1/6 As part of @_surgeahead, I recently ran a workshop for 40 #founders about metrics . Numbers. It was 16 years ago when I learned about the importance of numbers from Napoleon.

2/6 Or, really, from a Dutch guy who reminded me of Napoleon. Small guy. Man of few words. But he owned the room. Oh, and he was CEO of a company with billions in revenue and over 100,000 employees across the world.

3/6 A colleague was presenting to a group of 5 that included me and that CEO. The presentation sounded like this:

- “Things are going well.”
- “We’re really proud of our team. They’re very passionate.”
- “Performance is incredibly strong this year.”

4/6 Napoleon was silent. Said nothing throughout. But in the end, he stood up and said:

“The language of business is numbers. The language of business is finance. If you don’t give me ONE number out of every TEN words, you are not talking business.”

Then he left.

5/6 I never forgot that. I realised I spoke 6 languages but didn’t speak numbers. Couldn’t speak finance. And business is all about numbers. ONE out of every TEN.