FP&A Stories - π€ 3 questions that make your team think before they speak
Hello Reader πTwenty years ago, I was sitting next to Vincent in an amphitheatre at ICHEC Brussels. We were presenting a joint paper on corporate law. Two students doing their best to look like they knew what they were talking about. Last week, Vincent invited me to his cybersecurity firm, and I taught storytelling to his team of experts. I expected it to feel completely lost, me the expert for finance. But within the first hour, I recognised something I have seen in every finance team I have ever worked with. The managers were frustrated by how hard they had to pull to get real answers from their consultants during project reviews. They went in hoping for clarity. They left with status updates and a long list of follow-up questions. So this week, I want to talk about why that happens, and what FP&A leaders can do to change it. So take a coffee, sit down and read FP&A Stories just like 18k other readers This week in FP&A Stories π€ 3 questions that make your team think before they speak π€ 3 questions that make your team think before they speakThe physicist who made experts feel stupid (in a good way)I am a huge fan of The Big Bang Theory. And one thing Sheldon Cooper references constantly is Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and arguably the most precise thinker of the 20th century. What made Feynman legendary was not his answers. It was his questions. He asked things so specific that entire rooms of experts suddenly realised they did not understand what they thought they understood. The question forced precision. And precision forced clarity. The question sets the ceilingEvery month, the same scene plays out in finance teams. The analyst presents the closing results to the CFO or the FP&A manager before the ExCo, walks through the big variances, then goes deeper into each account line by line. When the CFO starts asking questions beyond the slides, the answers get thinner. The preparation covered the deck. It rarely covered the conversation. What is missing is simple. Before walking into that room, someone needs to have asked the analyst what those numbers actually mean for the business. "So what?" as a disciplineEvery month, the analyst presents the closing results to the CFO or FP&A manager before the ExCo. They walk through the big variances, then go deeper into each account line by line. When the CFO starts asking questions beyond the deck, the preparation shows its limits because nobody had thought about the conversation, only the slides. "So what?" is the question that changes that preparation. When you ask "what happened to margin in the commercial division?", you get a number. When you ask "what does this margin erosion mean for the decision leadership has to make next month?", you get an argument. When analysts are trained to ask themselves that question before they start the presentation, the pre-ExCo session becomes a real conversation rather than a retrieval exercise. And humanly, that shift is felt by everyone. 3 questions to run before every MBR prepYou do not need a long checklist. You need three questions that force your team to think like advisors before they think like reporters. What is the one thing leadership needs to understand this month? Not the ten things. The one thing. If your analyst cannot answer that in a single clear sentence, the slide deck is not ready. What is the risk they do not know about yet? This is the question that moves finance from rear-view mirror to windshield. Every month has a number that looks fine today and becomes a problem in 60 days. That number needs a name, a sentence, and a recommendation before it enters the room. What decision do you need from them today? This is the question most finance teams never ask. They present. They answer questions. They leave. But a strategic finance team walks in knowing exactly what they need leadership to decide, approve, or prioritise. That clarity changes the entire dynamic of the meeting. Three questions. Run them with your team in the 48 hours before the MBR. The review will not feel like the same meeting. What changes in the roomWhen the preparation changes, the review changes. Leadership stops asking follow-up questions they should not have to ask. The CFO stops filling in the gaps. The conversation moves faster, goes deeper, and ends with decisions instead of action points. That is the moment finance stops feeling like a support function and starts feeling like a voice in the room worth listening to. It does not require a new tool or a new framework. It requires better questions, asked earlier. Feynman would have made a terrifying FP&A manager. But a very good one. Final Thought The quality of the answer you get in the boardroom is decided long before anyone walks into the room. It is decided by the question you asked your team during prep. Most managers focus on the slides. The best ones focus on the questions they ask before the slides are built. That is where the real work happens. That takes time. But so does explaining to leadership why a number surprised everyone. Hit reply and tell me: what is one question you ask your team before a review that you wish you had started asking sooner? I read every message and reply to all of them. That's a wrap for this week See you next week!β P.S. After 17 years in FP&A, Consulting and Leadership, Iβve coached and trained finance teams across industries, from consulting and manufacturing to tech, media, and global logistics. If you want to sharpen your own storytelling skills or bring this work into your team, here are a 3 ways can work together:
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