Introduction
I thought I was doing well as a finance associate. I had just navigated us through a critically complex decision, patched us through an incredibly difficult audit, reconciled a completely disorganized system, and even stepped into managing several team members for the first time. Then came my performance review: Below expectations.
Wait, what?
After all the sweat and late nights, who else could have done what I did? I was stunned. My pride took a hit. I came up with twenty reasons why the review was wrong. I started questioning whether I had chosen the right role in the first place. I began to doubt whether my manager had understood how messed up things had been previously. And yes, I had done things a bit chaotically, but didn't my results speak for themselves?
Then my manager walked me through it.
My models were too complex for people to quickly understand. I had pulled different slices of data that were complicated to tie to known numbers, making people distrust my analyses. I (eager to impress) had overpromised on timelines and then delivered late, which forced him to delay his commitments to others. I spent too much time building intricate new solutions that were only used once; akin to building self-service kiosks that require a staff member per kiosk to operate them. My assumptions were close, but they didn’t account for constraints in other parts of the company. And there was more.
He was right.
Fast forward two years, and I was leading a team across five countries. I found myself on the other side of the conversation, giving a sub-par performance review to a high-potential new hire. He was ambitious, hard-working, sharp, and worked well with people. And yet, his reaction mirrored mine: shock, disbelief. Didn’t his results speak for themselves?
But he took the feedback to heart. Six months later, he was a top performer. Finance just operates a bit differently.
After years of reflecting, I put this together to help others avoid those same hard conversations. The key lesson? In finance, getting things done is just the baseline. What truly matters is finding answers that drive action and creating solutions that will scale the business.
These insights apply across finance, but they’re especially relevant in FP&A. By doing these well, and getting feedback, you will improve. Remember, the 10,000-hour rule reflects intentional practice not rote routine.
Summary
Simplify decisions. Don’t make them more complicated
Project plan and deliver
Zoom-In: Cross-check your work
Zoom-Out: Org-Wide Context
Communicate to drive action
Manage Upward
Stay curious
And here we go:
1. Simplify Decisions. Don’t Make Them More Complicated
Yes, there are countless variables that go into every decision. What if the market shifts? What if all ten of your key inputs change? It’s easy to get lost in complexity, but that’s exactly what you need to avoid. To do so:
Start with a back-of-the-envelope estimate. Before diving into a challenge, take five minutes to think through the answer. Picture explaining the expected result to your boss in 30 seconds. What would you say? What would they say? This will help you frame the work.
Figure out the key variables. Identify the factors that drive the decision and are most realistically influenced.
Focus on what matters. Every aspect of the work should revolve around these key drivers. Make sure they are thoroughly estimated and can be adjusted easily.
Hold non-critical parts constant. It’s tempting to tweak everything to get to a desired result. Don’t. Once you start slightly tweaking fifteen different aspects of the problem, your advice becomes hard to follow and unrealistic to implement.
Make reasonable assumptions. Data is rarely perfect. When information is missing or messy, make logical assumptions and clearly explain how much these unknowns impact the decision.
At the end of the day, your work product isn’t the goal. The action taken as a result is. Whether it’s passing an audit, adjusting pricing, restructuring a team, or rolling out a new policy, your role is to drive decisions, not create complexity.
Tip: Before you start a project, spend 30 minutes hypothesizing the answer even if it’s just a reconciliation. What do you expect to be wrong, and why? These will be your guideposts.
2. Project Plan and Deliver
This applies to every role, but in finance, it’s critical. Your deadlines matter. Your boss’s deadlines matter. Other teams rely on your work to make well-informed decisions. To perform well:
Outline the project. Sit down and map out every step needed to complete the task. Identify the data you’ll need, request anything missing upfront, and don’t let last-minute data gaps derail you. Ask yourself: What could go wrong or cause me to be late?
Set deadlines and meet them. Communicate your timelines clearly and stick to them. If there’s uncertainty, bake in extra time to reflect it. It’s far better to beat a conservative estimate than to promise speed and fail to deliver.
Flag issues early. Things will go wrong. If it was easy, you probably wouldn’t be needed to do the work. When delays happen, let your manager know in advance and highlight if they can help escalate anything.
Keep it simple (KISS). Don’t get lost in one of the 53,230 project management tools out there. A simple list with deadlines, linked to deliverables, is enough in the vast majority of cases.
Reliability is critical for any finance team. Deadlines are often tied to external requirements or key business decisions. If you are late, people will move on without your input.
Tip: Maintain one task overview spreadsheet that your manager can reference. It should include each major project, its status, due dates, and links to deliverables. No one needs fancy Gantt visuals to understand deadlines, and many experienced managers discount them as time wasted on admin.
3. Zoom-in: Cross-Check Your Work
What is the first thing anyone does when opening a model, a PowerPoint, a memo? They check the numbers against figures they already know. You don’t want to spend weeks on a project only for someone to spot a 5% error in headcount that invalidates your work. So, make sure to:
Provide checks against known figures. Are you reconciling revenue? Tie it back to the full reported number. Building a new forecast? Start with the last known net income. Headcount analysis? Align it with HR data. Always anchor your numbers to something verifiable, even if you're just addressing a slice of the total.
Link source documents. Connect your data directly to reports and sheets where possible. This allows others to verify numbers easily instead of having to track them down themselves.
Stress-test key variables. If you’re running scenarios or analyses, test a range of inputs to ensure the outcomes remain logical and don’t break under different conditions.
Clearly color-code hard-coded numbers. If a number isn’t linked to a source, make it very clear where it came from. Hard-coded values should stand out, so they don’t get mistaken for calculations.
Know that others will skim your work within 10 minutes max. Give them a path to do so by matching numbers with what they know. This will make them trust your work.
Tip: Clearly highlight the overall numbers that tie to known numbers (historical, totals, etc). This gives reviewers an easy reference point to anchor their understanding.
4. Zoom-out: Org-Wide Context
By definition, your senior leaders have more context than you. They see things from an organization-wide, or at least business unit, perspective, which means they have a clearer view on what matters. If you don’t develop that same awareness, you will inevitably spend time on the wrong things. So:
Know the org-wide goals. Every task, whether it’s a reconciliation, a model, or a project, should tie back to the company’s strategic objectives. If it doesn’t, ask yourself: Am I missing something?
Understand how actions and metrics connect. You don’t need to know everything, but you do need to understand the status quo. If your analysis suggests a major change, ask: Why hasn’t this been done before? (Hint: There’s usually a reason.)
Gauge risk tolerance upfront. Before diving into an analysis, ask: How big is this decision? If the risks are small, be comfortable delivering a “quick and dirty” solution. If the stakes are high, take the extra time to ensure accuracy.
Read your company-wide material. Ironically, most people skip over others’ presentations, but they are the single easiest source to understand what each team is doing in the company.
Developing org-wide context takes sustained concentration, but the more you understand how every part of the company works, the more valuable you’ll become.
Tip: Prioritize cash. The CFO cares about cash. You should care about cash. It’s the lifeblood of the business, and your work should always keep cash flow implications in mind.
5. Communicate to drive action
Presentations don’t solve problems on their own. People need to buy-in. Some people need to know the details; others don’t. Your job is to convey the key point quickly and walk through the results in a way that leads to action. To do so:
Create clear summaries. Build a high-level summary, with key figures, that anyone can pick up and understand in 30 seconds. The why, then the recommendations. That’s it. Hide the deeper details in an appendix for those who need them.
Practice key deliveries. Presenting to executives is tough. Use every summary review with your manager as a chance to refine your delivery. Speak, don’t read. Be concise, not exhaustive.
Develop strong relationships. You’ll constantly work with colleagues across teams. Learn their language and tailor your communication to lower their barrier to action. The better your relationships, the more effective you’ll be.
Pick up the phone. People have their own priorities, and your project isn’t top of their list. If you need something, make it easy for them. Call, clarify, and move things forward. If someone is slow in getting back to you, it’s your problem too.
Help people help themselves. If everyone relies on you for everything, you’ll be the bottleneck. Take time to educate others on the basics so they can push things forward without waiting on you.
At the end of the day, good communication drives action. And like anything else, it takes practice. Don’t hide behind your presentations or models.
Tip: Before diving into a project, take five minutes with the key stakeholder to present your hypothesis. This is an easy way to confirm you’re on the right track and get buy-in early.
6. Manage Upward
In a fast-moving environment, structured feedback loops like performance reviews are often deprioritized. That means you need to take ownership of your development and ensure you are delivering value to the business. To do this effectively:
Propose solutions and engage your manager. If you are stuck, do not just raise a problem. Propose a solution and ask if it works. Make it easy for them to help you.
Flag risks early. Do not assume your manager knows everything. Surface risks as soon as possible and ask whether they are acceptable. Your job is to ensure your manager is never caught off guard.
Push back when necessary. You are on the ground and often closer to the details than leadership. If something does not make sense, speak up. Suggest an alternative and explain why. More often than not, your manager will appreciate it.
Regularize feedback. Schedule a quick 15-minute chat each month focused purely on personal feedback. No need for anything formal. Just check in on what is working, what is not, and how you can improve. Better yet, come prepared with your own ideas for improvement and ask if they align.
At the end of the day, you are responsible for your growth. Working in a high-growth company gives you opportunities to take on new challenges, but getting feedback from your efforts is how you will learn. Make sure you seek out feedback and improve with every project.
Tip: The earlier you start managing upward, the faster your feedback loops will be and the quicker you will improve.
7. Stay curious
Keep asking why. Sometimes the answers will surprise you. Curiosity applies to nearly everything and will not only keep your role engaging but also lead you to better solutions. Standard questions:
Why can’t this be more efficient? If you are doing a task repeatedly, ask how it can be improved. Maybe a little extra effort upfront can streamline the process or integrate workloads more effectively. A great tool can go a long way.
Why haven’t we thought of this before? Often, an idea has been considered before, but there was a reason it was not implemented. It could be an operational constraint, lack of bandwidth, or competing priorities.
Why are they doing it that way? If something seems inefficient or outdated, do not dismiss it immediately. There is usually a reason behind it, even if it is not obvious. Easy wins are rarer than they appear.
Why is this best practice? If the industry standard CAC payback period is 12 months, ask why. How would that actually impact the company’s ability to survive?
Why could I be wrong? Challenge your own assumptions before others do. This strengthens your analysis and prepares you for pushback in discussions.
Why isn’t this a priority? This ties back to org-wide context. Understanding why something is not a focus can provide insight into what truly matters to the business.
Asking why will help you see the bigger picture and deepen your understanding of the company. Never assume you already know the answer.
Tip: Ask well-thought-out questions. People do not like being interrupted, but most enjoy talking about their work. If you strike the right balance and show genuine curiosity, they will often guide you to the answer themselves.
In Conclusion
It is important to look ahead. FP&A naturally leads into company leadership, but your next role will not be handed to you. You have to earn it. The best way to prepare is by getting as many repetitions of your work as possible at your current level. Check your own work, ask for feedback, and continuously improve.
As you consistently add value to the business, you increase your own value.
