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Less is more

We were taking a quick break, a third of the way through a long board meeting, when Andy pulled me aside.

It was his first meeting as a new board member.

“You need to get your performance update onto 3 slides.”

Andy was the CFO at a much bigger company. I looked up to him and was excited about working with him. But on this point, I disagreed.

"3 slides? I think that would be rationalizing for the sake of it. It's 12 slides - it's not like it's 50."

Andy had a magnetic character and could persuade easily just through being insanely likable.

"Humor me. Just figure out how you tell the story on 3 slides next month. Still keep your other 12 slides, but start with 3 that tell the complete story you want to tell."

It seemed unnecessary and like needless tinkering to me. I was busy, and so was the team. I figured he was being lazy and just wanted less to read, especially with his full-time exec gig.

But I played along. I went away and did what he suggested. I found the 3 slides that I felt best told the complete picture for the month. With the constraints of only 3 slides, I had no choice but to focus on the what, the why, the so what, and the now what.

The following month, I had 30 minutes to present the finance update. I started with the 3 slides as Andy suggested and spent most of my time there.

At the end of my bit, Andy gave me a thumbs up quietly across the table. I was confused. It had felt marginal. My script was no different from what it would have been with the 12 slides.

I pulled Andy to one side after the meeting with a rib: "Those 3 pages better for you? 12 too much for you to read?"

He laughed. "No, it wasn't for me. I'm happy reading 12 pages. But he is not…"

He pointed at the CEO through the window.

"I watched him last month. He flipped straight past your pages on cashflow performance. He was much more interested in the sales breakdowns. It gave him somewhere to hide.

But he's under pressure on cashflow. As are you. This was your chance to put him into the same frying pan. This month, you left him nowhere to hide. I'll bet you he's going to get on the phone to all of his presidents and get them to drive inventory down."

He wasn't wrong.

I liked how Andy had been so forensic about the response he wanted the reporting to drive. It was a good reminder that subtle changes in reporting - the audience, the target, the format, the delivery medium - can trigger radically different outcomes.

Stay tuned and I’ll share what was on those three pages…

Your Reporting Doesn’t Need to Suck

This month, we're diving deep into reporting business performance.

In week one, we established that reporting exists to drive action, not just document history. Last week, we explored how storytelling transforms data into decisions. Now it's time to get tactical: How do you build a reporting system that actually works?

Most companies have 10x more reporting than they need, yet still lack what they need for good decisions. It's like having 50 security cameras but missing the guy walking out the front door with your safe.

Why is this so hard? Because each piece of reporting is defined by 8 critical vectors:

I call these the 8 Rs of Reporting. With 8 vectors, there are millions of possible permutations for any report. Almost all of them are wrong. Get even one vector wrong, and your beautiful reporting becomes expensive wallpaper.

Your reporting ecosystem is the integrated network of all these reports. Working together (or against each other) to drive decisions at every level of the business.

Let's take each ‘R’ in turn.

1. The Right Measures: Signal vs. Noise

Most reporting systems collapse right here at the first hurdle.

"The right measures" isn't just about what you include; it's about what you exclude.

Your execs have 6 seconds of attention. Spend them wisely.

While we'll dedicate next week's entire newsletter to metric selection, here are the fundamental principles:

• If a metric doesn’t change behavior, it’s noise. Cut it.

• If nobody can do anything about it, it’s trivia, not insight.

• Balance leading indicators (what's coming) with lagging outcomes (what happened)

• Match the number of metrics to your audience's cognitive capacity (hint: it's less than you think)

I once worked with an exec team using 70+ metrics on a single dashboard. Overwhelming to outsiders, but this team had worked together for 10+ years and knew exactly what they were looking for. If any metric moved a millimeter in the wrong direction, they were on it. That was a rare case. 70+ KPIs only worked in this special case. Typically aim for <15 & probably <8.

We’ll dive into how to get the metrics for your business next week.

2. Using The Right Data: Credibility is Everything

Is there a faster way for a finance pro to lose credibility than to have their numbers pulled apart publicly?

It's the corporate equivalent of having your pants fall down during a presentation. Once seen, never forgotten.

Yet it happens… a lot. I learned this as a junior analyst. I'd been asked to report on a customer trial directly to a board director (six levels above me). At 7:20 am, I sent the sales uplift figure via text, then immediately discovered I'd misclassified a location that completely changed the result. My first senior exposure, and I face-planted spectacularly.

The failure points are painfully predictable:

• Manual adjustments nobody documents

• Version control nightmares (Final_V3_NoReallyThisTime.xls)

• Multiple "sources of truth"

• Broken automations that silently fail at the worst moment

• Terrible master data

The obvious answer is to check it twice, right?

Yes, but that's just table stakes.

For CFOs, the job is much bigger. Make clean data religion. No more spreadsheet voodoo. Institutionalize data discipline. Establish single points of truth, master data controls, and automation that doesn't require human sacrifice to maintain.

AI is catapulting us into a new era of expectations with data. We are good at using poor data as an excuse, that won’t be acceptable in the future.

The payoff isn't just accuracy. It's speed, confidence, and credibility that mean when you say "trust me on this," people actually do.

3. Against the Right Benchmarks: Measuring Against What?

Numbers on their own don't mean anything. Benchmarks give them context.

The key is matching the benchmark to both the business and the audience. Your board needs year-over-year to monitor the investor perspective, your CEO needs budget vs. actual for accountability, and your operators might need month-over-month to spot issues before they become board problems.

Let's break down the classics:

Actual vs Budget: The corporate version of New Year's resolutions. This is what drives bonuses and investor commitments. The catch? By Q3, that budget is a relic.

Actual vs Forecast: Comparing against your most recent prediction - better for spotting emerging issues and recent accountability. But which forecast? The mid-quarter flash? The month-end reforecast? We'll dive deeper in the upcoming FP&A series.

Actual vs Last Year: You're comparing against an actual truth. Last year happened. It’s not just some projection. Critical for public companies, since investors see things through this lens. But in fast-moving businesses, last year might as well be last century.

Actual vs Last Month/Week: Perfect for spotting trends in high-growth businesses. Not much use if your business is seasonal.

Others include trailing twelve months (smooths seasonality), cohort analysis (subscription businesses), and competitor benchmarks (if available).

4. In The Right Format: Design for Decisions, Not Decoration

This is where good reporting separates from great reporting. Format isn't just aesthetics. Format choices drive attention and comprehension.

The question isn't "what looks best?" but "what will drive the decision you need?" I've seen million-dollar decisions made off the back of a hastily scribbled napkin chart… and beautiful dashboards ignored entirely.

Picking the right format will help determine whether your story lands or not. Let’s take each in turn:

Tables: For when precision matters more than patterns:

• Raw data tables (for analysts who need to dig in)

• Summary tables (for executives who need the big picture)

• Exception tables (only showing what needs attention - my personal favorite)

• Comparison tables (for patterns across periods or divisions)

Charts: For when patterns matter more than precision:

• Bar/column charts (comparing categories - perfect for department/country performance)

• Line charts (trends over time - great for cutting through budget/forecast noise and seeing if things are heading north or south)

• Waterfall charts (breaking down complex variances - my go-to for explaining performance vs a benchmark)

• Scatter plots (for correlations - when you need to prove relationships)

• Pie charts (good for composition, terrible for comparisons - yet execs love them anyway)

Other Formants:

• Infographics - high production, great for investors. Lots of work, but new tools make them easier

• Plain text - I had a chair who only wanted one report. One two line email every week summarizing sales and cash. Works well with busy people!

• Verbal - some times, verbal reporting is the best

• Mixed format - in practice most things are a combination of the above. The key is an intentional mix

5. To The Right People: Know Your Audience

This is an 'R' full of common mistakes. The instinct? Send reports to as many people as possible.

Stop.

Flooding inboxes with FYIs is how reporting becomes white noise. Both for those who need to act and those who don't (they wonder if they should). You don't want people spending hours browsing 12 reports. You want them spending that time acting on the two that matter to them.

Define your recipients by the TSP framework (Target, Stakeholder, or Pressure Point). Recipients should fit into one of three boxes:

• Target: People you need to take action

• Stakeholders: Those who need to know but don’t need to act

• Pressure Points: Those who create accountability for the target.

Let’s take an example. Imagine you are reporting on customer payment terms by sales person. The target would be the sales team. The stakeholders would be the accounts receivables team. The pressure points would be the CFO/CRO - giving credibility and urgency to the cause.

And anyone who doesn’t fit the T,S or P? Get them off the list. Reporting is for action, not FYI.

Many resist this because it seems secretive. Like somehow having everyone on copy for everything improves transparency.

It doesn’t.

Keeping the broader team informed about business performance is important, but create a dedicated communication channel for that purpose. Don't dilute your action-oriented reporting with unnecessary recipients.

6. Using the Right Medium: The Channel Matters

Format is what you present. Medium is how you deliver it.

PDF by email? Live presentation? Self-serve dashboard? TV monitor? Printed report? Push vs Pull?

The choice is critical and impacts engagement dramatically - driving different behaviors

Digitization has led to an abundance of useless reporting. For truly important decisions, the best CEOs, CFOs, and board members I know still print materials and grab a pen. I do too.

Physical reports have their place. Just like a handwritten letter lands differently than an email.

I'm not advocating printing everything. Far from it. But when J.P. Morgan pitches you, they don't put it on a screen or send you a PDF. They hand you one of these:

There's a reason for that.

The point is simple: the medium you use to deliver your reporting will dramatically influence engagement. Choose it wisely.

7. At The Right Time: Meeting The Cadence

The key is matching your reporting to the decision cadence of your business.

Often, earlier is better, but not always.

Technology companies peddle the idea that EVERYTHING should be real-time. This works for operational data, where decisions are micro-adjustments made at warp speed or warning flags for bigger issues.

But real-time isn't right for everything.

Amazon makes big decisions using written memos. No pre-read. Everyone sits in silence for 30 minutes reading at the start of the meeting. The total opposite of "real-time reporting." Force everyone to stop, read, and think at the same time.

I've seen this work in board meetings, too. The space between the reporting period end and the board pack publication gives executives time to reflect and react to issues. This leads to better governance and decision making.

That said, most reporting is issued too late. As a general rule, faster is better. Just not always.

Identify what should be:

• Real-time (operational control)

• Closed but fast (accountability)

• Closed but with thinking time (strategic decisions)

The more operational, the more you bias toward real-time.

8. On the Right Frequency: Business Rhythm

Frequency is not to be confused with timing.

Timing is about when a report is delivered relative to the reported period, while frequency is determined by the length of the reported period. For example, if your weekly exec reports are published on a Tuesday for a week that ends on a Sunday; your frequency is weekly and your time lag is 2 days.

Reporting frequency drives the rhythm of your business.

In week 1, we established that reporting is a feedback loop. The frequency of these loops must match your organization's metabolic rate. There's no point reporting more frequently than your business can metabolize decisions and course corrections.

Nobody needs real-time EBITDA. But show metrics too infrequently, and you'll miss critical decision points.

The right frequency of reporting will depend on so many things, but as a rough guide:

• Real-time & Daily: Ideal for operations and control

• Weekly: Course correction and coordination

• Monthly: Performance reviews and key interventions

• Quarterly: Strategic alignment and external reporting

Match the frequency to your business type, growth rate, and volatility. High-growth startups need tighter loops than mature businesses. Crisis situations demand more frequent check-ins than stable periods.

Building Your Reporting Ecosystem

Ok, but how do you actually build up the right mix of reporting? We bring it back again to the purpose of that reporting.

Here are the most common reasons for reporting:

• Operational control

• Executive course correction

• Performance management

• Financial health

• Communicating performance

• Strategic decisions

• Governance, compliance & stakeholder communications

• Crisis & change management

Define purpose first, then align the 8 Rs. Avoid duplication and drive focus.

Here is an example of the format I’d se to define the reporting cadence for a business:

The 3 Pages

I promised I’d share the contents of the 3 pages that kept my CEO and board hooked.

Here’s the twist… it was spectacularly simple:

• Page 1 - Summary P&L

  • Summary Income Statement Format

  • Month & YTD

  • Breakout EBIT and Revenue variance vs budget to show which departments/operating locations are driving the movements

• Page 2 - P&L Variance Bridge (Waterfall)

  • EBIT Month & YTD - led by driver (more on this next month)

  • vs Budget and vs Last Year

• Page 3 - Summary Cashflow

  • Month & YTD

  • vs Budget and vs Last Year

  • Simple waterfall showing YTD Cashflow variance to budget (this was the key chart)

All three pages had a clear bullet point commentary.

With everything drawing back to the ‘punchline’ of our our YTD cashflow position vs budget. When I presented it in the board meeting I emphasized the things that were driving adverse variances to our YTD cash plan.

The output was simple, but we put a lot of craft into those three pages each month. Combining it with the storytelling formulas I shared last week.

It’s not perfect, but I think this is as good as you’ll get at telling a business performance story for a board on 3 pages in a cashflow focused business. (It might need some tweaking for your industry)

Net-net

Reporting is the nervous system of your company. But get even one R wrong, and you’re just decorating dashboards.

Build your system with intent - aligned to the decision making processes of the business

Next week, we are going to dive further into what you measure. As we break down how to define the right KPIs for your business.

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