beBetter 

I really struggle with the time and effort it takes to keep a regular workout routine, which I need for both my general health and to maintain a healthy weight.  Actually, I simultaneously hate to workout and love to workout.  I enjoy skipping a session, and I hate skipping a session.

All I could do was laugh recently when I couldn’t see the big picture although it was literally right in front of me.  I was preparing for an interview and I had requested a PDF of a recent presentation I had given on connecting the dots.  I received the PDF and pulled it up, looking for the 19 dots it should have. As I clicked through the pages though, I could only see 10 dots.  So I sent another request for the presentation with ALL 19 dots.  I click through the latest version, I see the same 10 dots.  So now, I assume that my request is misunderstood.  “Please send me the PDF with all 19 dots that includes…” and I listed the missing dots.  I mean, how hard can this be? Right?

One of my best friends and I share the text message, “You So Lucky,” with each other whenever we see the other one enjoying life. It makes me smile every time he sends it to me and I am always excited to send it to him. He once jokingly commented to me that I needed to put it in my blog. 

I’ve noticed I make my biggest blunders when I get in a hurry and don’t think about what I’m doing. Just recently, I was given a sharp reminder when my impatience led to a cut finger. 

At the HeadWaters 2015 Emerging Leaders Conference in Park City, Utah, earlier this month, I spoke to accounting leaders on four future hard trends that I see for both our profession and individual CPA firms. Hard trends are defined as things that will happen whether we like it or not. After presenting these four major hard trends that will continue to transform how we work in public accounting, I shared a story about Davis, our 9-year-old grandson to demonstrate how these hard trends are impacting many firms.  The story goes like this: 

At HORNE, we’re on a journey to create a sense of belonging for everyone. Now, I realize we will not be the right team or the right place for everyone. Even so, there are team members who make us better and stronger as a team, but need help in finding that sense of belonging that we all long for and need. When we feel safe, when we have a true sense of belonging, we can grow into our best self and achieve our full potential. 

This blog is the fifth in a five part series adapted from the AICPA White Paper, Becoming the Firm of the Future, which is available here.

So many businesses today truly make a difference in their service to clients and their team members. I see it every day in public accounting as we make a huge impact for our clients and provide opportunities of growth for our team members. What concerns me, however, is that what you and I might know and understand, often lacks being passionately communicated to our existing and new team members. 

We are in a free agency market for talent like we have never seen before. Many times in the accounting industry we are losing top talent—or they are leaving our profession very quickly after that first bad experience. Headhunters will tell you that many professionals leaving public accounting firms today are not looking for another public accounting position, instead they are looking outside the profession. Michael Platt of Inside Public Accounting was recently stressing this to me as we discussed turnover in our profession. “They are not giving the profession a second chance,” he said.  

This blog is the fourth in a five part series adapted from the AICPA White Paper, Becoming the Firm of the Future, which is available here.

In his book Flash Foresight, Daniel Burrus points out the transformation that will take place due to extreme advances in processing power, digital storage and bandwidth.  This hard trend (meaning it will happen, whether we believe it or not) threatens the economic engines of almost all CPA firms which rely heavily on the chargeable hour (time) as the driver of value.  As things get faster and faster, we will have less and less value under this model.

What is the real relationship between time and value delivered?  For years, many in the accounting profession and, notably to his credit, Ron Baker, have pointed out the disconnect between actual value delivered and time incurred.   I’m afraid we do not have the luxury of continuing this debate.  It is time to focus on outcomes, deliverables and their value to clients. In the future, time will be less and less of a factor in many of the things that CPAs do today.   We must begin conversations with clients that help us understand what they value.  It is time to prepare for this hard trend, not ignore it, fight it or continue to debate it. 

This blog is the third in a five part series adapted from the AICPA White Paper, Becoming the Firm of the Future, which is available here.

When someone tells us one thing and then we experience or observe something much different, what do we believe?  What they tell us or what we are experiencing? Of course, we trust what we see and what we experience because that is our reality. 

The disconnect between what our team members see and what we say is the primary reason the accounting profession, and most businesses today, are struggling with culture and attracting talent to their team.  We are telling our team members and our recruits that we have changed, that we offer flexibility, that we believe in results not seniority. However, the experiences that people are having, the behaviors they are observing, and the way we are managing people has gone primarily unchanged.

This blog is the second in a five part series adapted from the AICPA White Paper, Becoming the Firm of the Future, which is available here.

This blog is the first in a five part series adapted from the AICPA White Paper, Becoming the Firm of the Future, which is available here.

This blog has been about encouragement and development, but sometimes we need to talk about the challenges we are facing, too. And I’ve got a real issue in my world, many of us do: developing other leaders.

In the accounting profession, succession projections are outright scary and our profession’s leadership development mindset, which is too frequently boasted as “sink or swim” or “figure it out,” is killing us. Together, the numbers and the mindset have created a leadership void that literally threatens our ability to remain relevant.

Last week, I told the story I told about the blind man I had observed at church and at the gym. If you haven't read it, you might want to click here and give it a quick read so this blog will make more sense to you. Shortly after I wrote that blog, I finally met the man whom I had written about. 

God seems to do things like that sometimes to keep me focused! I was at the gym one morning and before I could check in, the blind man walked in and came up to the counter. As you might expect from my first blog, he walked right to the counter just like he could see and talked to the staff person who obviously knew him. 

I really had a tight schedule that day, so I turned my back and began to take off my jacket and proceed into the workout area. Then, I remembered my commitment to meet him and share with him how much he had inspired me. So, I pushed out of my comfort zone and I went over and introduced myself.

I often speak about having the courage to challenge the status quo. Recently, in a personal experience, I realized how blinded I am to real courage and how little courage I actually have. I witnessed an example of real courage that makes the courage I need each day pale in comparison.

My wife and I frequently attend mass at St. Francis on Sunday morning and I began to notice on numerous occasions, a middle-aged man who is blind. What surprises me is that when we begin the Holy Communion to receive the bread and the wine, he doesn’t remain seated. Each row, starting with the first row, files into the center aisle and follow each other up to the alter where we receive the blessed sacraments. Then we walk back to our pew on the opposite side and kneel until everyone has partaken of Holy Communion. Now, this man rises and follows his row (usually unassisted) to the center, and makes his way to the front and partakes of the bread and wine as everyone else does, then finds his way back to his seat. 

He uses a long cane to find his way in front of him. He moves very slowly and methodically, but it is obvious he has an incredible desire to participate like everyone else. He could sit on the back row and have the sacraments brought to him, but he doesn’t. How much courage does this take?