A few weeks ago, I visited a high-performing service team at a growing digital commerce company. They were hitting deadlines, improving quality, and exceeding expectations. But when I asked what they thought about the company’s financial performance, someone said, “We don’t really hear much about that. But we assume, because of wars and tariffs, we are doing as badly as everyone else is reporting.”
That stuck with me—not as a failure, but as a gap.
This wasn’t a team that needed to be protected from numbers. They were driving results every day. What they lacked wasn’t financial knowledge—it was visibility. No one had connected the dots between their work and the company’s financial performance. Not because they weren’t trusted—but because no one had ever thought to do it.
When I shared a few quick figures—how their improvements had trimmed costs and boosted margins—you could see the shift immediately. Heads nodded. Someone said, “Wait, that came from our little change to the scheduling process?” Yes. Exactly that.
The next week, the team lead started including one financial talking point in each huddle. A cost saved. A client retained. A delay avoided. Within a few weeks, the conversations changed. People started noticing small improvements and asking about their financial impact. The team didn’t need a finance degree. They just needed a line of sight.
That’s leadership: showing people how the business actually works, and giving them a chance to make it better.
Two Simple Practices to Start Today:
- Put a Dollar Sign on It – Choose one team win from last week and attach a real financial result. Say it out loud in your next meeting.
- Make It Routine – Build a 2-minute “show me the money” segment into your huddles. Pick one measure: revenue, cost, margin, cash, balance sheet items. Connect it to recent work and highlight what made the difference.