If you're not a numbers person, then finance can be intimidating and easy to ignore. But if you want to advance in your career, you'll need to make smart financial decisions and develop the confidence to clearly communicate those decisions to others. In How Finance Works, Mihir Desai-a professor at Harvard Business School and author of The Wisdom of Finance-guides you into the complex but endlessly fascinating world of finance, demystifying it in the process. Chapter 6 examines a fundamental problem that preoccupies financial managers at every company-what to do with excess cash flows. This chapter integrates much of what we've learned along the way. Should you invest in new projects? Should you return cash to shareholders? If so, how?