Be Business Savvy - Create a Career that Soars‪!‬ Susan Colantuono

TLDR: This is already a very short summary of key info about strategic acumen. Please Read ON!

Strategic acumen is perhaps my favorite of the three elements of Business Savvy, because I had to unlearn everything that I thought I knew about strategic acumen, and perhaps you will too. 

Strategy Isn't...and Is
I grew up in organizations being told that strategy was comprised of mission, vision, and values. I'm here to tell you that while they might be important elements of an organization's identity and they might shape strategy, they are not strategy and understanding them and being able to create them for your own teams or team does not demonstrate strategic acumen.

So what is strategy?

A strategy is designed to achieve three goals.


Win the customer's preference
Create a sustainable competitive advantage
Leave enough money on the table for shareholders that is in for-profit companies or for re-investment for nonprofits.

The core of strategy work is always the same, "discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors."These definitions and my understanding draw heavily on the work of Ram Charan and Richard Rumelt. Through their work, I've learned that there are three key, interdependent elements that are examined when setting strategy. And there's one skill that rests at the center of these three elements through which strategy is derived.The three elements have to do with:


External forces and trends
Financial targets
Internal capabilities

External Forces & Trends
External forces and trends are wide ranging and in our Business Savvy YOU! course, we help you narrow them down as to those most important for you to be attending to.

They could include anything from legislative actions to consumer purchasing trends to demographic shifts,to the price of raw materials. etc.

Financial Targets
Financial targets have to do with and touch on your financial acumen. They are key metrics that have to be attained or exceeded in order to avoid the red zone of failure, in order to lift your organization above its competitors and to draw customers and or investors.

Internal Capabilities
Internal capabilities have to do with the people, their skills, the systems smallest, so those can be processes and  or automated systems and other processes.

The Crux
The skill in the middle is what Richard Rumelt calls The Crux. It involves the ability to disentangle the complex findings as you analyze external forces and trends, financial targets and internal capabilities to clearly identify a path forward that will address the external trends and forces that will allow the achievement or surpassing of financial targets through changes in the internal capabilities.I always say, "Leadership is about change all the time," and this is one of the reasons. It is impossible for an organization to perform at a higher level, unless it changes "the way we do things around here."

Strategic Acumen @ Different Levels
 So what does strategic acumen look like at varying levels?At the individual contributor level, it is working to understand why "the way you do things" is changing At the manager level, regardless of whether you're a team leader or a middle manager, it has to do with understanding the strategic initiatives that are yours to further and effectively communicating them and changing processes. Also changing team metrics in a way that helps align your direct reports to the strategy. And at senior manager levels, you're expected to be spending about 80% of your time thinking strategically and proposing strategic initiatives up to the top.  

At executive levels, you're responsible for setting strategy and ensuring its execution. Or as Cynthia Montgomery writes in The Strategist, "A strategist's primary job is setting an agenda and putting in place the organization to carry it out."Because ultimately, a strategy is a promise to shareholders that your organization w

About Business Savvy YOU! 
Good morning from beautiful South County, Rhode Island, where I am enjoying  the second day of sunshine for my morning walk.  It has been kind of a brutal spring. As a regular listener to the Be Business Savvy podcast, You've heard me talk about  the many ways that being more business savvy enables you to have a more successful career and a less stressful work life. For example,  Business Savvy enables you to be seen as a contender for opportunities because it enriches your leadership brand  and elevates your executive presence. It makes your work life easier  because  you are more likely to have confidence, to speak up with authority, and to make the most of mentoring opportunities that come your way.If becoming more business savvy is on your to do list for 2024  and you haven't found an effective way to get started. I'm delighted to announce that the full  Business Savvy YOU! course is launching next month. There's been an inaugural cohort that's gone through the program and back in the office, I'm going to  record some of their comments.

Participants SayJohanna, who is an employee representative on the board of her European company. wrote. "Did some calculations for the company alongside the exercises in the lesson. This is fantastic. It's so much more than the course I took.  Now I can read the story behind the financials."

And I want to note that Johanna attended a three day course on financial acumen for board members. Amy says,

"Developing business savvy was instrumental in accelerating my career. Focusing on business results was exactly what I needed. It's the advice I now give everyone I mentor seems intuitive, but it isn't.""I started to implement the learnings. In different situations at work, I started small in a safe space and then extended the playground. With the result, being that my boss accelerated my promotion.  That was initially scheduled for next year."  is what Samantha had to say about the course.

This morning I want to tell you a bit about what makes the program different.

In all my years of learning and researching. I have yet to find a program  that addresses business, financial, and strategic acumen for the discrete competencies they represent while also  moving participants to The Business Savvy Center in the Venn diagram where all three of them overlap. This is what the Business Savvy YOU! program does in such an effective way.

Designed with YOU in Mind

And I've designed Business Savvy YOU! with you in mind.

1. Short Lessons As a career woman myself, and one who was a parent and a single parent, I know how precious time is. So the program is delivered  in small bites. Most of the lessons can be done in 10 minutes.  Some take longer because they're designed to move you into that business savvy center. So you have to do work to bring the content into your world.2. Focus on Need-to-Know You can, easily separate the need-to-know from the nice-to-know.The nice-to-know information, is available to you through bonuses.Everything else  you can trust is need to know.3. Integrated Content One of the features that's important for your learning is that the content builds upon itself. This doesn't happen in any other content that I have found. Build Business Acumen lays the foundation for financial acumen. Financial acumen - because  it's a crucial component of strategic acumen - enables you to strengthen your strategic acumen.So, three important  features. The content  is delivered In easily digestible short bites, you can choose only the need to know content or supplement it with nice to know bonuses. And  the course content is integrated  interdependent and supports your ongoing development.There's a lot more I can say, but I do want to talk about what you will find in Business Savvy YOU!The course has 4 major sections:

1. The first is on developing and demonstrating business acumen.  

2. The second is focusing on  financial acumen, both

I recently delivered a webinar on how to Make the Most of Mentoring. During the Q& A one of the attendees asked:

"How do I know if I'm ready for a promotion?"
if I were to go simply by my Myers-Briggs preferences, I would say,

"You will know because you feel ready for a promotion."

And while part of that's true, it's not the whole truth.

Five Indicators
So, let me explain 5 indicators that you're ready for a promotion.1. Feeling Ready. The first, of course, is that you feel ready, but in this sense - you're bored with what you're doing. It's not challenging you. You're feeling compelled to ask yourself, what more could I be doing? Your job has become relatively easy.

That's the first indicator. 2. Successor in Place. The second indicator, if you are a supervisor or manager, is that you have developed a successor.  There's someone on your team, who has the skills and knowledge and experience to take over for you when you move out.3. High Performance. A third indicator, is that you're performing at a very high level in your current job and - barring any strange dynamic with your current manager - you will have his or her support for moving on.Those 3 are commonly discussed as indicators that you're ready for a promotion.Here's one that's not so readily discussed in general, although I have touched on it in other editions of the Be Business Savvy podcast or blog.

4. Ready to Step Up to Higher Expectations. That is understanding what it means to perform at the next higher level, what the expectations are, and to have a sense that you are willing to step up and contribute to the organization using the new skills and identity you will be required to add in order to succeed at that level. I have touched on this before:

This is for sure not to say that you have to Have 100 percent of the skills required to succeed at the next level, but it is important to believe that through disciplined practice you can add those skills and that you understand why they're important.  One of the added benefits of doing this work is equipping yourself for the most excellent answers during your interview for the position. As always, I make a pitch for you to think about your business, financial, and strategic acumen. The expectations in these three arenas are always elevated by a promotion.And if you find that you aren't ready to contribute to the organization at the next higher level, Do look around for opportunities to build out the lattice career rather than the ladder career at this stage - which leads me to the 5th indicator.5. Do You Really Want a Promotion? The fifth indicator that I want to discuss is that you're clear on understanding why a promotion is going to be the right answer for you. Sometimes we think of a promotion as a reward for our good past performance, instead of seeing it as a demand for elevated future performance. And while we may feel itchy and ready to go on to something new, it might be a lateral move. to gather a broader perspective on the organization rather than a move up, which might require us to shift our identity and acquire new skills that we aren't necessarily captivated by.I think about the many individual contributors - oftentimes men in my experience - who have been promoted on the basis of their technical skills, but have no interest in or even aptitude for engaging the greatness in the team members that now report to them. Avoid this situation!

Let's Recap
Today I've talked about five indicators that you are ready for a promotion.


One is that you feel ready.
Another is that you're itchy.
Another is that you are ready. are  high performing in your current job.
Fourth is that you understand what it means to step up to a higher level. 
And the fifth is that you want it for the right reasons.

What's a Woman To Do?
If you satisfy conditions 1, 2, and 3, be sure to examine your motivations. That addresses number 5.

And do your due diligence in relation to what's required to be successful at the nex

These are five reasons,  and there are many more, that even if you don't self identify as ambitious,  developing and demonstrating business savvy will serve you well.Hi, this is Susan Colantuono  coming from beautiful South County, Rhode Island. Not long ago, a woman said this to me, "Susan, I don't think of myself as ambitious. Why should I care about developing Business Savvy? " Well, I can think of 15 reasons, but I am going to share  just a few of them here.1. For me, the most important answer to this question is comfort. This is especially true for women  who work in predominantly male environments where it's very difficult to be seen, to be heard, to be valued and respected.And one of the paths to that is to be seen as a partner in the business, to be seen as someone who's interested in the business, who's learning about the business, and who is taking action and making decisions that advance the business.  Of course, it's no guarantee that you will be treated differently, but  it does increase your chances significantly of being more seen, more heard, more valued. So that's an external reason. 2. Let's talk about an internal reason to develop Business Savvy, even if you don't identify as ambitious, feeling more confident. This is huge.I have said for years that confidence rests on a platform of competence. And this doesn't just mean technical or professional competence.  It means competence as a business woman.  When you work on better understanding business financials and strategy, it brings your competence to an entirely new level. You add to your identity as a technical pro or as a professional, the identity of a businesswoman.And if you are in a leadership role, it strengthens your identity as a leader. Because after all, we know  that business, financial, and strategic acumen enable stronger leadership because you're better able to "use the greatness in you to achieve and sustain extraordinary outcomes by engaging the greatness in others."3. Here's another reason. Even if you don't think of yourself as ambitious, you know that self promotion matters. You might not be striving for a promotion, but  making others aware of your positive impact on the business helps ensure that you are respected for your contributions and that you get the compensation and/or other rewards that you are due.As I've talked about in many other places, and you can read about  inside of the Be Business Savvy blog. The key to self promotion  isn't to tell people how great you are, it is to make known to others your positive impact on the business. And the way to do that is to have worked on your Business Savvy - enhanced your business, financial and strategic acumen.4. Going along with feeling more internally confident, Business Savvy gives you a foundation  for speaking up in meetings or in one-on-ones.I often talk about my experience of bragging on a project about what a great job I did putting a team together and how great our first meeting was - which created a snooze fest for the project lead.

I finally figured out that what he was interested in hearing about was how the work of my team was going to have a positive impact on revenue, not adversely impact expenses. When I began speaking up about our work toward those goals, all of a sudden  he sat up and paid attention.  

This is an example of how my then increasing Business Savvy enabled me to speak up  more competently, therefore more confidently and more professionally.5. Another one of the reasons is that when you've been developing and demonstrating Business Savvy people above you are more likely to have conversations with you about the business. And this creates a virtuous cycle where their conversations with you about the business put you in the know.And you're even more equipped to make recommendations, make comments, get interesting project assignments that relate to moving the business forward.

Let's Recap
These are five reasons, and there are many more

 

TLDR: Use preparatory language to increase your chances of being heard and gaining the respect you deserve. Preparatory language is a comment made before the important comment. It is designed to draw attention to you so that you have gained attention before making your important point.

"I am unheard in meetings. The men especially talk over me, interrupt or restate - minutes later - the very point I made."
This is one of the most common complaints that I hear from women - especially those who work on predominantly male teams. And while this podcast won't solve the problem, I am going to give you tips for how to deal with it.

The Problem
There are two reasons why the podcast won't solve the problem.


The first is that the mindsets of men  make it less likely for them to listen to us can't be addressed by us at all. They have to be dealt with by the men themselves.
The second is, if you historically haven't had anything of value to share, or don't in the moment have anything of value to share, even these tips will make it difficult for you to be heard, which is why of course I make a pitch for you to develop your business financial and strategic acumen.

So let's assume that your suggestions and ideas in the past and in the present are worthy of attention.A most valuable tip that I can share with you about increasing your chances of being heard, is to use what a mentor of mine called preparatory language. And here's why.

The Value of Preparatory Language
A husband and wife research team at the University of Pennsylvania, discovered that when men are in boring meetings, their minds turn much more frequently (than do women's) to what I call the battlefield or the bedroom. Men are having thoughts about aggression or sex, which means that they aren't even listening when we pop into a conversation, especially one that hasn't grabbed their rapt attention, and spill our brilliant comment right away. instead, we need to use preparatory language to grab their attention before we add our brilliance to the conversation.

Men are pretty skilled at doing this. You'll hear them make comments like,


"As we all know."
"As I've said in prior meetings."
"People generally agree."

These are examples of preparatory language. They say nothing, but they grab attention to the speaker.So preparatory language is a comment made before the important comment. It is designed to draw attention to you before you make your comment.

One of the most brilliant practitioners of this that I've ever known, not only uses preparatory language, but she personalizes them. Here are some examples that you can try out yourself.

Preparatory Language in Action
Let's say your colleague Rakesh made an important point a few minutes ago, and you want to amplify it and add to it. So you could say something like,

"I think the comment that Rakesh made a few minutes ago was important to our discussion. I want to add to what he said, and this is especially of interest to you, Jack."

You've not only taken the floor and drawn attention to you, but you have positively engaged, both Rakesh and Jack.Let's say you have a different viewpoint from Lars. You might use preparatory language like this.

"Speaking of the impact on our expense goals for this quarter, I have a slightly different take from what Lars said. So let me explain how my broader idea about how to meet our expense targets.

If you're uncomfortable calling out the fact that you have a different point of view than Lars, you could say to the meeting leader - let's assume his name is Salvi.

"Salvi, I would like to cycle back to an earlier point about hitting our expense targets for the quarter. I have three suggestions that haven't been made yet." And then you lay out the three.

In each case, the point is to draw attention to you and to do that by making a connection with at least one other person in the conversation.

Let's Recap

Women are less likely to be heard in meetings for a host of reasons. One of th

TLDR: Scroll down to the Recap to read the summarized career advice from a woman who was a pioneer in engineering and IT.

Susan: Good morning from beautiful Epona Dressage Center outside of Carmona, Spain, where I have spent the week with some amazing women.

This morning I'm speaking with Wendy McLeod. I was struck by Wendy's career history because she was in the forefront and cutting edge of women in engineering and in IT. So how did you move into IT? First, let me say one thing about that. Data indicates that, unlike today, there were many women who got into IT in the seventies and eighties. How did you make that transition and what was that like?

Wendy: It was in the late eighties and I graduated from university in 1981. Then I went to work in engineering - you have to apprentice for two years and then you become a professional engineer in Canada.

I apprenticed for two years, and then I was a civil engineer out in Alberta and after three or four years I was starting to get antsy and I didn't really know why.

Then in the 80s they brought out a new wood code. I looked at the old wood code, which was from 1918.  And I thought, "It took them 70 years to figure out that wood is actually as strong as we've been using!?" Then I looked around and I thought, what innovations have there been in the last five years?  Oh, there was a new concrete additive that made the concrete set faster. And I realized, there's not enough change for me. There's not enough change.

They had just brought out desktop computers like the IBM PC personal desktop computer that really caught on and I thought, well, that's kind of neat. So I started to program that and I got into it more and more. And I was able to actually turn it into an IT job because when I was at university I would take computer subjects to bring my marks up.  

Susan: Let's fast forward to the end of your career because it's fascinating to me.  You progressed dynamically at HSBC and had a tremendous scope of responsibility HSBC.

Wendy: HSBC is very proud of their talent and they work very hard to to promote their talent. At least they did when, when I was there. I actually was in charge of operations, which is the operational work, not the computing work. I was responsible for South America, Central America, and North America.I was definitely stepping outside my comfort zone to do that.

Of course I wanted to automate everything.

Susan:  Did you get a chance to automate?

Wendy:  Yes, I did, but you kind of have to clean up the processes first.  And that is a huge job in South America, because those banks were acquired more recently and processes were not standardized at all, so it would be pointless trying to computerize. It was quite a contrast from North America.

Susan: And you had how many people?

Wendy: I had 5,000 who rolled up to me, but in HSBC you also had two bosses. So you had an in country boss and you had a regional or a global boss who was trying to promote consistency. Which is hard for newly acquired countries.

I found Brazil particularly fascinating because they had been sort of isolated for so many years with their dictatorships and had invented everything themselves within their own country. They had their own satellite system and they really hadn't been exposed that much, even though it was 15, 20 years on, to connecting with the world, but they're very connecty type people.They like to, they like to connect.  And I found it fascinating that they had, they were so close to having that isolated setup where you have to just rely on yourselves.  Something to be said about that, but yeah, not functional in a global, global institution.  Yeah.

Susan: So you made a comment to me when I first met you that gave me pause in a very positive way. Can you remember and restate it?

Wendy: Yeah, Susan was asking me what I missed most about that job.

Susan: Because you've, you retired right at COVID.

Wendy: I retired right at COVID. What I enjoyed most ab