One of my favorite movies is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. When I was a teenager I wanted to be Ferris Bueller even though I could never have skipped school, stolen my friend’s dad’s car, or pretended to be “the Sausage King of Chicago”. What I admired most about Ferris was his outlook on life, as well as how he reflected on his past and future, which he sums up very well in the famous quote, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
What you can learn from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
When you work hard every day, no matter what stage you’re at in life, it can be hard to see the day-to-day progress you’ve made or measure the growth you’ve achieved. It’s only when you take a step back and “look around once in a while” that it becomes apparent how much you’ve accomplished over the past year. The same thing holds true within every organization. Employees spend thousands of hours each day creating strategies, executing them, and focusing on tactical projects, but there are many days when it’s hard to measure progress. When you look at the big picture, you can see the maturity, success, and growth of your organization clearly.
For myself, I start by taking a deep breath and channelling my inner Ferris Bueller. While I don’t march in a parade down the streets of Chicago or destroy a sports car, I do find that reflection can only occur when the mind is relaxed and ready to ponder life’s big questions. Next, I think about how my team and my company promote our biggest accomplishments. Often news is shared in your company’s monthly newsletter, or published in social media posts and press releases. Finally, I take a moment to consider how my specific role and how the work I do helped lead to the overall success of the organization overall. Think about it – what part did you play over the past 12 months in making a sale, updating a product, or even just keeping the doors open and making sure the business runs smoothly?
At Billtrust, we share our biggest news with the world through press releases and news articles. The Billtrust culture here is one in which each and every employee feels valuable and directly responsible for accomplishing our goals. And our leadership involves employees in strategic decision-making and measuring success.
2017 milestones
As an organization we’ve achieved some very important milestones in 2017, and I’m proud to share them with you here:
- We partnered with Visa and to simplify and automate B2B emailed or virtual card acceptance. This new partnership allows clients to automate the manual processing of virtual cards saving time and money while also dramatically reducing interchange fees. You can read additional details about the Visa/Billtrust partnership here.
- We announced our exciting new partnership with KeyBank. The KeyTotal AR platform, powered by Billtrust, accelerates cash flow by automating invoice delivery and payment and cash application. Merging this innovation with KeyBank’s broad range of accounts receivable (AR) capabilities has created one of the highest-level product suites available in the market today.
- We’ve redefined the way organizations measure progress and success across their finance and accounts receivable departments with our accounts receivable maturity model. Learn more in our CFO & Controller Alert Article, Is it time to boot IT from your ERP support? and read the original maturity model white paper here.
So how do you evaluate your progress? Can you see the big picture when all you feel is the stress of deadlines, spreadsheets and meetings that make your days move at the speed of light? What achievements are reflective of your growth as a team or organization? Do you take the time to reflect on your biggest milestones and accomplishments?