WE ARE ALL MORE THAN OUR RESUMES
At a recent conference a speaker suggested that resumes typically describe work experience but fall far short of capturing a complete picture of our skills. Executives are often engaged in much more than their paid jobs.
This has been the case for me too. For the last several years, in addition to launching a consulting business and holding a full-time corporate position, I have been the President of the Ukrainian Culture Center of Los Angeles (UCCLA). I am the first female President of this 80 year old organization and have seen the organization through 2 crises now – COVID-19 and the russian invasion of Ukraine.
Along the way I have learned a great deal. Today’s post is the third of a multi-part series of posts in which I will share the key lessons I have learned, the mistakes I made and where my financial planning and analysis skillset served me in responding to russia’s invasion of a sovereign country. In the spirit of “making my mess my message” I hope these you find these insights useful.
LESSON 3: NEVER SAY NO TO ANYONE (ALMOST)
While leveraging Lesson 2, Listening for Intent, I tried to answer every call, answer every email and take every meeting. In the first weeks after the outbreak there were more phone calls than our volunteer team could handle. When you add to that the volume of messages coming in over email and our social media accounts, the situation quickly became overwhelming.
The solution of course was to design a process for handling all of the messaging. The process required soliciting more volunteers and breaking down each phone call, email or social media message into categories. Some sample categories included:
- Requests for assistance filling out paperwork to volunteer for the foreign legion
- Requests for refugee assistance
- Offers to make financial contributions to the center
- Offers of medical supplies, medications and military equipment such as drones
- Interview requests from print, radio and television
Once categorized, we were able to rack and stack who to respond to and in what order. Every response had to be curated in such a way that we could understand what additional work we would be taking on once the connection was made. Carefully understanding what we could and more importantly what we could not do, saved a lot of disappointment on both sides of the opportunity. To be sure, we had to walk away from certain things. Ultimately, we pushed all items through a single lens – how does responding to this opportunity align with helping Ukraine win the war?
Unfortunately, anything that did not pass through that filter had to be left behind. This led to some very difficult conversations especially when it came to refugee assistance. The mission of the Ukrainian Culture Center had never been about war and we knew were not a relief agency. As such, we thought we could pivot to a war footing but we knew we were not able to focus on refugees. Moreover, we had to take the perspective that people that made it here were safe. Certainly, they were not in an ideal situation, but forced to choose between our new mission and helping refugees in need, we chose the former. But there was ultimately a silver lining….
In the spirit of not saying no to anyone (almost), I accepted an invitation to give a speech about the invasion by the mayor of a small town. I did not really see the point given the small size of the audience and its likely limited reach. As a result of that speech, I met a Congressman who was in attendance. The speech was also televised and seen by some wealthy individuals in southern California who wanted to help. The Congressman called me and introduced me to individuals who wanted to assist refugees specifically and had significant financial backing. So, in a sense, by focusing on our new mission, I was able to solve for other problems that we thought we had to walk away from. Had I not gone and given that speech, I would have not only lost the opportunity to share information outside the Ukrainian community about the russian invasion but I would have also lost the chance to help some families get settled.
Opportunities can come from just about anywhere. Almost never saying no while staying aligned with our mission to help Ukraine win the war was a philosophy that served me well time and time again and continues to open doors to this day.
When it comes to FP&A, being attuned to a company’s mission and aligning financial strategies to achieve corporate objectives is the bread and butter of financial planning and analysis. I have seen this put into practice with positive results in multiple organizations be they large or small, public or private. If the implementation of this type of alignment is what you need That’s where I can help.
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