encourage you to ask questions and be willing to act on the answers. You’ll be recognized as a contributor—somebody who demonstrates business acumen through savvy questions and effective actions. In short, you’ll be acknowledged as someone who sees the big picture.

If you’ve read our last two posts you are well aware that Kevin Cope gets raving feedback whenever he has an opportunity to speak. Well, the accolades continue to come in and I’m going to blog them, until someone tells me to stop.

Recently Kevin received a perfect 5 on his Speaker Evaluation and a 4.93 for his Session Average at Richmond Events CLO Forum (it doesn’t get much better than that).

Dear Kevin:

The 2010 CLO & Talent Managemnt Forum has received excellent reviews from its attendees, thanks in huge part to your hard work for providing the Forum with enlightening and provocative conference session.

Each year, attendees are asked to provide feedback on the quality and content of the conference program, which allows us to gauge our effectiveness and level of success.  As a speaker at the Forum, we’d like to share the results with you.  The attendees were asked to give each session a rating between 1 and 5 (with 5 being excellent and 1 being poor).

We’ve analyzed the results from your session evaluations with the following results: 

Overall Value as a Learning Experience
4.91    Content Quality
4.91    Content match to program description
4.96    Needs met

4.93    Session Average

Speaker Evaluation
5.00    Presentation delivery

The following comments were also made about your session:

• Excellent session. Could easily be a keynote with more time
• All presentations should be at this level
• Increased our xxx on the spot! The proof is in the pudding. It was delicious!
• Excellent presentation
• Excellent job showcasing your offering. Well delivered, highly engaging
• Far and away the best presentation I’ve seen so far
• Have the impact list pre-printed.
• Loved interaction /w polling & videos & challenge to think bigger picture. Loved that this wasn’t a sales heavy pres. Painted big picture of the pain and an ‘easy’ solution
• Best session so far. Engaging & excellent. A bit less writing of bullets on screen so could attend. Some ok not so much
• Very helpful info
• Good interaction material. Real timer noting – good learning tool
• Excellent
• The presenter presented difficult info in a very simple, straightforward way. He made it interesting & engaging. I learned an awful lot

Kevin, thank you, again, so much, for all the time and effort you generously provided in putting together your session, and for your participation in making this year’s Forum another resounding success!  Please feel free to call us if you have any questions.

Many thanks!
Chyai
Richmond Events

The SHRM 2010 ANNUAL CONFERENCE & EXPOSITION featured more than 150 breakout sessions featuring leading experts speaking on some of the most important HR topics, including talent management, legislative compliance, strategic HR practices, and global HR issues.

Twenty-five of these experts received a speaker rating of 4.8 or higher (out of 5), making an exclusive list of SHRM’s Top Rated speakers.

Kevin Cope’s Building Business Acumen session almost made this list… just kidding! He made the list.

Here’s the list…
SHRM’s Top Rated Speakers PDF

And we’re not shy, here’s a scanned copy of Kevin’s scores and attendee comments…
Kevin’s Scores & Feedback

Keep in mind that Kevin doesn’t throw out stuffed carrots and talk about soft skills like positive thinking or inspiring creativity. He’s taking the subject of business acumen head on – a subject that most folks shy away from. So what is it about Kevin’s approach to finance that  gets an HR person to comment, “Best session of the conference!”

There’s likely a lot of answers, but as I sat and listened to the boss-man give his spill, it struck me that financial conversations are too often reserved for the c-suite, and such a mentality creates a culture of exclusion. It must be refreshing for an attendee to be brought in on an intelligent dialogue about the inner-workings of business, to be regarded as a business person first, and an HR professional second.

One last observation, the room was full of HR professionals of varying degrees of experience. Surly some were well versed in the language of finance and could have easily walked us through their company’s latest financial results. Others would likely never admit this to their boss, but they find financial conversations painfully intimidating. But it’s interesting that the scores and feedback were universally kick-butt positive. Nobody made the comment that the material was too basic, and nobody said the material was over their head. I think this is a clear indication that Acumen Learning is onto something! Our approach to business acumen is unique and different from other ideas out there. It’s an approach that resonates with business people who want to make a difference within their sphere of responsibility.

We’ve received Kevin Cope’s “ASTD 2010 International Conference & Exposition Session Evaluation Summary Report” (that’s a mouthful). The scores and feedback were once again outstanding – and we’re going to prove it this year by posting the reports and all 101 comments (even the two comments that were not so positive) here on our blog. We’ve highlighted some of our favorite comments in green and our not-so-favorite comments in red.
Keep in mind that these were hand written comments and ASTD converted them, so some of the comments might read a little funny.

P.S.
If you’re planning an executive retreat, a leadership summit, a sales conference… whatever… we’d love to be on your keynote shortlist. Give us a call today: 801-224-5444.

Reports…

Building Business Acumen Session 1
Building Business Acumen Session 2

Comments…

1. My favorite class so far. Moved at a good speed & included audience nice skill! Liked the voting buttons. Good videos!
2. Excellent info, great presentation skills & interaction great presentation in tough subject!
3. Excellent!
4. 5 basic element were great loved the contracting content, and humor
5. Know your business so that your ###
6. Outstanding
7. Great session. Challenging concepts made easy! Interactive – great presenter.
8. Loved the video clips to make a point polling was great will take some quotes back to the office & post them for everyone to see
9. Best session I have attended so far. I have information to share with my business leaders that will help them see that value my team can add to the business…the impact of L & D!!
10. I am now interested in knowing more about my company’s annual performance
11. The content was to basic for me, but I did get a sense of how to approach teaching others who are at the beginner stage with business acumen.
12. Great speaker – great info!
13. B.A. was an area which “needed improvement” on my 360: l learned a lot from this presentation to take back w/ me. Thanks ###, to remember cash, profit
14. Presentation was invaluable!! Many take aways – knowing where my company stamps and asking my boss ### & question!
15. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I learned more in your 1-hr session then a year with my boss
16. Great presenter.
17. Great presenter. Awesome engaging
18. Great session. Great presenter!
19. Would have been better if we got the handout w/the slides I was taking dictation for most of the session.
20. Entertaining, in formatting, challenging session. Encouraged to learn more on the topic
21. This session was fairly disappointing. I think that Kevin knows some great information but presentation pace, etc. hampered the information. The pace in too fast in the number at slides, etc. ram slides on screen for about 20 in most cases which is ### and counter ###
22. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and for making the printouts useful and not just a copy of your slide deck.
23. Appreciated the presenter taking conceptual info & making it applicable
24. Outstanding – very effective in a short time
25. Present / describe as more relevant for “for profit org” consider – integrating a not for profit approach
26. Nice info. But was I in the correct session. Look at the description of tu104.
27. Excellent model to teach learning profession
28. I work for Fed gov’t. There isn’t competition in our market. I will have conversation w/ customers regarding gaps, Great suggestion.
29. Great interactive used during session.
30. Great speaker, engaging, valuable information that you can relate too.
31. Used survey technology to re-in force learning
32. Very practical & I learned some new ways I can have an impact at my company. Excellent session
33. Really build the pace & enthusiasm good refined delivered in an interesting & relevant way.
34. Thank you for the interactivity
35. The give aways were unexpected but not really needed because the session content and delivery were excellent. Really liked the way examples were integrated throughout that we could relate to.
36. This discussion was by for the best investment of my time so far relative to others attended at this conference.
37. Great session!!
38. At row your company
39. Define. ### how an impact on helps employees understand how they fit into the big picture
40. Kevin used the AR ### well – was very engaging and covered a dry topic in an entertaining way.
41. Words be helpful to ### skills to ### to the answerless of the model
42. Business acumen – imperative to tie learning metrics to financials so learning can be seen as an investment, tangible & intangible, rather than as an experience – Kevin Cope nailed it – excellent content/ platform
43. Very engaging presentation – informative, relatable & keep my interest
44. Great interaction w/ audience. Put content into understandable terms great practical, usable information. Great videos
45. Great presenter! Good topic to learn more about that we in L & D don’t always focus on, but need.
46. Would be nice to have handout to make notes on
47. Good facilitation skills. Compact but well – organized PT.
48. Great presentation!
49. Wow! Fun & interesting presentation! The best class I’ve seen to this year!
50. Best presenter and applicable content. Loved it!
51. Nice to use clackers
52. Really helped me to decide to quit my team on our business. Puts big picture perspective.
53. Session was good however, more attention could have been ### to ###
54. I will get to know my company better – thanks for ### light to this
55. Phenomenal
56. Great communication
57. Excellent!
58. Best thus far!
59. Real time voting was a great activity. Helpful presentation – good info presented in engaging manner good pacing – great examples that brought principles to life
60. Excellent! Best session of the conference so far! Well done
61. Best session of conference so far! Will definitely follow-up after conference.
62. This was great. Thanks!
63. Realistic to today events
64. High energy presenter. Excellent use of technology & facilitation methods to rein force concepts. Learned.
65. Great session. Interactive, fun & informative. Well done!
66. Best presenter I have seen at the conference so far. Thanks so much – guard task
67. I expected this session to the buck to L & D more. However, I did learn ideas I can apply to work and personally. Good session
68. Taught very systematically. Made it learnable..Taught there would be non about personal credibility – didn’t really feel like “gaining personal credibility”
69. Excellent & very practiced & immediately can apply content.
70. Excellent – best session this week
71. Excellent speaker, format, learning aides. Fantastic!
72. Great session! He really boiled down “business acumen” into understanding chunks.
73. Learned a lot about, and refreshed my business acumen but difficult to align with ting & development. Very interactive session. Good use of a variety of presentation techniques that work.
74. Great job – very valuable. Thank you.
75. This session was phenomenal
76. Excellent! Favorite/best ROI of all sessions so far!
77. A lot of energy – excellent great audience participation
78. Good
79. This session alone was worth every penny I paid for the conference! It was so valuable I am going to completely change my approach to T & D.
80. Great presentation!
81. Great session!
82. Excellent session!
83. In my 40 years of owning business and working for a large corp, most still do not understand the importance of people.
84. Repeat comments from audience so everyone can hear
85. Excellent
86. Good points except customer service – Nord stroms is not # 1 (Kohls is) and doesn’t have the highest profit margin
87. Amazing session! Thank you
88. Did not realize the focus was on sales. As a non-profit-did not apply. Thought it would be more introspective
89. Better understanding in loyman’s terms of the fine bush, dreners. Will pick up job aid in your booth usp, appreciated how the handled feedback from bear of room of when he acknowledge answers from audience. Kudo’s & well done!
90. Excellent session – one of the best so far interesting interaction lively session – clear, concise delivery. Presentation talks to rather talks at audience.
91. The “how do you impact” questions were very helpful in terms of connecting concepts with application
92. I’ve attended several financial intel sessions before, first one that actually , “stuck” with me!
93. Very good
94. My husband is a stockbroker & I know you were right on with the companies!
95. Very useful information that was well delivered. Great session
96. The best presentation I have attended at the conference. My take away is I need to show my company the cost (vs) return for building my corporate university institute… this is what I have been missing!
97. Knew more than I realized made a detailed topic plainer & understandable
98. Great presentation style
99. Excellent!
100. Excellent clean presentation – not over the top; the applied it to all fields of business of life. Thanks!
101. Learn more about my company’s financials!