Posts From: Patricia Ellenburg

With the departure of Tony Hayward from BP, I find myself questioning whether the CEO career path will continue to “run through finance first.” Many of you will recall that Tony Hayward was a Group Treasurer before he was elevated to the CEO position, a career path similar to many of his peers in the UK FTSE-100 and Standard & Poor’s Global 100.

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My last two blog posts have focused on the Millennial generation, and as a result, I have received a number of emails from readers. Some readers have accused me of making a big deal out of nothing, and others have claimed that I give the appearance of not liking the Millennials very much. Over the past few weeks, I’ve considered the comments I’ve received, and thought it best to come clean on how I really feel about the Millennials, particularly as it relates to helping them learn finance.

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My previous blog entry discussed my concerns about whether the “Millennial” generation (people ages 18 to 29) has the ability to understand and implement good financial practices—either at home or in the workplace—based on the social trends observed by the University of Michigan and others. I’m going to continue down this path, as the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research has uncovered another social trend that in my view, is related to my previous observations about the Millennial’s financial practices, and that will affect how we teach finance in the workplace.

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This morning, I read an article in my local newspaper entitled, Adulthood, Sponsored Today by Mom, Dad, and I have to say that this article confirmed my observations of the “Millennial” generation (people ages 18 to 29) and increased my anxieties about this generation’s ability to understand and implement good financial practices—either at home or in the workplace.

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Ahh, tax time, the time of year when even we left-brain thinkers find ourselves overwhelmed with the prospect of all those forms, calculations, and tests for eligibility, applicability, and exclusions. I’m reminded of Robert Duvall’s character in the movie, Apocalypse Now, when he comments, “I love the smell of napalm first thing in the morning.” Only a character as twisted as that could love all this tax stuff!

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In response to a reader’s request, my previous blog entry presented an example of the financial analysis that a learning professional could and should perform to determine “when employee training is the right thing for a company to do.” The example that I used was relatively straightforward—a training program designed to reduce the scrap rate of a manufacturing company’s production line. In this case, both the costs to implement this program, as well as the benefits that would be realized (reduced scrap), could be quantified without too much “brain damage”.

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Eric Berglund has thrown down the gauntlet, and being one to respond to challenges, I am rising to the occasion. In his comment to my blog entry posted on 1/22/10, Eric said, “Patricia, here's an ambitious goal for your blog: Teach us enough finance that we'll know when employee training is the right thing for a company to do.” So, you be the judge and let me know how I do…

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CFO Magazine published an article on February 15, 2006 that was entitled, “What's Wrong with Finance Training,“ by Randy Myers. I recently ran across this article in my files, and I was getting ready to shred it until I re-read it and noticed how little has changed in the last four years.

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During the past decade or so, business has re-confirmed its commitment to serving shareholders and increasingly focused on the creation of shareholder value. We’ve heard the “talk” so much that it has become almost trite… but how often have we seen the “walk”? How many companies can actually say that their employees understand what shareholder value is and how they can work together to create it?

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