Purpose –– Vision –– Target Audience –– What makes this series stand out? –– By attending you will be able to –– The underpinning theory –– Why are you waiting?

Co-author of Beyond Budgeting’s Viable Map, author of several books

Cutting through the complexity of forecasting and financial performance management to help practitioners build radically pragmatic solutions to their problems.

Let's hear from Steve:

Uninspired? Confused? Frustrated? Stuck?

I was all these things 20 years ago, but not now. Today, my passion is to share what I have learned to help you be the most effective, motivated, and fulfilled version of yourself at work.

I worked as a financial controller for a blue-chip multinational company back in the day. My team and I had maxed out on ‘best practice.’

This was great, but there was still so much we did to ourselves and others in the business that was dumb, wasteful, and promoted dysfunctional behavior. And the big stinking heap of pain called ‘the budget’ sat at the top of the pile.

It was dispiriting.

This all changed in 1998 when I was introduced to the founders of the Beyond Budgeting movement. They were in the process of setting up a collaborative research group to find organizations that budgeted better.

We quickly learned that we were asking the wrong question. The problem wasn’t how well budgeting was done. Instead of trying to do the wrong thing righter, the inspirational companies we found showed us that we needed a complete rethink.

I learned that much of what I had been taught was the product of steam-age thinking with shaky foundations. This started a personal learning and discovery, fuelled by extensive experience of things that I had messed up in the past and the opportunity provided by being a founder member of Unilever’s Finance Academy.

It started with trying to understand why what these innovative businesses did worked so brilliantly well. None of them had learned what to do from peers, consultants, or books, which inspired me to search for the scientific basis of their intuitions.

That led me to systems theory and cybernetics, but I was clearly intent on finding ways to help normal people doing normal jobs apply what I learned.

So, I used some cybernetic control concepts and brushed up on my statistics to help people forecast and structure work better. I dipped into cognitive science to help design better ways of understanding and communicating performance.

Right now, I am working on using fuzzy logic to help develop better ways of dealing with uncertainty and the structured application of judgment in decision-making.

Many of these ideas and practices are collected in my books and articles. I also cofounded a software business to improve the quality of supply chain forecasts using methods I developed. But I love nothing more than sharing my ideas and knowledge face-to-face with people who want to learn and improve.

If that is you, get in touch.