When Robert Alvarez first joined the finance team of one venture-backed start-up, he was thinking that one day he might like to be a CFO. However, upon further reflection, the young finance analyst realized that he had little idea what a CFO did.

Being part of a start-up team afforded him the opportunity to have one-on-one meetings with different senior leaders, including the company’s CFO, Alvarez recalls. Of course, access to leadership has little value unless you are willing and able to undertake the responsibility of shepherding a future deliverable.

For Alvarez, the task of identifying such a deliverable was best left to its intended recipient.

“We were together going down the list of items that I was working on, and I stopped and asked the CFO, ‘So, what’s on your list?’” remembers Alvarez, who says that the CFO subsequently began listing one item after another.

Alvarez says that he asked if he could “take a stab” at tackling one of the items and told the CFO that he would have it for him by the next day.

Having identified a valuable action item and promised to deliver it promptly, Alvarez asked the CFO not to fix the item if it ultimately fell short. Instead, Alvarez says, he was eager to discover what mistakes may have been made to learn from them.

“We began with that one item, which quickly became two—and soon I was working on parts of board presentations and different materials for investor relations,” comments Alvarez, who notes that the experience was contingent on a finance leader willing to give up something.

Says Alvarez: “He gave me the gift of letting me do his job, which was critical because I’m not smart enough to just read how do things—I’ve always had to do the work.” –Jack Sweeney