The following is a guest post from Konstantin Dzhengozov, co-founder and CFO at Payhawk. Opinions are the author’s own.
AI can already do a lot of things faster than even the most skilled finance teams. It can compute faster, run analysis faster and even draft sentences about those computations to put before a board or a sales team.
But it will never care. Nor will it connect numbers to the hopes or fears of customers or employees. It cannot read the politics of a boardroom meeting and adapt what’s being shared to address a raised eyebrow.
In fact, the one skill AI will never take from a great finance leader is the ability to make numbers mean something and make people care about them.
That means effective finance leaders, now more than ever, need to tell stories. Compelling stories. Not just reports on revenue up and revenue down, but why that happened, the moment a change occurred and what it all means to strategy, hiring, planning, prices and so on. Compelling stories have villains. They have tension, which keeps listeners engaged, and, as a leader, you’ll want a story that also has a hero and a plan to find a solution.
The more impactful the story, the more tension it holds, the more obvious the stakes, the more people will care and the more easily you’ll get stakeholders on board to do what needs to be done.
Stories in finance need not only to be compelling, but they also need to be true since finance leaders are guardians of truth. When the story rests on bulletproof facts, trust compounds. When it does not, trust evaporates.
Why storytelling now
No doubt, automation is increasingly taking over the busywork of finance teams. The edge no longer belongs to the one who can quickly update forecasts or build the tightest spreadsheet. Instead, the edge belongs to the finance leader who can tell us why the numbers matter.
At the same time, the purview of finance teams has vastly expanded. They no longer just track what happened, but they help orchestrate the growth that will impact all facets of a company. I know from experience that many finance leaders remain stuck in the weeds, juggling spreadsheets and data. I’ve gone into a boardroom with a lot of numbers, but no story, and I’ve seen the blank faces of the people I’m trying to engage.
I’ve also watched masterful finance leaders turn from traffic cop to architect, turning data that’s confusing and forgettable into a story that’s inspiring and engaging. Storytelling connects the speaker to the listener in a way that numbers, facts and statistics do not. Stories tap into emotions, which inform decisions. Stories make information memorable so that people can weigh the important pieces of a decision more readily. And, effective storytelling requires the teller to know the audience, their awareness and perceptions, as well as the level of detail they’ll want.
Here’s how I’ve learned to turn a financial presentation into a story. Use five moves:
- Purpose. Name the decision you want by the end.
- Hook. Offer a moment that makes people lean in. Tell what happened. For instance, a critical supplier is threatening price increases that are beyond the norm, putting everything you do at risk. The hook sparks emotion and connection between the storyteller and the listener.
- Tension. Tension is what keeps the brain engaged. State the risk, cost, or trade-off that matters. “We know our response will shape margins for two years.”
- Insight. Explain what the numbers mean, not just what they show. “Our top three vendors have 67% of our volume, and the top one has almost half of that. We have too much exposure to the biggest vendor, and our data intelligence shows we can reduce risk and costs.”
- Resolution. Present a clear, credible path forward. Explain options. Request a response within a specified timeframe. The human brain craves closure. You don’t need everyone to break into applause or tears, but you most likely will need a decision.
A stronger data spine
All stories have plots, a backbone that anchors the narrative from beginning to end. In finance, the backbone is a single source of truth that provides the real picture of what’s happened, what’s happening and what’s likely to happen. I now think of the finance function as “finance forward,” an intelligent command center that connects financial information from all corners of an enterprise into one living system. Not another point tool. A backbone.
With a single source of truth around your financial data, you’ll know that the story you’re telling is sound. You’ll see the exceptions, the trustworthy data upon which to build a forecast and, eventually, a story around what you need your company stakeholders to understand–and to do.
Beyond the boardroom
The same storytelling skill applies to investor days, all-hands meetings and sales kickoffs. Remind listeners how your company creates value and for whom it serves. Respect both emotion and intelligence. Be clear about what the path forward looks like. When you do, people will align faster because they’ll know where they’re going.
No doubt, AI will keep getting better at all kinds of things, from busywork on up. It will excel at telling you what happened. The finance leaders who matter most will be the ones who tell us why any of it matters–and then show us how to make it happen together.
