Your Finance Lead Doesn't Want More Help. They Want a Target.

A founder called me in May, frustrated with his controller. Six months in and she was still asking questions. "I need someone who just runs finance," he said. "Every conversation turns into twenty minutes of me explaining what I want."

I asked him what the company's 2026 target was. He gave me three answers in ninety seconds. Revenue, then EBITDA, then a cash balance he wanted to hit by December. All three weighted equally, none of them written down. His controller wasn't slow. She was reverse-engineering a mandate from a target that moved every time he spoke.

The ask isn't support

The Barton Partnership surveyed 258 CFOs at private-equity-backed companies and published the results on July 20. Asked what would most improve their effectiveness, 79% said clear and realistic performance expectations. Only 27% wanted more hands-on support from their sponsor. Three to one.

Same survey: 61% named forecast accuracy as their single greatest personal risk. Put those two numbers next to each other and the picture sharpens. Finance leaders know they'll be judged on whether the forecast held. Most of them have no written definition of which number that forecast is supposed to protect.

That's a PE dataset at companies well north of $20M. It reads the same at $6M with a founder sitting in the sponsor's chair.

What a written mandate looks like

Not a strategy deck. One page, four lines, revisited each quarter.

Which single number wins. If revenue and cash conflict in September, say now which one you'll sacrifice. Founders resist this because it feels like giving something up. You're not choosing between them. Somebody has to make that call at 4pm on a Tuesday while you're on a plane, and it should be a call you already made.

What the acceptable miss is. A forecast inside 5% on cash and 10% on revenue is a good forecast at this size. State no tolerance and every variance becomes a failure, which teaches your finance lead to sandbag.

What they can spend without asking. A dollar threshold plus a category list. Vague authority is what produces the twenty-minute conversations that founder was complaining about.

What happens if the number breaks. Name the trigger and the action. "If cash drops below eight weeks, we freeze the two open roles." Now it isn't a debate in the moment.

Your finance lead can build a forecast without knowing your strategy. They can't defend one without knowing which number you'd protect if you could only keep one.

What changed when he wrote it down

That founder built his one-pager in about forty minutes. He picked cash. Revenue could land 8% under plan and he'd take it, as long as the December balance held. His controller stopped asking permission and started bringing him decisions she'd already made.

Nothing about her changed. She went from three answers to one.

Before you add a tool or a headcount to fix your finance function, spend forty minutes writing down what you'd protect. Cheaper than both, and usually the thing that was missing.