INNOVATION & CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Whitman: Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change | The Disruptors

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Language, collaboration, and leadership training turned competition into cohesion.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

When Alan Whitman became Baker Tilly’s CEO, he was caught between two warring camps. On one side were the legacy partners who had built the organization and “wanted to continue doing things the way that we’ve always done them because we’ve been so successful.” That side was afraid of “losing what they had built.” In the other camp were the new partners who wanted to change “to what they were promised, what they signed on to by becoming part of Baker Tilly.” The newcomers wanted “to move faster and do it differently.” 

MORE STREAMING: Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week |

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As Whitman describes in his new book, “Break the Mold: How to Achieve Transformational Change Scale and Grow Simultaneously, the conflict was resolved over time, one conversation, one small meeting at a time. “It would be more evolution, not revolution,” Whitman says.  

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Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | The Disruptors

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Reward curiosity, encourage experimentation, and involve the team in every step of firm transformation.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Like many guests on The Disruptors, Tony Proctor didn’t start out as an accountant. His firm, Proctor and Associates, started as a side hustle in 2007 when he was working in IT management. As a testament to the client service focus of his tech-forward firm, his very first paid client remains his customer. 

“They are actually still on the roster, and so I’m very excited about that, and I’m excited that they are still willing to pay what today’s price is, and they are not stuck on what the price was in 2007, so I love that,” Proctor says.  

CPA TRENDLINES CELEBRATES:The 100th Episode of The Disruptors

MORE STREAMING: Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week |

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Proctor, like many of today’s forward-thinking accountants, thinks like an entrepreneur. As he explains, accountants are “usually very risk averse and very honed in on the details, and it’s like compliance first,” while entrepreneurs are “what I would call risk tolerant, and so they usually are seeking the risk and figuring out what opportunities are presented from that.” 

Thinking solely like an accountant, Proctor says, can lead to paralysis.

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Eames: Status Quo Kills Innovation | The Disruptors

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Short-term thinking and rigid hierarchies stifle experimentation across the profession.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

K.C. Eames, Director of CAS at Dark Horse CPA, sees the traditional partnership model as a barrier to innovation and experimentation. First, the incentives are set up to guide people toward specific behaviors, which are “rewarding to those at the top of the pyramid. And once they’re there, their incentives are kind of to maintain the status quo.”  

CPA TRENDLINES CELEBRATES:The 100th Episode of The Disruptors

MORE STREAMING: Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week |

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Second, the consensus model for decision-making makes it challenging to implement change. “When you’re trying to make decisions based on consensus, based on people who are maybe trying not to rock the boat too much, because they might be retiring soon, there’s not a lot of chance that they’re going to vote for those really bold, risky ideas,” she says.   READ MORE →

Gocke: Operations Overhaul Doubles Firm Rev | It’s Not Just the Numbers

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Structured operations freed partners to focus on clients and doubled revenue in six years.

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It’s Not Just the Numbers
With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
For CPA Trendlines

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Running a modern accounting firm requires more than technical expertise. Partners must balance client relationships, business development, and administrative responsibilities, often leaving firms stretched thin.

In a recent episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, Doug Gocke, chief operations officer at a mid-sized California firm, describes how restructuring responsibilities and focusing on operations helped his firm double revenue in six years without significantly increasing staff or client count.

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Gocke, who refers to his role as “chief of all trades,” said growth came from building teams before taking on new clients, creating clear accountability, and relentlessly reviewing procedures.

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Carter-Gray: Poor Review Strengthens Firm | The Disruptors

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Client conflict became a catalyst for clearer boundaries, better processes, and a more scalable virtual practice.

This is a preview. The complete 1-hour video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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Get peace of mind with the right policy, technology, and strategy at an affordable price.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

When Nayo Carter-Gray, founder of 1st Step Accounting, received a one-star Google review from a challenging client, she realized the crucial value of the boundaries she had established for clients. An email issue on the client’s end made the client think the firm was ignoring him when the reality was that he simply wasn’t receiving the firm’s correspondence.  

CPA TRENDLINES CELEBRATES:The 100th Episode of The Disruptors

MORE STREAMING: Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week | Randy Crabtree: Live at the Intersection of Passion & Skill |McClelland and Telka: Women Ready to Rewrite the Rules of Accounting | Jacob Schroeder: AI Won’t Replace Accountants—But It Will Reveal Who’s Replaceable | Ditching Corporate America: The Bold Story Behind PBS Accounting’s Rapid Rise | Jean Zick: Happy Team = Happy Clients | Breslin & Greathead: Be a Client Advocate |

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A happy ending came when the client took that one-star review down after Carter-Gray laid out “a timeline of events of how he didn’t follow the process from start to finish,” she recalls. “It just led to us realizing that we put these boundaries in place for a reason, and now I’m looking at the entire process that we have to make sure that our existing clients know these boundaries and why they’re important.” 

Carter-Gray’s firm uses a framework of three core elements to establish boundaries with clients.

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