Zach Kirchoff
Business communication requires adequate intellectual properties and a way to strengthen those properties is to hear out advice from professionals, so let’s get started. Scott Herdtner, VP of Consolidated Health Services, shares with us his remarkable career path and lays out advice for future business communicators. He began his career path in 1991 as a staff accountant to then become a Vice President, Finance & CFO of Consolidated Health Services in 2012. This implies strong reasoning to engage in his advice and learn from an experienced professional that worked his way up the ladder. Throughout the interview Scott will lay out the importance in written communication, non-verbal communication, and public speaking within the business communication processes.
What is your professional history (include timeline and roles)?
In 1991 I began my career as a staff accountant at Saint Luke Hospital ($180M multi-facility comprehensive healthcare organization), where I dealt with day to day responsibilities for all property, plant, and equipment accounting to include maintenance of subsidiary property records and schedules. I received a promotion to an assistant controller in 1993. As an assistant controller I upheld supervisor responsibilities for monthly closings and preparations of consolidated financial statements; duties included analysis of monthly financial statements, staff supervision and development, research and implementation of emerging accounting issues, GL maintenance, and account analysis. I then became a senior auditor for Clark, Schaefer, Hackett & Company in 1998. As a senior auditor I served as in-charge auditor for client engagements applying significant understanding of audit theories, standards, and GAAP in the development and implementation of audit plans and preparation of financial statement. In 1999 I became a controller for Midwest Ultrasound. Inc. My role as a controller was a finance executive with oversight responsibility for preparation and combination of financial reports summarizing and forecasting the financial position of three integrated entities. Management responsibilities include Revenue Cycle, Medical Records and all Finance and Accounting functions with administrative responsibilities for information technology, and 401(k) plan administration. I moved to Consolidated Health Services in 2007 and worked as a controller for them. My roles included the responsibilities of a general accountant like; decision support, payroll, accounts, accounts payable and non-patient billing. Specific management responsibilities included treasury management controls, financial statement and retirement plan audits, tax return and 990 preparation, research and implementation of accounting changes, internal controls, timely and accurate financial reporting. In 2012 I received a promotion to my present job as the Vice President, Finance & CFO for Consolidated Health Services in Milford, Ohio.
What writing advice do you have for professional communicators?
My advice is to be more general with your writing, avoid acronyms and jargon, write with a Lehman Terminology . When writing you should always get to the know the audience to get a better understanding of what they expect and help to highlight the importance in your material.
What is your one pet peeve when it comes to professional writing?
One pet peeve when it comes to professional writing is when someone tries to over complicate a message, trying to make them sound more intelligent than they actually are.
What kind of business reports do you read and/or compose regularly?
- Weekly Integrated Generated Dashboards- collected data on how the company is doing
- Journal of Accountancy
- Advisory Board
- National Association of Health Care
- Big news reader- Apple News
What are your writing suggestions to make those types of reports successful?
Keep it simple, do not try and overcomplicate the message with jargon or acronyms. Write in a language that is relevant to your audience; identify your audience and create a message that is simple to understand.
What speaking advice do you have for professional communicators?
The most effective speaking advice is to practice. Public speaking is a top ten fear in any business and there is no substitute for doing it. Get involved with Toast Masters and receive feedback to improve your public speaking. While practicing focus on your body language and acquire a better understanding of the importance of non-verbal communication.
Name one thing you wish you had known about business communication prior to your professional career?
Before my professional career I had a good understanding of written communication, to then realize that written communication is a small portion to communication itself. My advice to myself would to downplay the importance of written communication and acquire a better understanding of non-verbal communication. To get a message across to your audience you need to be aware of your body language when speaking; bad body language can completely change the message that you intend to get across to your audience.
After assessing the Burning Glass list of Baseline Skills (2016), which skills not in the top 5 would you move into the top 5…and why?
What team skills do you feel young professionals need the most?
Throughout my professional career I realized that most individuals focus on themselves, but it is the role of a team to succeed, not just yourself. You tend to learn more about team skills throughout your youth of playing on a sports team or participating in clubs. What you have to realize is that it is about you contribute to the team to help reach that collected goal.
Key Takeaways
Scott Herdtner informed young professionals on the importance of professional writing, business communication, and team skills. The most important business communication takeaways from the interview are the importance to keep a message simple and to know your audience. You may notice throughout life that people try to make themselves sound more intelligent than they actually are, over-complicating the overall message. Over complicating a message can confuse the audience and create a message that is irrelevant and hard to understand. To form an adequate message, one also needs to know their audience (another key takeaway from the interview). Throughout conversations with Scott, young professional should realize that effective business communication follows certain procedures that are taken into consideration beforehand. For example, if you’re talking to a group of high schoolers about health care procedures you want to keep it in simple terminology that the students understand. Rather than, trying to over complicate the message with terms that the audience will not understand. The idea is to develop a message that the audience finds interesting, then release the message in simple form; giving the audience complete understanding.
Since 1991 Scott Herdtner worked in the financial field throughout his career. From 1991 to 1993 Scott started his career path as a staff accountant at Saint Luke Hospital in Fort Thomas, KY. Here he dealt with day to day responsibilities for all property, plant, and equipment accounts. Onto 1993, when Scott earned a promotion to assistant controller where he dealt with supervising responsibilities. His promotion led to an analysis for a $92.5 investment portfolio, prepared financial statements, and analyzed a lease contract that resulted in a $300K refund and future tax savings. In 1998 he moved to Clark, Shaefer, Hackett & Company in Cincinnati, Ohio where he worked as a senior auditor. He served as in-charge auditor for client engagements and worked to develop and implement audit plans and prepare for financial statements. He provided client assistance with business valuations, due diligence, business acquisitions, and the implementation of new accounting pronouncements with their effect on their financial statement. In 1999 he became a controller for the Midwest Ultrasound Incorporation in Cincinnati, Ohio. He worked as a controller until 2007 and earned multiple achievements during his time there. He assisted in the development of employee compensation structure. This development resulted in 10 years of savings of $1.6M, conducted analysis of company fleet that resulted in a reduced fleet by 50%; saving $700k over 5 years. It also supported business growth and expansion by designing and developing marketing case studies and standardized proposal template contributing to Marketing and Sales initiatives. He continued his controller path at Consolidated Health Services in Milford, Ohio. His work led to a reduced recorded and unrecorded audit adjustment from $254K and $475K, to $0 and $6k by 2010. He also negotiated a 25% reduction in audit fees, implemented paperless payment process that had an annual cost savings of $40k, and also enhanced visibility of cash transactions. He then received a promotion to his present job in 2012 as Vice President, Finance & CFO for Consolidated Health Services. He upheld responsibilities for finance, accounting, managed care, real estate, and revenue cycle. As Vice President Scott achieved many remarkable goals. Including development of a real estate managing process that led to $500k in savings over the next 5 years. Scott also developed managed care department, implemented control database that controls over contract approval and developed contracting strategy, and also provided a framework for proper distribution of excess cash. Scott’s remarkable career path provides profound evidence that his communication advice could be useful for a student to learn from.
Author Bio
Zach Kirchoff is a sophomore in college attending University of Southern Indiana. There he plans on majoring in accounting.
