Blog Post

Skills & Experience - What Matters in Finance

Ollie Smedley • Oct 30, 2019

You really don't need to know it all

“Please don’t ask me to explain the deferred tax computation…….”.

The truth is I’m pretty hopeless at tax, even though I passed my accounting exams. If I’m honest, it didn’t really interest me and I never made enough effort to really understand it.

But for years that would have bothered me - I had ‘imposter syndrome’, which I meant I tended to focus on the things that I couldn’t do, rather than the things I could. I was never quite good enough and so I worked twice as hard.

Another one was having enough “commercial experience” - I put off several bigger jobs because I didn’t think mine was the “right” commercial experience.

Of course it was nonsense – whilst I’d never struck a commercial contract I was business friendly and I’d done a ton of other things.

But that mindset held me back until I’d got enough experience to KNOW that I didn’t need to know it all. I just needed to:

1. Leverage my strengths.

2. Recognise and acknowledge the skills I needed to be successful but didn’t have.

3. Utilise or assemble the teams around me to fill the gaps.

And only then start to think about getting the skills myself.

What matters to the success of your current role?

Ollie helps finance leaders and teams create the space, thinking and leadership they need to thrive. Previously an FD and MD in a range of complex, blue chip organisations he’s now an ICF accredited coach. Try his free “What Matters in Finance” exercise if you’re curious about what really matters to you.

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