Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Cool Careers in Accounting Ep. 11 - Telling Stories & Defining Your Own with Nicole Balkenbusch
37 Plays2 hours ago
Nicole (Alex) Balkenbusch, Chief Storyteller at Amazon, joins us to discuss her journey from accountant to financial planning and analysis leader at one of the world’s largest corporations. She emphasizes the importance of storytelling in finance, bringing data to life to drive business decisions. She has also built a leadership development and executive coaching business, and shares advice on managing work-life balance, setting goals, and the importance of mentorship. Learn insights into taking your career beyond traditional expectations.
Earn CPE by listening to this podcast through a Becker Prime CPE subscription.
Listen to this episode through your Becker LMS platform to complete practice questions, pass the final exam, and earn CPE credit.
Already a Becker Prime CPE customer? Login here.
Have access to Becker CPE through your employer? Earn CPE credit for this podcast however you consume Becker CPE, either through your company’s LMS or via the Becker platform. Not sure where to log in? Check with your CPE admin.
Learn more about CPE Podcasts from Becker: https://www.becker.com/cpe/becker-podcasts
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Nicole and Modern Accounting
00:00:09
Speaker
Okay, Spencer Payne here with another edition of Cool Careers in Accounting with Becker. And today we are with Nicole Balkenbush. Nicole, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to people who are in this finance and accounting world and understand that you don't just do taxes if you if you studied accounting.
00:00:26
Speaker
How would you describe to yourself kind of what you do, your niche, your specialty? Like, how would you describe to people in the know in this industry what you do? Awesome. Well, first off, thank you, Spencer, for having me. I'm happy to be here.
00:00:38
Speaker
Not going lie when you first said it was cool careers in accounting. I thought back 20 years ago as an accounting major, I didn't think accounting was cool then. But I will say, I do think it's semi-cool now.
00:00:49
Speaker
So ah for those that are listening, it can be cool. And I'm laughing because taxes, I actually loathe doing my taxes. ah My husband's an engineer and I will look at him and say, would you like to do the taxes this year, dear?
00:01:02
Speaker
Because I do not enjoy doing them. I'm a weird accountant.
The Role of Storytelling in Finance
00:01:05
Speaker
Let's start there. So my role right now is I work at Amazon in our worldwide stores as the chief storyteller and FP&A leader.
00:01:14
Speaker
ah FP&A stands for Financial Planning and Analysis, which pretty much happens at every company worldwide. It doesn't matter if you are small, large, private, PE, you have nonprofits, you have to have some type of financial reporting for stakeholders or shareholders.
00:01:32
Speaker
And so typically you'll have ah an FP&A team or a function or a person doing the financial reporting, whether it's on ah the P&L, balance sheet, ah capital or CapEx and so forth. So we have two sides of the house at Amazon. We have Amazon Web Services and we have the store side of the house.
00:01:50
Speaker
The store side of the house is the like 500 billion behemoth that we have, everything that's sold on dot com. So I lead all the financial reporting for them. I started this role about six months ago.
00:02:03
Speaker
On the side, I also have my own leadership development, consulting and executive coaching business. nights and weekends at this point in time ah called Kohl's LTD. It's a way for me to balance the results that I deliver in my base job.
00:02:18
Speaker
And then I have the fun and leadership part at night and weekends with the side hustle. um Awesome. So a lot of things going on there. So many so many interesting things that we can delve into. um You know, again, financial FP&A leader and a $500 billion dollars arm of Amazon's stores business. And then this kind of chief storyteller ah title that you said. I'd love to hear more about that what is that. Is that your title? Is that an official title? What does that mean? How how did this chief storyteller title come about in the FP&A role?
00:02:50
Speaker
Yes, so ah I would say most ah accounting roles don't have sexy titles. Let's start there. And so normal people would say, oh, I'm the FP&A and leader of this organization. I gave myself the chief storyteller title because when I interviewed, what I talked with the leadership team about the need to drive more influence, to drive more insights, and to drive more improvements in how FP&A was functioning from a results and from a relationship standpoint across our FP&A community in stores.
00:03:26
Speaker
And the more I heard the leadership talk about what they wanted to have in the role, the more it became clear it's not just about data and putting the numbers in the P&L and saying, here you go. Or we call it bridging or reconciling or variance analysis and saying like, oh, here's where the drivers were.
00:03:43
Speaker
It's about telling the story. And we as, I'd say, finance and especially the accounting organization have a really critical role and a big opportunity to play in how we can bring those numbers to life for leadership.
00:03:57
Speaker
That way they can actually make better business decisions. the the The simple thing I'd say is you could come and say there's three drivers, here it is on a you know Excel spreadsheet. Or you weave the insights around there that says, wow, did you realize this is the third month in a row where XYZ has happened?
00:04:16
Speaker
And we're continuing to see it as a trend and we'd recommend this in the future. Or, hey, we're curious about this one thing, it continues to show up like this, We don't have any insights and we need the business team to look into this.
00:04:27
Speaker
We're concerned about the future. Can you tell us the story we should be telling here? And it actually causes the business team to take different actions then because of how we bring the data to life. um Yeah, that's awesome. And as a side note, macro level, talked to many CFOs and leaders of finance and accounting teams and asked some version of this question, right? If you think about your finance and accounting team, if you could if if you could level up that team skills at one thing, the magic wand overnight and make them just an A-level, something that they're not an A-level at today, an overnight magic wand they're an A-level at tomorrow, what what would you but would you point that magic wand at? What skill would you level your team up with?
00:05:08
Speaker
And almost universally, the answer is i i I'd love to have the team be better at telling the story of what the data means as opposed to here's the data. Man, it was really hard to go get. We had to get six different systems and do all these analysis. And and here you go. I love I love more of the story of like, well, what is it telling you? What but actions should we take next?
00:05:29
Speaker
um So i I share that just because this is a common need that I've heard. And you have this self-anointed chief storyteller title. Are you able to maybe share any examples of some of how is that storytelling telling benefit of the business? Or are there any things that you're looking forward to doing in the next three, six, nine, 12 months?
00:05:47
Speaker
as a result of kind of this storytelling that that's bringing different insights to the business that maybe you weren't there six, 12 months ago. So, and again, any any tangible examples that you could share? Again, maybe you can't share exact numbers or the exact actions you're seeing. No numbers are going to be shared. You could share that have been ah as a result of that storyteller role of how things are different as a result or things that you're hoping to make different in the future.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yes, so if i I'll go backward looking for one and forward looking for two. If go backward looking for one, ah each company, and we are in the process of our annual planning cycle right now, where you're forecasting it could be one year out, three years out, 10 years.
00:06:26
Speaker
you know Companies have different ways of doing things. And what I have found in my first six months is the data's flowing in and everyone's reacting real time to the numbers, and then they're figuring out the story on the backend.
00:06:41
Speaker
And something that did not work was when the numbers came in different than expected, which happens at any company. You put an A, it pops out B, and you think, huh, I did not align to B, or was the leader aware of this, or did the business sign up for B? I thought we all agreed on this number a over here.
00:06:58
Speaker
And so with that, I used the storytelling to help us say, hey, how did we get from A to B? And what has to be true to get us back to A? What are the choices?
00:07:10
Speaker
They could be tough choices. They could be easy choices. If they were easy choices, they would have probably already been done. And so I used at Amazon, we talk about like the power of escalation of, you know, I'm in a hot seat. I'm very close to the sun with our senior leaders.
00:07:24
Speaker
So I use that positional authority to say, we're sitting at B and here's how I suggest we get back to A. what What would you like to do? So I still gave them the choice and the decision authority, but I was able to tell a story in a way that got us back.
00:07:36
Speaker
So with that forward looking, I'm focused on two areas with my team this year. The first is reporting efficiency. What does that mean? You joked around, oh, I took these six spreadsheets. I have a very small team and we make hundreds of manual reports.
00:07:50
Speaker
I had a new leader come in and said, make me a reports repository. I'm hearing about all these different reports. She came in and said, we have 130 ones that we make manually today, whether it's with ah SQL, even a little bit of Python, but still it's cobbling together yeah different data sources and they break often.
00:08:07
Speaker
My first goal for this role, I'd say for this year, but it's really going to be this role because it's going to take a while, is cutting that crap out. yeah My team doesn't have time to focus on the story or the communication.
00:08:19
Speaker
if they are down in the data minutia, and I wanna help ladder them up, and I need to create that capacity for them by making it less manual. The second goal forward-looking is creating a really strong connection and community across others that are in roles like myself.
00:08:35
Speaker
I am not the only, I've been a leader at Amazon or on the store side the house. There are many partner teams that I work with. And what I find also is the stories or lack of that i receive makes it hard for me to tell a worldwide story when it comes to time. So we'll be doing specific and leveraging my leadership development skills, so summits, training, leadership development opportunities to help ladder up communication and the storytelling across the broader organization, not just in my own team.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yep. Awesome. And i curious, always love asking people this question because it's so different and and there's so many ways to take this, but And it's let's a flash forward to December 31st of 2025. How will you know that you had a good
Strategic Goals and Reporting Efficiency
00:09:20
Speaker
year? Like, how do you know that you're doing job your job well? Or are you able to share any of the things that are, hey, I hope to have accomplished x Y, or Z by the end of the year. And that's how I know that I made a valuable contribution and I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. How do you how do you judge that?
00:09:33
Speaker
I'd say it's two areas of results and relationships is how I typically think of the two R's. On the results, and I'd say from the business, Did I help influence how we ended the financial or the operational plans by the end of the year with Amazon?
00:09:48
Speaker
Was I able to either forecast or outlook, hey, we're going to be better or worse and avoid certain crisis down the road? Or was able to say, let's leverage that goodness and keep it going? So if I think about the better business decisions and am I happy with Amazon store's results the end of the year, that'll be number one.
00:10:06
Speaker
The second thing, and I told my team for that reporting era, I went 75% of the reports by the end of the year to be either gone, we've stopped making them because they're not important.
00:10:16
Speaker
I don't know how we have that many. Or two, that they're automated so you can click a button. And even me, who ah does not know how to do all of the technical stuff anymore, I used to, but I could go click it, download it,
00:10:29
Speaker
and move on. My team thinks I'm crazy for that number. But I'm also like, no, we have to have this big moonshot goal. Because at Amazon, at least we believe, if you hit 50% of your goals, that's great. That means you stretched far enough.
00:10:40
Speaker
And then the third part will be in the relationships. So if I think about creating that sense of an FP&A community, like I talked about, ah helping my own team develop as team members, I have ah internal and external executive coaching clients that I have, seeing them really flourish in current roles or find new opportunities.
00:11:02
Speaker
And so I think about it like that balance at year end between the results of the relationship, that's how I'll be satisfied. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. And on the note of being comfortable, being bold or making this, what sounds like maybe BHAG is what we've called that sometimes big, hairy, audacious goal of 75% of those reports are either gone or automated.
00:11:25
Speaker
um is like, if you if you come out with a goal of 10%, even if you achieve 10%, it's like that that might make no dent whatsoever into the time spent on all these things.
00:11:37
Speaker
um And so it's like, what's the point? I don't know, what's the point of shooting for 10% when if you shoot for 75, even if you fail and get to 50, that might still be a colossal win. And that's really all you're after in the first place.
00:11:49
Speaker
Absolutely. Yet, if you think about marginal goals, a 10%, and insert anything that you want to do, hey, I'll i'll change this or I'll tweak this slightly.
00:12:00
Speaker
I know from my leadership development experience, the behaviors of the individual or of the team or the or but broader organization are not going to materially change. They're going to marginally adapt.
00:12:12
Speaker
And they might they're not going to stick. They'll probably go back to current state because there's nothing to keep them there. When you say, I want to go this far, One, people react at stages of grief ah by Elizabeth Kugler-Ross or stages of change where they're in shock and horror at first.
00:12:29
Speaker
They get to negotiating of, I don't think this is 75%. I think let's get to 50. What about a 20, right? They get to this low phase of, don't think this is possible. And then by the time they accept it goes, you know what? Let's do this thing.
00:12:41
Speaker
ah That materially changes how you have to operate. It will make us scrutinize this report. Does leadership really use it? is it worth the three hours a month or three hours a week that you as a person are spending on this?
00:12:53
Speaker
Or if not, what's the trade-off of time that you could be spending on something else? And what I find is if you ask people to stop doing something, that can feel scary. And if you ask them also, what would you rather be doing?
00:13:06
Speaker
They could be focusing on the results, they could be focusing on relationships, and then people will light up and say, I've always wanted to do X. If we can get rid of the 75%, you can do X. And then all of a sudden, everybody's on board with changing major ways of working because they're excited about what the alternative looks like.
00:13:25
Speaker
Yes, that's awesome. And I will also highlight, once once a thing is created, it's much harder to undo a thing once it has started. And oftentimes, sometimes I like to ask, like what if what if we just didn't do that report at all?
00:13:39
Speaker
like Not like, let's make a tweak. like What if we just didn't do this at all? like What would be the impact? And even ask maybe the team that's asking for that report, because there's usually somebody who put request maybe six months ago. I need to see it this way. right And then like really go to the source of like what happened? like like What material difference are you making in your business as a result of having this report?
00:13:59
Speaker
And if there's not a good answer, like, what if we just didn't do this anymore? Like, how would that impact you? Like, what if we tested for two months not giving you this report? Let's see if that actually has any impact. Like, there's some ways to approach that that are a little softer, too, instead of just, like, someone might be hearing this and be like, I'm just going to stop doing all those reports. Like, that might be a little too we might feel a little too harsh. so There can always be some questions that you ask to try to get people on board.
00:14:22
Speaker
um One thing I'd love to do. Can I build on that for a second? yeah Another tactical way for those that are listening, like, I can't stop that. Here's a ah strategic and sneaky way to do that.
00:14:33
Speaker
So in my first three months in any role, and I'm talking back at early days at Procter & Gamble where I started my career and I worked at a manufacturing plant all the way up to where I am now. The first three months, I will observe everything that's getting creative, whether it's myself creating it, my team, what are the leaders asking questions about, ah you know and I'll just get the lay of land.
00:14:52
Speaker
What I do then is between months three and six, I will actually stop doing certain reports and sending them. Now I still create them or my team creates them. So we have them ready for when the person says, did you have the blah, blah, blah report?
00:15:05
Speaker
Ah, they care. Oh yes, it's right here. Here you go. So i'll ah I'll test and learn over those couple months. And if I see within three months, that nothing's getting asked for, that at that point we stop the work and we actually don't even advertise that we stopped it because they may say, well, I think I would like to have it. That's a nice to have. No, I'm looking for what you have to have.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ah One quick, quick aside. One thing I've seen other people do that has just been, you know, fun, funny way to do this is on, you know, PowerPoint slide seven of the weekly, whatever that you're wondering, like and no one has responded to this in four weeks. Does anyone read this? I've seen people put like,
00:15:43
Speaker
you know, in big, bold letters, like the last three Kentucky Derby winners were boom, boom, boom. And just see like, or or put in some random, totally like, or like email me if you read this on slide seven, like, let me know that you actually are reading this. And if two weeks go by and no one sends an email, then there's like, I don't think i'm going to send this report anymore. So anyway, I'm not, I'm not advertising that everyone do that. I'm just saying sometimes there's some fun, fun ways. If you have a good relationship with people to add a little bit of fun into some of those types of things. For sure. sure We actually call those Easter eggs at Amazon. yeah it's like yeah and And you'll see them because we do a lot of narrative writing.
00:16:18
Speaker
So whether it's narrative writing or in a financial report, to your point, you can leave something fun or something intentionally wrong to see if people are reading and we'll catch you on it.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. um Interesting strategy. Again, I wouldn't advise that if maybe you're four months or four weeks into a new role, like you've got to have some relationships and some seasoning before you do something like that. um I am curious to dig in a little bit more here. So you're accounting major to now chief storyteller, self-anointed.
00:16:47
Speaker
How in the
Developing Storytelling Skills
00:16:48
Speaker
world does that happen? Can you help us understand a little bit of how how have you learned how to be this good storyteller? Like, were there workshops that you're going to? Did you have a boss who you're like, wow, that person is better than anyone I've ever seen in accounting finance world at taking data and turning that into Well, this is the narrative that I see. Here's three options we should take.
00:17:08
Speaker
So how how did you learn that skill? Observational, intentional? How have you gotten better at it? Can you help us understand that? Because that's not a skill, again, in college or early accounting that people are focused on accounting and finance professionals necessarily learning or being really good at. So how did that happen for you?
00:17:24
Speaker
For sure. I think it's two things. um One, asking questions and observing what's happening, right? Who are those leaders you want to be like and trying to emulate them? And two, I was very fortunate that especially early on in my career, I had great managers and mentors who invest a lot of time in me. So I started at Procter & Gamble. I was there for over a decade.
00:17:45
Speaker
I've been at Amazon for about seven years. And I've been so thankful for those leaders that say, can you come into my office? And I want to sit you down for a second. Here's how the email that you just sent would be received by the customer.
00:17:58
Speaker
Did you think about it from their perspective? Well, no. Well, let's think about, and so the person will actually walk me through and talk. ah Here's you know the 50 things that's on their mind. And if you send it like this, they'll wonder what's going on.
00:18:11
Speaker
And so I got taught early on to put yourself in your customer's shoes whenever you're telling the story or even putting together that ah chart at the end or the PowerPoint slide or the Word doc, whatever it is, with your end result, how could the person read it, infer it, and that type of thing. The second thing that I would do is whether it was my meeting or somebody else's, it's easy when it's not your own meeting to like, oh, thank you, I'm just...
00:18:34
Speaker
just gonna sit here a little bit and chill and drink my coffee and just watch somebody else run their meeting. Or if you're on Zoom, like I'll just be off video and I'll just be learning or listening. And I'm always listening and observing intentionally with, okay, how did that person tell the story? How did that customer receive it?
00:18:50
Speaker
Oh, they liked it like that. Okay. How did that person tell the story? Ooh, that did not work. Note to self either. It could be that particular leader style, or if I see that it becomes a trend, then it's okay. That's an area to watch out.
00:19:04
Speaker
I also had a leader when I was in an FP&A role many years ago at PNG. He was tough. I thought he was ruthless at the time.
00:19:15
Speaker
I thought sometimes he was even rude because he would say to me, do you see this here? This punctuation is off. And a few means three, not more than three. I'm like, can I, many?
00:19:27
Speaker
Sure. Several, that's fine. But not not a few. And a two is only means a couple. ok or Okay. Right. And he was so ah particular. i was like, what is wrong with this guy?
00:19:40
Speaker
I now use those same skills and I have to watch myself with my own team because I'll say, thanks for doing this. Have you considered, or I'll say often, may I suggest the following? And my team, when I was new, was like, oh, she's just giving a suggestion.
00:19:55
Speaker
And now they come to me like, I understand when you say, may I suggest, it means go do this. You're just softening it for me. And I said, yes, because I had a leader that I felt from a communication style wasn't resonating with me, but he was spot on with what he was talking about.
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah. um The very first thing that you said in answering that question was around you know being lucky to have great leaders, mentors kind of around you in your career and that sometimes they might pull you into their office if you send an email and say, hey, have you considered how this might be read by somebody else?
00:20:28
Speaker
So here it it could be very easy for someone in a ah in a role like that to be intimidated or off-put or think that that that person who's pulling you in and and giving you advice is ah you know, calling you out or it it could be easy to be defensive in a situation like that. So can you help us understand, like, how did you establish maybe trust with folks or get rid of that defensiveness and realize, no, they're just trying to help me. Like, can you help me understand like the state of mind of establishing maybe upfront with those leaders that you're all in this to try to improve as opposed to, again, those things could be taken very defensively. How did you choose not to do it that way or establish the relationship with those folks where you knew they were, they were actually looking out for you?
00:21:08
Speaker
Yes. um I think ah trust is definitely a factor. That said, i I think of it as being really intentional on what are the opportunities and when is the right time to learn and to coach and to teach versus just go do.
00:21:25
Speaker
you're already late at the report or it's late at night and it's getting you're getting ready for an 8 a.m. meeting the next morning. That's probably not the time to be like, would you like to come into my office as insert leader to me or ah me with my team to let's have a 30 minute, how do you think you could do this better? That's, hey, we need to fix this X, Y, Z.
00:21:43
Speaker
So what the leaders that I found did with me and that I do with my team is I look for the right time to coach on that. So it's when you have a bit more time, you're not as rushed and there's maybe it's not as much urgent going on.
00:21:55
Speaker
And you'll say to them, and both of you, you can tell are in the, ah from that trust, the time to coach and the time to receive it. You can tell they're in a good mental state. And you'll say, hey, I'd love to talk through how this was phrased or so forth.
00:22:09
Speaker
And that's actually then when I use the second piece, which is my coaching hat. So my coaching hat has taught me the power of a question when used is more powerful than statements. And so I ah teach even my managers right now of we start with what or how.
00:22:25
Speaker
Those are two open-ended question starters that does not lead the person to get defensive. The moment you say, why have you made it like this? Why? That is a trigger word. It'll put you into a fight or flight state ah in your brain.
00:22:39
Speaker
So if you can strike the word why and you're like, oh, I'm wondering. And I'll start with, I'm curious. I'm wondering to soften. what was the intention on this wording here?
00:22:50
Speaker
Or what was we were thinking about this? Or looking back and knowing what you know now, how would you change this based on the feedback that we got in the meeting? And I wanna see first if the person is aware of how they could improve in the future.
00:23:06
Speaker
And if they got it, then we move on. I don't need to come in hot and direct them if they already have the awareness. But if it if I can tell they're either not getting it or so forth, then I'll you know use that time that we've built to get a little bit more directive and say, hey, I appreciate that you did this and I'd like to see this going forward.
00:23:25
Speaker
Would you like me to tell you the reason why or do you just want to know the directive? Because some people will say, I don't have time and I don't care. Great. yeah And I'm just going to make it clear for the future. Yeah. Yeah. OK, awesome.
00:23:35
Speaker
um And ah thank you for sharing and great little tactical tidbits here on a whole bunch of things like stopping reports and giving feedback, granting feedback. So thank you. I'd love to step back on some some just big moments maybe in your in your career and what you've learned from them and maybe what others can learn.
00:23:54
Speaker
um But first, I'd love to just hear, know, 10 years at P&G, seven years at Amazon, five hundred billion dollar business. How in the world have you managed to do well at work and also do well in personal life? How how have those two things kind of intertwined your ability to navigate you know both being being a high performer at work and and living the life that you want to live?
00:24:16
Speaker
How have you been able to balance that and how has that trended over
Balancing Career and Personal Life
00:24:19
Speaker
time? Are there any times where you were way overloaded on one or the other and you needed to learn how to how to come back to a balance for yourself? What wisdom might you share there for others based on your your path?
00:24:29
Speaker
ah So first off, I would strike the word balance. Because especially if you would have told me as a college student 20 years ago, like, what does your life look like? I would have laid out this beautiful plan for you. And I'm the world's biggest planner.
00:24:42
Speaker
I actually don't even care if the plan ever happens. I just want to have a plan. And so in this case, I had planned, I would, I'm from the Midwest originally, went to the Ohio State University, go Bucs. And I would have thought I would have stayed at Procter & Gamble, worked there for 25 years, lived in Ohio near my family.
00:24:59
Speaker
And that that was life because that's what I had as examples. And I thought that was the definition of good and successful. Well, I married my husband many years ago. He's an engineer and he works at Boeing.
00:25:13
Speaker
Boeing and Procter & Gamble were not located in the same spot. And so creativity came in very early to our marriage. We had four moves in 10 years to make dual careers work. We now have two daughters that are 10 and seven years old and we live in Seattle.
00:25:28
Speaker
If you would have told me this was my life, I would have said, there's no way that doesn't make any sense. I don't know anybody in Seattle. That's on the West Coast. That's very far away from my family and friends. That sounds scary.
00:25:40
Speaker
And yet what I found is with each ah choice that comes, being really intentional on what are the pros and cons, right? Really, what are the trade-offs? There's no such thing as a perfect plan in life. There's no such thing as a perfect decision.
00:25:53
Speaker
But if you go into it eyes wide open and with intention, you'll make different decisions. ah So if I think through a couple of pivotal moments, aye was we were living in Ohio. I was pregnant with our first child. I was trying to get promoted at Procter & Gamble and my husband was trying to get promoted ah Boeing.
00:26:10
Speaker
He got the promotion first within a few months of me. And he needed to be in St. Louis, Missouri. I was living in Cincinnati, Ohio. And ah again, I was about nine months pregnant at that point, practically. like So we made the very strategic and intentional choice of moving to St. Louis,
00:26:26
Speaker
P&G had a manufacturing plant where I had started early on in my career. And i talked with my leaders of requesting to go back. And I had hard and soft points. I had, here's the business case. Here's the personal case.
00:26:38
Speaker
And I knew it could derail my career at P&G because I was moving out of the mothership. But I also knew that my husband previously had made the choice to be with me in Ohio and he had derailed his career. And so and we have this ebb and flow over time in life that we've made choices like that.
00:26:57
Speaker
um
00:26:59
Speaker
can you share Can you share a little bit more then of like how in the world did St. Louis turn into Seattle and Amazon? So again, best plan ever. We moved out to Seattle.
00:27:10
Speaker
I was going to be the sales finance leader for the Amazon account on behalf of P&G. So I moved out with P&G. Boeing has a big presence in Seattle also. And so ah we were like, oh, this will be great.
00:27:22
Speaker
And we'll move out here, we said seven years ago, for two, maybe three years maximum. And the plan was I would do that role, that I'd get my big promotion, and we'd head back to Cincinnati, Ohio, back to the P&G mothership. And at that point, my husband was like, oh, you know, might be looking to make a change, and that'd be fine.
00:27:41
Speaker
I got out here, and within six months, Amazon approached me finance and poached me to bring me in-house. My first reaction was, no And the Amazon was like, what do you mean? No, you won't even have this conversation with us.
00:27:53
Speaker
I said, no, I'm happy in my role. At the time, I worked for ah working mom, working mom CFO of the company. And I said, I have great role models. My girls were six months old and three years old at the time, so I had little people at home.
00:28:07
Speaker
And I said, plus, I don't even think we want to stay in Seattle long term. So why would I make that choice? Well, that was me. Yeah. On that note, how that's a hard no, right? Like how does a hard no turn into a yes? How did that happen?
00:28:19
Speaker
So that was on a Thursday night. The person said, please, you know, think it over. And I said, okay, how about this? And and what I found in life, and I'd say rule number one for anybody who's looking to make strategic or even big moves, you have to know what's important to you up front because you need to make decisions like this actually quickly.
00:28:35
Speaker
Many times there's a role available, especially when you get to a senior leader position. They don't have time for you to wait weeks, months to like sort your life out. So that was on a Thursday night and the person said, could you come back to me early next week with what you want to do?
00:28:49
Speaker
And I said, sure, I'll get back to you by Monday with one of four decisions. No, go away, don't call me again. I'm not sure, but I think it's not now. Why don't you call me in certain number of times, six months, 12 months, whatever.
00:29:01
Speaker
I'm not sure, tell me more. Or yes, I'm all in. And the person said, sounds good. So I came home, talked to my husband. He said, well, of course you're saying yes. No, I, how are, how am I? So we actually had a really big fight that weekend.
00:29:17
Speaker
That's how we sorted it out. But here's what i'll tell you. It helped. We do a long-term life goals with each other. We started that very early on in our relationship. You call this a bucket list. We call it like, what's your North star of where you want to go.
00:29:30
Speaker
And our motto has been since we got married and our motto as a family now is work hard, play hard. So we believe you work hard and you equally play hard on the balance. Right. We also had a dual career couple that was visiting for the weekend with their family, which was great. So we had lots of talks on the deck and talking through pros and cons.
00:29:49
Speaker
And that's when my husband said to me, I don't want to move back to the Midwest. I want to stay West Coast. I almost almost fell out of my chair and I said, excuse me. And so we had a really great discussion then about what were the opportunities that by staying in Seattle, we were able to give our family.
00:30:05
Speaker
versus what are the opportunities by moving back to the Midwest, we can afford to give our family there. And as we sorted through it, it became very clear that my answer should be, yes, I'm all in.
00:30:16
Speaker
But I also knew from a negotiation strategy, I didn't wanna play that card. So I did the, yes, I could be interested, tell me more. And then I had a list of things that I asked the person to either bring me either context I wanted to talk to, resources I wanted to explore. And then I called every P&G alum who I knew who was at Amazon which was probably a handful at that point.
00:30:36
Speaker
And I said, give it to me straight, the good, bad and ugly. And so over the course of the next couple weeks, I think it even took a month or two by the time we sorted through everything, I ended up at Amazon where I am now. And so I wouldn't choose any other way, but that was not the plan at all.
00:30:52
Speaker
ah Fascinating. And one thing I want to highlight there is that you said at the very end is you had a couple ex-PNG alumni who you could trust who were at Amazon, who you could get the straight story. um Because oftentimes ah people may be considering a new role, right? Like how it's sold to you and how it really is aren't necessarily always the same thing.
00:31:11
Speaker
And so being able to have trustworthy people tell you what it really looks like is an invaluable experience. two hours probably of four 30 minute conversations you have, those two hours are probably the most the most valuable two hours of that whole process, I would guess, because they're actually telling you what it really is like.
00:31:28
Speaker
Absolutely. And I would say youre any company, again, big, small, nonprofit, corporate, public accounting, private, whatever, you want to interview the people back that are interviewing you. Many times you say, oh, good, there's only going to be a single interview.
00:31:44
Speaker
Oh, there's only going to be two interviews. Whew. No, you pause. You actually want to say, great. I'm happy to take those two interviews. And I'd like to meet. And this is what I told the person that Monday. I said, I want you to find me five women who are in finance and accounting roles at a particular level who are in dual careers and have kids.
00:32:04
Speaker
and And the person looked at me and said, excuse me. And i said, I want to know that there's other people like me at your company. One and two, I want to talk to them directly, even before I waste my time interviewing.
00:32:15
Speaker
And it was okay. So I scheduled coffee connects with them virtually and physically. And so i I knew even before I wanted to interview, i knew enough about where I wanted to go such that when we got into the interview, i was asking really hard questions back to the recruiters.
00:32:31
Speaker
And it wasn't just tell me about your culture. It was, hey, I'd like to specifically understand this and having follow-up questions that made them think a bit also, because I thought this is a two way street right now. You can hire me and I can also choose to say yes or no.
00:32:45
Speaker
A hundred percent. And you're doing you're doing something there that so few people do, ah especially with that criteria you had of like, i want to find I want to talk to this many people with this criteria because I want to understand there's people like me there and there's a path for people like might like me at this role.
00:33:00
Speaker
um That is fantastic. And on the power of questions, I'll highlight that one more very quickly, right? Like, tell me about your company culture. is a pretty poor question. Anyone can skate through with some nonsense answer, right? but like a better question might be like, hey, I see at Amazon, part of your corporate culture is X, Y, or Z, right? You gotta do some research first.
00:33:21
Speaker
Then might be, hey, help me understand how number one and number three look like there's an inherent potential tension between them. Can you help me understand any examples of how you have lived prioritizing one over the next when there's a choice to make or prioritizing one over maybe the health of their people when there's a choice? Like if you ask a more specific question, you're gonna get a better answer and you're gonna see if a person has a real example to back up how they actually action their culture or if it's just a bunch of nonsense fluff words.
00:33:51
Speaker
um So asking a better question is... Like asking a better question is one of the most important skills to go learn. I would just add in all of this whole process. perfect On that note, you did something there that most people don't do of, I want to talk to five people, recruiter or Amazon employee who fit this criteria.
00:34:08
Speaker
That's different.
Goal Setting and Decision Making
00:34:09
Speaker
ah What else do you do in your career that just seems like it works really well for you? And you're maybe surprised other people don't do that too. I think there's there's two things. I mentioned earlier this long-term bucket list.
00:34:24
Speaker
My husband and i make annual goals every year. We started that probably 15 years ago. And at first I hated him for it. And I hated the process. mean, truly was so annoying.
00:34:36
Speaker
And yet now I've come to look forward to it every year and enjoy it. And here's why. um So tactical number one, if you say, I want to be in a certain position in X period of time or at a certain company,
00:34:51
Speaker
that That's like a North Star, that's a concept, that's a vision. That is not a specific goal, it's not smart in any way, right, in terms of being ah strategic and measurable and actually attainable and so forth, right?
00:35:03
Speaker
If you break it down and say, okay, if I want to be here and I'm to make this up five years, what steps do I need to take? And so I will tell this role, I was very intentional in why I took it because I have certain goals in the mid to longterm.
00:35:17
Speaker
And I wanted to learn certain things and I wanted to leverage certain things by saying yes to this role. And so every year, my husband and I make annual goals. We make them personally. We make them professionally. Now we have our family doing it. So the girls, even at 10 and seven, we'll say, what are your goals for this year?
00:35:32
Speaker
And what are the buckets that you want to do them in? And same thing, first couple of years, the girls are like, you know, five, three, why do I have to do this, mom? I said, it could be learning how to ride your bike. It doesn't have to be hard. It could be, you know, learning how to read a book by year end or working on your handwriting, learning how to kick a soccer ball, whatever is important to you. We want to know because we want to also support you as your parents.
00:35:54
Speaker
yeah And so we make these goals every year. And then at the end of the year in December, we celebrate and we actually write down achievements. What went well? And what did we learn? And then you use those to create the following year.
00:36:05
Speaker
I've actually transfer transferred that to be also themes. So I call it my year of insert letter. I started with year of L. Then I went P. Last was F. This year is S. And so I take my goals and I put them into a theme that helps me remember it throughout the year. So for instance, this year's theme is S for strengths.
00:36:25
Speaker
for sustainable, and for spontaneous. And so if I go to the second thing that I do is I'll call it hard points or soft points. Hard points are non-negotiable things that are so important to you.
00:36:38
Speaker
And soft points are things that you're willing to be flexible on. Hard points is also, here's what I'm good at. And soft points is like, i think I need to work on this. And so every year when I create these goals, I also think through what's most important to me.
00:36:51
Speaker
Is it getting promotion? Okay, if you're wanting promoted, then do not be crying that you're working long hours. yeah And I will do both. I will want to get promoted and I will be crying because I'm working long hours and not seeing my family.
00:37:02
Speaker
But I made that choice very intentionally that that was the year I was going to focus on the promotional opportunity. When I got the opportunity for this job, it was a family vote. And I said, it had to be unanimous because we were going to need to operate differently as a family.
00:37:18
Speaker
And luckily my nine-year-old at the time then was, you know, but mom, you said you had a goal of this. She pushed me back. She goes, how does this relate to that? Cause it feels like it doesn't. And then the six-year-old, seven-year-old now at the time said, do you want to do this? And does it make you happy?
00:37:34
Speaker
And I said, yes, and I think so. She goes, then you should just do it. and So we have these really intentional conversations at home, which are hard and challenging and awkward. I know they're not fun. It's easier to just sit on the couch and watch a Netflix show and move on.
00:37:48
Speaker
And yet, if you can do these conversations up front in the right way, when you get the, it's a Thursday and I want to have an answer by Monday. Yeah. Or how I got this job was, ah somebody told me on a Thursday night, Thursday nights seem to be a theme actually.
00:38:03
Speaker
Hey, there's this opportunity. By Friday, I was pinging people. I was leaving for a three-week vacation the following week. I had two business days to meet with all the players that I needed to, to have all the conversations, to make a good impression, to do the full inter interview loop.
00:38:16
Speaker
And I was getting ready to leave for vacation for my current. job. ah So it was chaotic, but it also made it really crystal clear on the decision to make. As you look back on these 20 years or so ah in your in your career, any proudest moments
Career Reflections and Impact
00:38:29
Speaker
surface? Anything that that you look back on and it still kind of makes you smile or light up because you're just like, I can't believe I or my team was able to accomplish that. and Anything really strike you?
00:38:40
Speaker
i think I think there's two things. I um I'll go back to results and relationships on the results. i I did some really cool stuff over the years that I wouldn't have expected. Again, in this plan, I worked at a manufacturing plant and I led our union negotiations.
00:38:56
Speaker
which involves a whole host of trainings. I was super pregnant with my second child at the time, and we're going to midnight when the contract ends, and we're staying till two or three o'clock in the morning, because they're still hoping to ink a deal.
00:39:10
Speaker
And so when I look back at that, i'm like, that is so cool, I would have never done that. I created a joint venture with Swiffer, the brand, the mop brand, who I worked on at the time, and Bissell to create a steam mop.
00:39:23
Speaker
And it was players that I knew and a concept that stuck with customers. And it was this cool thing. And then again, negotiations and seeing how that works. So from a results standpoint, that's pretty cool.
00:39:34
Speaker
I got to work on the Amazon toys business in the year that we launched our first ever lookbook that got sent out. Go to New York Toy Fair. i didn't even know there was a toy fair. They have toy awards.
00:39:46
Speaker
That is cool. So there's been really cool like stuff like that throughout my career. that I would not have expected with a, you're going to be an accountant and sit at your desk all day long. On the relationships end, I think my proudest moments are when I have either my team members, mentees, peers of mine say, wow, you helped me.
00:40:05
Speaker
get a new job, realize I was unhappy, figure out I should be happy, and and just seeing them progress and develop in their careers. And then equally on this on the home front, so recently 10-year-old made up a video of why you should choose so your mom, me, as your coach.
00:40:24
Speaker
I was on vacation with my husband. We do an annual trip, just the two of us. That's the other thing I would tell working parents. One trip every year, kids allowed. Spencer, you need to get on that. I already have it scheduled in late September. Already done. Good. but And so I'm on a trip with my husband, my mom. So grandma's taking care of the kids. And my mom sends me this video. You should take a look.
00:40:45
Speaker
And it is my 10-year-old. She's like holding her hands like this. She's wearing an Ohio State shirt, which then I was just proud mom anyways. And she's saying why you should choose Nicole Balkanbush as your coach. And you should go to kolesltd.com. And she...
00:40:59
Speaker
She had no script. She was speaking about me. And I was like, that's a proud mom moment of, I didn't think she listened to anything. I didn't think she cared.
00:41:10
Speaker
You know, sometimes you work long hours and you wonder like you your kids are like, I haven't seen you. Or where have you been? you didn't make this. They will not remember 95% of the stuff that you're up. They will call you out for the 5% that you missed.
00:41:23
Speaker
And sometimes you beat yourself up as a parent. But seeing that made me just warm up on the inside and say, I'm doing an okay job. yeah Yeah, that's awesome. And a couple more quick hitter questions as we wrap up.
00:41:36
Speaker
ah Would you still go down this accounting path and and recommend it for others? Is that something something you'd recommend for a you know a younger person, maybe be in college? Maybe they're thinking, nah do I do accounting, finance? Do I do but business?
00:41:47
Speaker
Given what you've you've done with your accounting career, would you still go down that path and recommend it for others? Yes, short answer, yes. The reason I did accounting versus finance at the time, I knew I was guaranteed a job in accounting and accounting people can always do finance.
00:42:00
Speaker
But finance, depending on the organization, may not be allowed to do accounting. And I'm a risk-averse person at heart, so it was the safe choice to take. Two, I'm still happy about the choice because especially now,
00:42:11
Speaker
When I see the blend of across finance and accounting, yeah know we talk about the balance sheet. It's not just about the P&L. We'll talk about, well, have we reserved for that? Have you thought about that accrual? These terms that if I was a finance manager, I would have been like, right, I mean, I guess it's this random, that's not accounting people.
00:42:27
Speaker
And now I'm like, no, I think we should actually think about this. Is it an estimable? Is probable? And I'll go through that. and they're like, how do you know all this? I didn't realize you had your CPA. And I say, oh, I don't. What? I was an accounting undergrad.
00:42:39
Speaker
I had everything ready to go. I intentionally chose not to get my CPA because I invested the time instead, again, trade-offs, to get my MBA because I knew I'd probably want to be more general business.
00:42:50
Speaker
The other advice I'd give, especially if you're in college, is I feel like our accounting professors at Ohio State pushed heavily of you must go public accounting. or else. And I was a failure because I started at Procter & Gamble in the corporate world.
00:43:04
Speaker
I also would not change that. I had friends that went private public and loved it. They're still there now. And they got into it because they weren't sure what industry they wanted at first. And it was a great way for them to figure it out.
00:43:17
Speaker
For me, I knew I wanted to go to consumer products. I know I wanted to be in a particular area. And so it made sense to just go directly there. Yep. Awesome. um And if, ah if people want to find out more about you, your coaching, et cetera, where, where would
Connecting and Coaching
00:43:32
Speaker
you point them? Where where can they learn more?
00:43:33
Speaker
Yeah, so two options. One, website, ColesLTD, so C-O-L-E-S, L-T-D.com. Or two, LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. You'll see, i try to post often. It's not daily or weekly, ah monthly, but I do try to make it something that's insightful, something that somebody can learn, share a personal experience about myself, and I would love to connect with you there.
00:43:55
Speaker
Awesome. And any last words of wisdom, anything we didn't touch on that you think is valuable, fun, interesting to share, or maybe something that you said, but it's maybe you feel like it's so important. It's time to go highlight, double underline. Like, I want to say this one one more time. So any last words of wisdom, either new or repeated?
00:44:11
Speaker
I did two things. One, it goes back to the communication that we talked early on. As an ah accountant, as a finance and accounting professional, we are not expected to just put numbers together. We are expected to lead and influence and communicate the story, one.
00:44:27
Speaker
Two, many times, especially, again, finance and accounting, I'll stereotype us, we are risk adverse, like I mentioned earlier that I am. And many times our first thought is no. It could be no about personal life.
00:44:38
Speaker
and Hence, I came home with Amazon, right? No, I don't want to do My husband does, why not? So now, instead of saying no or why, I'll say yes and, which forces me to think about different alternatives.
00:44:51
Speaker
I will also say why not. So that's actually where the spontaneity word comes in for the theme for this year for me is saying yes more often to living in the moment and being present versus just focusing on the plan.
00:45:04
Speaker
Awesome. Well, Nicole Balkenbush, certainly a very cool career in accounting across P&G, Amazon saying no on a Thursday night and then saying yes on a Monday. So thank you so much for sharing all your stories.
00:45:16
Speaker
Awesome and truly a cool career in accounting, chief storyteller, FP&A leader at Amazon. Thank you, Spencer.