Business Acumen Blog

Benchmarks are an important consideration when looking at the overall change in improvement or success of a business. Decision makers that are looking to be an agent of change will typically look at three measurements:

1. Internal benchmarks (ROI, ROE, ROA)
2. External competitive benchmarks (company #1 ROI compared to company #2 ROI)
3. External economic benchmarks (Sales growth compared with an average)

Internal benchmarks are the staple of smart employees that are trying to prepare for change or lead change. From a Sales Director trying to beat last quarter’s results, to an HR director measuring the ROI of a new on boarding initiative – thinking in terms of “return” will help you see the path forward and navigate inevitable changes to your business.

Likewise, looking to see how your company compares to those considered competitors is a smart exercise. Unfortunately, too often even the best employees can’t see the forest through the trees. It’s easy to look at personal performance, department performance, and even company performance and assume that all is well. When evaluating your company against a competitor or the economy try to step back and see the big picture.

For example, the S&P 500 has long been looked at as one of the benchmarks of the US economy and in recent years has seen a decline in the overall average revenue reported by each company ($17.9b in 2008 to $16.7b in 2009). That being said, it is important to point out that not every company and not every sector of the S&P 500 has declined in revenues.  Take the telecommunications sector; you will see that the overall sector improved from $427b to $436b. Represented by just 9 companies, that’s approximately a $1b improvement per company in an economy that is showing a decline.

As much as external factors impact the success of the business they are less controllable than internal factors. Nevertheless, employees who practice and perfect their business acumen understand how their decisions play a role in impacting their department, which can impact the company, which can impact the competitive landscape, which can impact the economy.  That’s not to say that employee X who decides to loaf around on the job will bring the economy to a halt, but it is to say that employee X is an important part of our economy. Helping employees understand the financial implications of their internal decisions translates to success and improvement externally.

For instance, encouraging internal best practices like continuous improvement, product development, customer relations, employee training, and the like can enable a business to grow and improve despite the external economy. The opposite also holds true; staying the course with what has worked internally for years could enable an external competitor to catch up and potentially surpass you.

Employees with business acumen understand how to benchmark company performance to consistently make better decisions. They’ll know what it takes to stay competitive despite economic challenges and they’ll lead teams that are a step ahead of the ever changing business environment.

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!

I recently read the book “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. It begins with this statement…

“We have something new to say about building, running, and growing (or not growing) a business.”

Based on “Rework’s” opening statement, I expected to read about ideas and concepts that would fly in the face of what we teach to some of the world’s most profitable companies; that every business is the same inside and that there are universal principles of business that are the same whether you’re a street vendor or you’re running a billion dollar company. These rules vary of course, but they don’t change… and they are certainly not new.

The ideas presented in “Rework” will make you rethink hiring, growth, profitability, productivity, and other areas of your business. But with every turn of the page it became clear that the authors intimately understand the principles of cash, profit, assets, growth, and people… the principles we teach in our Building Business Acumen course. That’s not to say that all of their opinions on these principles are right. Nevertheless, the authors understand the principles.

Take Fried and Hansson’s argument for doing less and their call for embracing constraints. This logic doesn’t fit the image of the typical heads-down charging-forward business leader who is constantly pushing for growth. Our course teaches growth as an essential business driver, and one could easily conclude that we’d side with the heads-down charging-forward types. But really our teachings on growth are more closely aligned with Fried and Hansson. I’ve heard our owner, Kevin Cope, say a million times…

“The goal is not growth. The goal is profitable and sustainable growth.”

Unconstrained growth isn’t healthy, and it takes business acumen, or an understanding of the bigger picture, to truly understand why growth for growth’s sake shouldn’t be the goal of any business leader, employee, or entrepreneur. Growth must be balanced in relationship with the other four business drivers… cash, profits, assets, and people.

We echo the words of the authors…

“A business without a path to profit, isn’t a business.”

Employees need to be taught how to think through their decisions, and clearly see how their decisions impact profits and the business as a whole, not just how their decisions impact what they’re directly responsible for.

“Rework” takes aim at many traditional business ideas, but respects the essence of business. Some of the ideas are irreverent, and you may feel at times that the author’s crosshairs are squarely aimed at you (or rather your long-held ideas about work). With that said, you’ll close the book thankful for the author’s willingness to share how they approach building, running, and growing their business. Their version of business acumen is unique and worth reading about.

P.S.
Have a favorite business book you’d recommend? Email us a review and if we publish it we’ll send you a copy of one of our favorite books, “What the CEO Wants You To Know“

Surviving the recession takes intensity
Ram Charan speaks about his new book Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty. He tells CEOs to go “granular” — be aware 24/7 of their companies’ cash position (Driver #1) and customers’ needs (Driver #5).

We’re back from San Diego. It was our first time attending the annual SHRM conference, which is the biggest human resource conference in the world. Exhibitors ranged from the expected, like Yahoo Hot Jobs! and ADP, to the unexpected like the guys that make frozen bunt cakes. Bunt cakes – HR? Who knew? Along with the expected and unexpected, there was us. We learned a few things from attending. One thing in particular we learned is that a company has to reach a certain point to implement business skills training in their company.

Everyone Has an HR Person…

As small company after small company approached our booth, it hit us that just about every company has an HR person… but not every company has someone over training. For example, a 16 employee widget maker would likely have someone over HR, but training… not likely. With that said, the person over HR would likely also be over training, but they would probably focus on HR topics like safety, harassment, etc. (i.e. Train our employees on topics that will prevent us from getting sued.).

But when it comes to employee development or skills training, the small company’s we talked to at SHRM were very interested – but not interested enough to make it a priority. Meaning business acumen training was appealing and needed badly, but not as bad as anti-sueing training, or recruiting efforts, or benefits packages, the list of HR responsibilities and priorities goes on and on. And I don’t fault them, if our company makes widgets and I have to choose between an employee with business acumen and an employee who’s limbs are chewed off by my equipment… well the choice becomes pretty clear.

And yet this logic begs answers. For instance, when does a company all of a sudden decide to implement employee training that teaches leadership and business skills? Is it a matter of budget or is it based on a certain number of employees? I’ll admit right now that I don’t have the answers to these questions, but my guess is that there’s some point in time that budget and number of employees converge. When this convergence happens someone within the organization can make a compelling argument for skills based training pretty easily, “Look, we have the budget and these employees need to be trained.”

That’s not to say that someone couldn’t make a compelling argument for training and squeak out a few dollars from a tight budget, but it’s not done very easily. Since there’s not a budget for it they’ll look for ways to provide the training with no budget and that will likely land right back on your lap. Let’s say you make a compelling argument for negotiation training for your team and there’s no budget for such training. You’d better be prepared for someone to ask, “Is this something you could teach your team?” Now be careful how you answer, if you say no then you could look incompetent. And if you say yes, you could end up working overtime trying to balance your real job with your new assignment that’s really a pet project. Faced with the inevitable questions, you’ll have to be prepared upfront why the training is important and potentially more important than other budgeted items. Such an argument will likely pull you away from your other responsibilities, take a tremendous amount of time and effort, and since there’s no budget for it, your proposal may get flatly rejected despite your effort. So you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it? You could easily argue that training is a) not in your job description and b) requires a ton effort to make the right sales pitch. Therefore it’s not worth pursuing.

Likewise, for a small group of employees the argument for skills training is probably a tough sell because it’s easy to pick out who’s lacking a particular skill and assign a manager to help the employee improve performance. For example, if I have four customer service agents and I know that Betty is not as customer focused as her co-workers I could go to the boss and make a compelling argument for customer service training. But wouldn’t it be smarter to assign your best customer service agent to mentor Betty, or since it’s just Betty why don’t you, her manager, help her out? A small number of employees makes improving performance relatively easy. So would you really stick your neck out to push training for a small team?

But, if the budget is there and there’s more than a handful of employees that would benefit from the training, then pushing training is likely an easy move to make. So the million dollar question… When does budget and employee count converge?

We deliver business acumen training live and in-person for the majority of our clients, but our newest Business Acumen client is Cisco… and in true Cisco fashion, we’re delivering the training virtually using Cisco’s WebEx platform.

With this arrangement participants are sent out their training materials and a copy of Ram Charan’s book, “What the CEO Wants You to Know” prior to the session. As part of this packet of information Cisco asked that we write a welcome letter to participants that gets them excited to participate in the course. This simple exercise helped us articulate some of the real benefits of business acumen training – and so we figured we’d blog about it and share it with our readers.

Date: June, 2010

Cisco Financial Basics | Building Business Acumen

Dear Participant:

Cisco Financial Basics | Building Business Acumen is so much more than just a finance course. Based on the teachings of Ram Charan’s book WHAT THE CEO WANTS YOU TO KNOW, you’ll learn that every business is the same inside. This will help you simplify the complexity of business and understand your part in the big picture.

You’ll also learn a few secrets and formulas that will help you assess Cisco’s total business (or any business for that matter). Once you understand these fundamentals you’ll gain a clear understanding of what’s happening in the real world. Combine this basic financial understanding with your common sense (your business sense) and you’ll return to your work with the courage and conviction to provide focus, set the right priorities, and articulate how your priorities align with Cisco’s goals.

Those that report to you or others who you interact with in your everyday work life will recognize your new found interest in Cisco’s money making process and your ability to link your efforts to Cisco’s financials. Throughout your career you’ll find yourself exercising your business acumen in more complex situations and executing initiatives that drive profitable and sustainable growth. In short, you’ll be a leader of the business.

Come ready to participate, contribute to others’ learning, and develop new thinking and application to your specific roles.  We look forward to your participation in this very important course that has the potential to elevate your success and your career.

Sincerely,

Mark Wood & Ben Cook

Acumen Learning’s CEO, Kevin Cope has been invited to share his thoughts and ideas with Microsoft’s partners. Kevin will be hosting two different session, both focused on business acumen…

Companies are trying to save costs in big ways—such as reducing capital expenditures, eliminating unprofitable product lines, and in all-too-frequent cases, reducing their numbers of employees.

We surveyed our office and asked them what financial sites do they access the most. So this list might make us appear a little financial geeky, but we do it because we love keeping tabs on the markets.

Doing so helps us keep our training relevant and up to date for our clients. Chances are pretty good that your facilitator has looked up your company information on one of these sites just before your training.

1. Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance
2. Yahoo Finance: http://finance.yahoo.com/
3. Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/home-page
4. Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/
5. Fortune magazine: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/
6. Hoovers: http://hoovers.com/
7. Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/
8. Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/
9. Microsoft Money: http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp
10. CNN Money: http://money.cnn.com/

Regularly visiting these sites can help build your business acumen and show your boss your interest in understanding how your company makes money.

Years ago a colleague of mine was consulting with a group of senior NASA managers at Cape Canaveral. He tried to explain, in simple terms, a somewhat involved organizational change strategy. They seemed confused. In an effort to clarify, he said, “Please don’t try to make this more complicated than necessary; it’s relatively simple. It’s not rocket science.” To which they sincerely answered, “We wish it were. We could understand it better!”

Many employees view their business much like rocket science—much complexity, many different moving parts difficult to follow and fit together, hard-to-understand data and formulas, communications in confusing language resembling more Greek than English.

One of the main things I set out to do when I started Acumen Learning was to simplify how any business fundamentally operates to make money and to sustain profitable growth over the long run.  I hope to help you to communicate more effectively with managers, other employees, and senior executives using language that ties your ideas and efforts to the important objectives of your company’s leadership.

Perfecting your business acumen will simplify the complexity of business. With time and effort understanding your business will be less like rocket science.

We just launched a redesign of the Acumen Learning Corporate site. We’ve been working on the project since January. Axis41 helped with the design and programming. We love how it turned out.

We had a few goals for the new site:

1. Design overhaul. We weren’t in need of a fresh coat of paint, we needed a new site – modernized, cleaner, and clearer. So we set out to build something new, but something that would have some longevity.
2. Rewritten. We spent countless hours articulating to each other what is that we do and why we do it better than anyone else. From there we rewrote every page of the site to clearly communicate our value to our customers and prospective customers.
3. SEO. Organization development departments are searching for business acumen training and we want them to find us. From our tabbed strategy on our home page to our CMS plugins, our site has been developed from the ground up to be optimized for search engines.
4. Content is King. While we teach that Cash is King as part of our business acumen training – on the web Content is King. So we developed a content management system (CMS) that allows anyone at Acumen Learning to publish content to the web. Along with the CMS we’ve started this here blog so we can continue to share our thoughts and insights with our customers.

Here’s our original site from 2004. This was pulled from Internet Archive’s Waybackmachine. A cool site that allows you to punch in any URL and see different versions of it through out it’s history. Check out Apple’s website from 1998.

We think we’ve come a long way. Let us know what you think of our new site.