Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean
(财务智慧:如何理解数字的真正含义)


作者：Karen Berman（卡伦·伯曼），Joe Knight（乔·奈特），John Case（约翰·凯斯）出版社：Harvard Business Press页数：288正文语种：英文

Companies expect managers to use financial data to allocate resources and run their departments. But many managers can't read a balance sheet, wouldn't recognize a liquidity ratio, and don't know how to calculate return on investment. Worse, they don't have any idea where the numbers come from or how reliable they really are. In Financial Intelligence, Karen Berman and Joe Knight teach the basics of finance--but with a twist. Financial reporting, they argue, is as much art as science. Because nobody can quantify everything, accountants always rely on estimates, assumptions, and judgment calls. Savvy managers need to know how those sources of possible bias can affect the financials and that sometimes the numbers can be challenged. While providing the foundation for a deep understanding of the financial side of business, the book also arms managers with practical strategies for improving their companies' performance--strategies, such as "managing the balance sheet," that are well understood by financial professionals but rarely shared with their nonfinancial colleagues. Accessible, jargon-free, and filled with entertaining stories of real companies, Financial Intelligence gives nonfinancial managers the financial knowledge and confidence for their everyday work. Karen Berman and Joe Knight are the owners of the Los Angeles-based Business Literacy Institute and have trained tens of thousands of managers at many leading organizations. Co-author John Case has written several popular books on management.

    每个企业的管理者都希望根据财务数据制定决策，分配资源，安排费用预算。但是实际情况却是，很多管理者在日常工作中都不能得心应手地使用最基本的财务工具。即使是自认为很精通财务的管理者可能也没有深入理解财务报表。他们把数字看成是绝对的真理，而实际上本应该对有些数字质疑。
    《财务智慧：如何理解数字的真正含义》在以一种容易理解且颇具实用性的方式教授财务基础知识的同时，还为读者增加另外一个了解财务数字的维度。作者把你带到莫后，提示了财务数字空间是怎样得出的。因为没有人可以把所有的事物都进行量化，所以财务人员要依赖假设、估计和职业判断，这就使得数字可能会在某个方面出现念头。本书帮助你认识和理解这些念头，在必要时挑战和纠正它们，并利用这些信息成为更好的管理者。此外，凭借曾对数千名管理者和员工进和培训的经验作者还向我们深入诠释了以下地内容：衡量财务状况的基本要素、财务分析原理、现金和利润的区别，以及财务知识普及和财务透明度的重要性。
    《财务智慧：如何理解数字的真正含义》通俗易懂，尽量避免术语，选取了许多真实企业的有趣案例，它将帮助非财务部门的管理者为企业带来更多的价值，对他们个人的发展也大有裨益。如果你希望自信地与同事“讨论数字”，这本书就适合你。