A great characteristic about human beings is we generally enjoy talking about the subject we know the most about – ourselves! Hence, presenting a great learning opportunity.

If you have a job, then there is the opportunity to learn something every week of your life. It costs no money, takes very little time, comes with zero stress, does not require sitting exams or writing dissertations and is cumulative in nature. Life long learning?

Whatever your job, you are likely to have a defined role with designated responsibilities. The execution of this core role and delivery of associated business metrics will help you build your professional reputation. The opportunity for this continuous learning though sits at the interfaces of your role with the rest of the business – internally, but also externally with business partners.

The company I worked for had a pretty good training program but it was not comprehensive and there were significant gaps. I was swimming in a strong graduate pool so to give myself an edge I decided to fill these gaps informally. The most pressing gap for all of us was financial management. Enter Arthur Proctor and John Cragg. Arthur was the site Chief Financial Manager and John the head of fixed assets. I went to see the secretary of the Finance Dept ( the gatekeeper) and asked if I could have an hour of their time – a simple request- to understand their roles. Apparently, this was an unusual situation as they were both 20+ year senior managers and I was still wet behind the ears. The time with Arthur expanded to 3 hours, with John 2 hours. Personal tutorials that covered P&L, balance sheet, fixed and variable costing, budget planning, variances to standard, capital projects and depreciation and transfer pricing. A terrific foundation.

Two years later I was interviewed for a role in HQ – a role that I never even knew existed and a role that would totally change the trajectory of my career. The preliminary interview was quite heavily skewed towards business finance. Enough said!

A simple question, an interest in what people do and how they do it, the innovations that are happening in their field, their perspective about current events……….. this simple process stood me in good stead throughout my career and beyond.