Ep. 45: Anders Liu-Lindberg - "Insight x Influence = IMPACT"

Contact Anders:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersliulindberg/


Additional Resources from Anders:


Link to book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Create-value-Finance-Business-Partner/dp/1724850741

Link to the ebook:
http://businesspartneringinstitute.org/sign-up-to-our-newsletter/

Link to blog:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersliulindberg/detail/recent-activity/posts/




FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:05)


Hey everyone, thanks for coming back for episode 45 of Count Me
In. Our featured guests for today's conversation joined us from
Denmark as Anders Liu-Lindberg spoke with Mitch about the popular
topic of business partnering. My favorite part of the
conversation was Anders simple and clear equation. Insight times
influence equals impact. Let's listen in for more valuable
insight and hear what else Anders has to offer. 


 


Mitch: (00:34)


Recently we've heard a lot about the term business partnering. So
in your perspective, what is business partnering? 


 


Anders: (00:42)


Thanks for asking that question. And I agree that a lot more
posts than information is coming out about business partnering
these years. But for me it's, it's really quite simple. Business
partnering is insights times influence equals impact. What I mean
with that, I mean, you've got to have some insights then you can
share with business leaders that can improve that decisions. but
You gotta be able to influence that decisions before you can
improve that decisions? So if you insights and could influence
decision making, you have impact. You have the ability to change
business decisions, ideally for the better. Let me, let me try
and break it further down. So what is insights? Insights is when
you bring something new to business leaders that one, they didn't
know and two, will help them make better decisions is if all you
bring to them as information that they know already nice, but it
doesn't help them and to what you bring to them as somebody they
don't know but doesn't help him. It's even worse actually because
you take away capacity from them to focus on making better
decisions. and insights can come in really three broad, broad
categories. There's the operator role, we optimize processes to
drive efficiencies in both the finance function but also in
business operations. Then there's the controller role, which is
where we managed risks, which all the numbers and with you, who
is this performance to see how things are going. Then there's the
advisor role or recovery, new insights and perspectives that can
help the business grow. That's really what insight is all about.
And that of course means it can be lots of different things as
long as it satisfies the first two criteria. You don't know it,
but it can help make better decisions. How influencing is then
more the secret sauce to this because I think finance
professionals have been turning our insights for years, but maybe
not gotten too far with it. You need influence to go the full
mile. What does influence is about being customer centric or
focus on your internal stakeholders and build trusted
relationships with them? I said, if they don't trust you, it
doesn't matter what you bring to them. It's about understanding
the industry that you're a part of and your specific business.
And if you don't understand the business, it is also hard for
them to trust you and feel that you have something valuable to
say. And last but not least, you gotta be assertive and
communicate with impact. If you cannot communicate the result of
your findings in a language that they understand, you're not
getting very far with the insights either. But if you could do
all of that, then you can have impact, can ensure better and more
profitable business decisions. You can drag performance by tuning
all these insights into action. So that's to me what, what
business partnering is all about. 


 


Mitch: (03:27)


I think that's a great explanation and I really, appreciate your
detail and explaining it all. So a lot of our accounting and
finance listeners, they are hearing regularly about how they have
to become business partners. Right. And with the explanation you
just provided, what kind of, you know, advice would you give our
listeners for becoming business partners or, you know, how do you
get more time in that role to really secure their position in the
organization? 


 


Anders: (03:56)


Yeah, so I think the first day was really making a personal
choice to step outside your comfort zone. There's many finance
and accounting professionals, they have a comfort zone that
starts and ends with their desk in front of their Excel sheet or
that BI tool, right? I mean, that might be a bit black and white
and maybe it's not exactly like that, but I think many, many
finance professionals can relate to the fact that every time they
had to go talk to someone else, it's feels a bit uncomfortable.
Especially if that someone else is outside of the finance
function. So I at least from personal experience, if I go back
five, 10 years, I feel that. And to some extent I still feel it
today, but I've made a choice long ago to step outside my comfort
zone and go where business partnering happens, which is together
with other people together with, with business leaders and other
other business stakeholders. So thing. That's really the first
step because if you make that choice and you say, I'm going to
stay out of my comfort zone and try to go do these things,
everything becomes easier from there. I was saying it gets more
comfortable right away over time. It will. Yeah, but that's what
you need to do and yes, you will fail quite a few times probably
before you succeed, but Hey, that's, you know, that's the new
mantra these days, right? Fail fast to succeed sooner. So I think
that's really key here. Then we can talk about all the skills
that you need, you know be storyteller, communicate better, how
to build relationships, understand other's perspectives and so
forth. That is also hugely important. But we start with making
that choice. 


 


Mitch: (05:31)


So what if our listeners are, you know, an accounting and finance
professional is able to step out of their comfort zone. They take
this first step, how do they measure their impact? You know, how
can they actually become that business partner? When can they
appreciate taking on this new responsibility? 


 


Anders: (05:48)


Yeah. So if you talk about measure impact as a business partner,
I think there are, there are three things that you can look at.
The first thing is does the business that you support deliver
better results? Do the meet of beat the targets that we've set
for them. So that's, that's one, right? That gotta be some sort
of a business impact value creation part in them too The second
is do the business leaders or the business stakeholders, internal
customers call them what you want. Do they feel like that you
actually helping them achieve these results or are they're
thinking, Hey, you know, it's great you're there to your business
partner. But hey you're not helping me and it's me and my team
that are driving these facades, right? Because if they think you
are helping them and you're delivering better business results,
then to me you have an impac...