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Becoming best of breed: what’s in it for me?

Posted: Monday 17 May 2010 by Leslie L. Kossoff
Replies : 2
Category: Career talk, Management accounting, Professional development
Keywords: guides, motivation, Organisation
Leslie L. Kossoff's picture


In Silicon Valley there is a wonderful question – spoken and unspoken – that is part of every conversation. It’s WIIFM - What’s In It For Me? – and it is a key question for anyone who wants to succeed in anything they do.

Interestingly, while WIIFM sounds like a particularly selfish way of going about doing business, it isn’t. When you’re talking about becoming best of breed, the thing you always need to be looking at is WIIFM. Because the more you do, the more you bring to your organization.

The more you achieve and excel.

The more and greater you become as a leader.

One of the great things about management accounting is that it is a specialty that positively impacts the whole organization. It is also ubiquitous.

You can take your skills and knowledge and experience and turn them into success in any arena that grabs and keeps your interest – from corporate finance to HR to IT to marketing and business development and more. And that doesn’t even touch manufacturing and operations – which are dying for your skills to come on board.

Beginning this month, I’ll be writing a series of articles for Insight on how to become best of breed.  They are in association with my first CIMA-co-branded Executive Field Guide, “Becoming a Best of Breed Organization.”

These writings will take you from the personal WIIFM, through the corporate win, to how to use the developmental perspective to make sure that you – and everything you touch – is best of breed.

Feel free to make comments and ask questions. I look forward to hearing from you.

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Read more in Leslie L. Kossoff's article for Insight (June 2010) Becoming best of breed: the personal perspective

"Best" at what - and for who? ...

Posted by Adrian Rutter on Sunday 23 May 2010 09:41

I'll be looking with interest to learn from your articles, because I have a very real concern about the fundamentals here. (Not the ubiquity of management accounting, but about WIIFM and the 'best of breed' concept itself.)

"Best" at what? And even when that's specified, it's still only a relative concept - the best of the worst could still be useless rubbish at doing whatever it's supposed to do. So often the drive to be "best of breed" seems simply to bring out the worst of selfishness, vanity and corporate greed. How many of Silicon Valley's dot-com boom "best of breeds" are still around? And weren't Enron and Lehman Brothers once supposed to be "best of breed"? They certainly turned out at the top of the disaster list.

So if the WIIFM is all about getting the biggest bonus and a platinum credit-card, then the organisation really will be dying when your skills come on board.

How about WIIFMAAOU - What's In It For Me And All Of Us?

John Quincy Adams said, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." And John F Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" maybe needs to be the answer to that spoken and unspoken conversation.

We have a lot to learn from the spirit and resilience of Silicon Valley and the US in general. But the world already has more than enough people asking that spoken and unspoken question, and we're all now paying the price. It's time to broaden the conversation.

A Fair Concern

Posted by Leslie L. Kossoff on Sunday 23 May 2010 12:54

Adrian, thank you for your comment as well as your concern about both WIIFM and Best of Breed.  Based on the world as it too often is (at least based on those organizations which end up getting the most media attention), you have good reason.

As you'll see in my articles, the reason I believe it's worthwhile becoming best of breed is so that you can bring the best of yourself to your organization.  By doing so, not only do you create opportunities for yourself (which, no matter how broad the conversation, will still come into the picture, but also get to be defined by you), more importantly, you create a working environment in which everyone thrives.

That, in fact, is the reason that I decided to start the series with the personal perspective.  Because unless and until those who have the financial/management accounting knowledge put themselves and their knowledge forward as organizational leaders, the enterprises within which they work will not be able to achieve the societal or business goals that are needed and sought. 

That's the WIIFM of putting the forethought and energy into becoming best of breed.  It creates a greater good. 

As for the Enrons of the world, unfortunately, in every locale worldwide there will be those who see WIIFM only in terms of personal gain.  In those cases, if you find yourself in an organization like that and it doesn't suit you - the choice is clear.  Leave, whistleblow (if necessary)...or both.

I'll be interested to read your thoughts once you've read the article.  Thanks again.