Understanding a business’ finances is fundamental to being a successful leader. In this conversation with Greg Crabtree, author of Simple Numbers and Simple Numbers 2.0, Coffey explores the key concepts business leaders—and especially human resources leaders—need to understand in order to measure financial success.

They discuss what Greg calls “the most important number in business” (more important than even net income); how direct labor should be measured; why the ability to measure output rather than activity would “move HR to the next level;” measuring labor and management efficiency; and common key performance indicators that companies should stop using.

They also discuss a financial view of talent development and the importance of acting when an employee’s compensation has exceeded their productivity.

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Greg Crabtree

Greg Crabtree is a speaker, author, entrepreneur, and financial expert. Greg founded the accounting firm Crabtree, Rowe and Berger to focus on helping entrepreneurs build their economic engine.

After being named to the INC 5000 list for 2019, Greg’s firm merged with Carr, Riggs & Ingram CPA’s and Advisors, a top 25 U.S. Accounting firm to help broaden their impact on the entrepreneur community.

In 2011, Greg’s first book “Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits” shares his core principles of how to turn your business into a wealth building engine. In 2014, Greg contributed a chapter to Verne Harnish’s book, “Scaling Up” on how to improve profits though labor efficiency. In 2020, Greg released his newest book, “Simple Numbers 2.0: Rules for Smart Scaling“. Greg is a frequent speaker to groups like the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), Scaling Up (Gazelles), Vistage and ACETECH and has presented in over 15 countries.

Greg also chairs the EO@Wharton Executive Education program for the last 5 years and will be launching a new Executive Education program for EO in 2022 called Functional Finance for Entrepreneurs that will teach any entrepreneur the basics to understand their financials and use the data to drive exceptional business performance and value.