Years ago I was in a workshop about identifying my conflict style.

You know the type: DISC, Myers Briggs, Insights, etc.

Where you’re put into 1 of 4 categories based on how you answer a series of questions.

I had recently become a Sr Finance Manager at the Fortune 100 I was working in, which means I was the new guy in the room of 30 senior leaders.

And we were given our conflict style assessment when we walked in the room and told to stand in a particular corner based on it.

I wish I could remember the specifics of the test, but all I remember is that I was in the corner with all the other “conflict avoiders”.

Not a good look.

Especially when all the executives were in another corner called “challengers” or something impressive. And everyone in my corner was objectively a low performer… except me and one other guy…

We were the rising stars of the group.
He had been my mentor for years.

And through those years he taught me to lean into my conflict style - to use it as a tool in our finance roles to build relationships and solve business problems.

Because at the end of the day, a job well-done in finance is steeped in tension.

Every day, we are pulled between multiple groups with different objectives and opinions of what’s right or wrong.

And it’s our job to push the business forward.

Let’s talk about how to do it well…

As a conflict avoider by nature, one of the skills I’ve had to learn is when to use tension to move the business forward.

Maybe results are slipping or an initiative isn’t progressing like it should.

As a good finance leader, it’s our job to make it obvious where the shortfall is coming from and call attention to it.

This one is simple. When monthly results close, ask yourself: Out of the 100 pages of reports and dozens of KPIs, what is the biggest issue the business should be solving today?

Seriously, do this on Monday!
Sit down for an hour and form your opinion.
Then share it with everyone you talk to.

It’s not necessarily your job to have the answer - although that would be helpful. But it is our job to focus the business on the 1 thing that will drive better results.

What often separates good finance leaders from great ones is having an opinion.

Every month, it’s my goal to have an opinion on the results - and more specifically what result needs to be fixed asap.

The tension is healthy if it’s focused, important, and solving a real problem in the business.

And in FP&A, we are often perfectly positioned to inject this tension.

I’ve always been perplexed by departments fighting against one another as if they are on different teams.

Often this fighting results in poor communication, blaming each other for bad results, and not making progress on improving the business results.

They are literally on the same team but act like they are enemies.

And this is where finance can usually step in to neutralize the tension.

This is also where us conflict avoiders shine - because we’re typically looking for win-win situations to move the whole group forward.

Here’s a quick example of how this can play out:

There was a particular downsell that sales kept using that was hurting our long-term growth potential as a company, but sales felt compelled to use it due to their perception of the core product’s high pricing. Product couldn’t lower the price of the core product until sales stopped using the downsell. It was a real chicken and egg situation.

Neither department was happy. But nothing was going to change unless we actually did something different.

So we (finance) proposed a slight change to our business strategy - making a simultaneous decrease in the core product pricing with the agreement that sales would no longer be allowed to leverage the downsell unless absolutely necessary.

Simple, but timely and effective.
And we put all the processes in place to implement and track it.
We even built it into our annual plan.

And the company saw a 9-figure increase in revenue from it.

That’s the power of neutralizing conflict.

At the heart of this was that we all wanted to grow the company. And instead of fighting against eachother for that growth, we created a solution where everyone wins.

I wish I could bottle this up and teach you how to do it yourself, but it’s not like that. You simply have to study the business and the people. Look for the tension and don’t be afraid to take it on.

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