Lynda ArtesaniLegal Accountant and Data Migration Specialist at The Proper Trust

From Cutting Carrots to KPIs - Mastering Financial Reports Like a Chef

2 Jun 2025 · 1 min

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In this segment, the speaker proposes using a cooking‑school analogy to teach novice attorneys how to read and work with financial reports. The training starts with basic safety (knife handling) and progresses through increasingly complex tasks—cutting tomatoes, carrots, making mayonnaise, then soup—mirroring the gradual acquisition of financial analysis skills. The speaker emphasizes that each layer of competence must be built before moving on, and that eventually the attorneys will be prepared to engage with key performance indicators (KPIs). The goal is to structure coaching so that attorneys understand the foundational steps and are ready for KPI analysis at the appropriate time.

Chapters

Well, I like to take the financial reports, especially with the newbie attorneys, and liken it to cooking school. Okay. When you go, when you go to cooking school, they're going to teach you— what are they, what are they going to teach you first? How to use a knife so that you don't cut yourself. And then they're going to teach you how to cut tomatoes, and then they're going to teach you how to cut carrots, and they're just going to work their way up. And pretty soon you're making mayonnaise, and then you're making a soup, and then you're making— and it's all these layers that go in. And it takes time with attorneys, working with attorneys to get those layers in the right place so that they understand and you continue to coach them on, we're going to be coming to KPIs one day. So I want you to think of just a couple. I don't want to know what they are today, but I'm going to come to you at a certain point and say you're ready for KPIs.