How a journal helped me get promoted to FP&A Manager
Image by Jan Kahánek via Unsplash
Nine years ago, I was an individual contributor in FP&A at Unilever. I was hoping to get promoted to manager, and I got good feedback.
But he said I wasn’t ready yet.
I thought I was doing well and didn’t know what to improve. I thought about putting in even more hours, but I didn’t want to risk hurting the relationship with my wife at home. I contemplated taking that risk anyway when my mentor gave me fantastic advice.
He said to perform at the next level, I need to leave my role in a better place than when I found it. I need to make improvements that last, even when I’m not here anymore. That sounded good in theory, but how could I do that?
My mentor suggested I keep a journal for a week and write down everything I do. Next, I should look at how much value each task adds. “Adding value” is defined as: When I do more of this activity, it helps the company reach its goals.
For example, consolidating a report doesn’t add value because spending 30 minutes more doesn’t help the company reach its goals. On the contrary, it takes up time I could use to do more valuable things.
When I looked at the journal after a week, it was easy to see the non-value-adding tasks I spent the most time on.
Next, I focused my energy on eliminating, simplifying, and automating them. I had to consolidate scorecards of over a dozen tea factories every week. The process took a big chunk of my time, so I wrote a macro to automate the process in Excel.
The result? I saved hours of inefficient time and thereby left the role in a better place than I found it in.
I got promoted to manager a few months later.
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