LEADERSHIP

Carrie Steffen: The Staffing Problem Nobody Talks About | MOVE Like This

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The profession talks too much about deadlines and not enough about impact. Students are listening.

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MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

The CPA profession has only itself to blame for a talent shortage.

Firms have spent years talking about the grind of deadlines and busy season, instead of selling the career’s impact, stability, and range of opportunities, according to Carrie Steffen, CEO of the Iowa Society of CPAs.

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In the new episode of MOVE Like This, Steffen tells Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk the profession must rethink its narrative, strengthen cultures of belonging, and bring younger professionals into leadership conversations if it hopes to rebuild the CPA pipeline.

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Employee Experience Not What It Seems

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older man and younger man in meeting

The years didn’t add up.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting

We hired Sam out of school and he worked for us for two and a half years and then we split up our firm. This was ages ago and Sy and I left our third partner to form our new firm on Jan. 1.

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However, there is a valuable lesson here and I think it is worth sharing. It changed the way we hired staff.
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Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers| ARC

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Learn how easily pros tie well-being to success—and how fear of failure can distort self-worth. 

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Accounting ARC
With Byron Patrick and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

Busy season may still be a days out, but the stress response already starts to hum for a lot of accounting professionals — the calendar fills, the inbox tightens, and the margin for error feels like it shrinks to a sliver. In the latest Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, take that reality head-on with a surprisingly practical lens: modern stoicism. 

MORE Accounting ARC: The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn’t Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

They start by naming the misconception most people bring to the word “stoic” — that it means emotionless, rigid, “stone-faced.” Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, admits that’s how he learned it, too: a kind of unfeeling resilience.

But the article that sparks the episode — a Psychology Today piece on the science of stoicism — reframes it as something more useful (and more human): a set of attitudes and behaviors linked with resilience, lower anger and higher life satisfaction.  

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Eleven Ways to Help Tax Clients Help You

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Businessman points to words "KEEP IT SIMPLE"

Clear instructions make your tax season easier.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

Providing instructions of what a client needs to do must be clear enough so that the client doesn’t call you to find out what to do.

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Sometimes taking an extra minute to lay out what the client should do can eliminate that call or indecisive moment a client might feel.
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