Just exactly like last year
/Simple Changes, Many Benefits
At the start of the year, some of us make New Year’s resolutions, some of us don’t as we know it will be just exactly like last year, and by the time February roles around the resolutions have flown out of the window.
It’s now July, so perhaps it’s time for a mid-year review, to look at the progress you’ve made and what lies ahead.
However, it doesn’t have to be about resolutions. Sub- tle changes can be made in how we approach our work, our lives, and our relationships. Take cooking for example. You can eat the same food week in week out, or you can mix things up a bit. How many of you have a kitchen full of cookbooks, but barely use them? Well, here’s something for you to try. Pick one week a month and select a type of cuisine you enjoy and then for that week select recipes you’d like to try. There are no strict rules, just a great way to experiment and prepare healthy dishes:
Asian, Thai, Vietnamese, India, French, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Greek, Caribbean, Vegetarian
Likewise with drumming, when you’re playing your drums and one minute, you’re like Nick Mason, the next your Roger Taylor, and if you really work your chops off you might sound like Bonham. Well, if you tweak the actual set-up of your drum kit with different cymbals, perhaps 2 snares instead of one, 2 ride cymbals, a closed hi-hat on the right-hand side, and playing with different sticks in each hand, you are then able to tap into different sounds and different musical flavours.
Finance and Accounting Teams
I’ve yet to come across an Accounting or Finance team that doesn’t still rely on Excel.
When I was a lad, there was competition from the likes of Lotus 1-2-3 and Quattro Pro, but Excel clearly won the battle. Though of course these days, there are some organisations that are using Google Sheets. Is it possible to go beyond the spreadsheet – even when it can be heaven, or sometime it can be hell?
With the new systems and technology available can they replace the spreadsheet?
They possibly could, but I think it’s fairly safe to say, that the spreadsheet will still be around in the future, but perhaps not used as widely with the utilisation of much improved consolidation, budgeting and fore- casting systems being available.
So, while Finance and Accounting teams will still work on many of the same reporting aspects:
Profit & loss, balance sheet, cash flow statements, cus- tomer analysis, product range reviews, headcount re- views, investment appraisals, cost saving reviews
the way the numbers can be presented with modern business intelligence and reporting tools helps to raise awareness and engagement within the team and wider business, so as to ensure that it’s totally possible to put the Fun into Finance, as after all no one, wants life to be just exactly like last year do they?
Mentors/Development – Even Consultants have to sharpen their saws too
After 2020, 2021 needed to be different. At the start of the year, I was able to appreciate that JELLY was not going to work for me, and that I needed to sharpen my saw as they say. It was time to make some changes, to grow and develop further. As it happened, I had 3 men- tors present me with their offerings and ideas.
They were John Williams author of “Screw Work, Let’s Play”, Jack Canfield from the Chicken Soup series who introduced me to the Japanese concept of Ikigai: What you love (Passion) / What you are good at (Profession) / What the world needs (Mission) / What you can be paid for (Vocation) and consulting’s own Obi-Wan Kenobi, a wise consulting Jedi named Ron Person.
While the Jackson Five may sing that “It's easy as 123, ABC” I actually also think that Napoleon Hill’s wise ab- breviation: CBA - Conceive, Believe, Achieve is also worth utilising whenever possible. It has certainly been a blessing for me so far this year.
And yes, I went with the Jedi mentor in case you wondered.
