LEADERSHIP

Secret to Success? A Growth and Abundance Mindset

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Transformation Talks: Mike Maksymiw, CPA, CGMA, says the secret to success and transformation in accounting is to be willing to learn, believe there’s enough work for everyone…and allow yourself to be vulnerable.

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Transformation Talks
With Bill Penczak
Center for Accounting Transformation

Center for Accounting Transformation
Center for Accounting Transformation

After 16 years of working in firms, Mike Maksymiw, CPA, CGMA, was done.

He went to his employer with his concerns about wanting to do something else. Instead of encouragement to pursue another area in the firm, he was persuaded to remain on the partner track he was on. Maksymiw decided he’d rather move on.

MORE on Aprio: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be Free | The FinTechFlood: Accounting Will Never Be the Same | Top Issues for 2022: Talent, Time and Transformation | What’s in a (Firm) Name?

MORE: Five Lead Generation Mistakes to Avoid | Five Post-Tax Season Growth Ideas | Five Better Ways to Say No | Are You Solving Your Clients’ Problems? | Five Ways to Grow: Talent New Service Lines | Business Development and Sales Aren’t Scary
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“I didn’t have anywhere to go when I left. I just knew I needed to go,” he said. “So, after, you know, a couple pandemic busy seasons, learning about the Cares Act, being a national leader at the firm at that, like I was toast. So, my family and I just went to Hawaii stayed there for two weeks.”

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Four Accountability Steps for Firm Success

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Plus four challenges to address.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

I’ve been focusing on the leadership accounting firms need to succeed in a future driven by seismic disruptors. We began with strategy, then empowerment. This third post will address the critical element that makes empowerment work – accountability.

MORE: The Art of Leadership: Empowerment | The Art of Leadership, Lesson One: Strategy
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A characteristic of a great “Edge” leader is the ability to empower everyone and understanding that as a leader, your responsibility is to lead and not manage. If you are the type of leader that manages, you own accountability since you can’t manage and empower at the same time. As I defined it in my previous post, a simple definition for empowerment that applies to all organizations is, “Authority or power given to someone to do something.” 
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The Big Battles Ahead for Corporate Finance

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Advisory board members say it’s happening “whether a CFO chooses to do it or not.”

By The Center for Accounting Transformation
improvetheworld.net

According to a group of corporate finance professionals, one of the most significant issues facing corporate finance teams is refocusing team members toward higher-value work such as interpreting data and advising on issues and solutions rather than allowing them to continue performing rote, manual tasks.

Related:  Top Issues for 2022: Talent, Time, and Transformation

Learn more about the Center’s Audit Advisory Board or view the Center’s transformation courses.

“The biggest risk that is clear to me is to continue the antiquated and outdated people strategies, performance, process, understanding, lagging platform adoption, and not understanding the deep relationships that we need to build instead of keeping the status quo,” offered Chris Ortega, CEO of Fresh FP&A. “To me, that is 100% the biggest risk that we now face in the accounting and finance  space.”

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The Art of Leadership: Empowerment

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But there has to be accountability.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

EDITOR’S NOTE: Zecca’s new book, “Leading From the Edge – Creating a Standout, High-Performing Organization,” focuses on the leadership needed for accounting firms to succeed in a future of seismic disruptors. In this special series, he addresses key aspects of “Edge Leadership” and the challenges most accounting firm leaders (all leaders for that matter) are facing today. The first article in this series focused on strategy because leading a firm without a strategic roadmap is like walking on a treadmill – no matter how fast you move or how long you tread, you end up just looking at the same wall.

A characteristic of a great “Edge” leader is the ability to empower everyone, understanding that your responsibility is to lead and not manage as a leader. If a leader does not have the confidence in their leadership and/or their leadership team to empower those who they lead, the result is managing everything versus leading everyone.

MORE: The Art of Leadership, Lesson One: Strategy
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Why is empowerment the second leadership concept in this series? A characteristic of a great “Edge” leader is the ability to empower everyone, understanding that, as a leader, your responsibility is to lead and not manage. If leaders do not have the confidence in their leadership and/or their leadership team to empower those who they lead, the result is managing everything versus leading everyone.
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The Art of Leadership, Lesson One: Strategy

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The “best” isn’t enough. “Unique” is the secret ingredient.

In his new book, “Leading From the Edge – Creating a Standout, High-Performing Organization,” Anthony Zecca focuses on the type of leadership that accounting firms need to succeed in a future driven by seismic disruptors.  This is the first in a series of articles that will focus on key aspects of “Edge Leadership” and the challenges most accounting firm leaders (all leaders for that matter) are facing today. The next article will focus on “The Art of Leadership – Empowerment”.  Empowerment without accountability is like making ice without water – can’t be done.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

Strategy: So much has been written about it and how to create it. Harvard’s Michael Porter famously said strategy is best based on being unique, and not being the best.

MORE on THE EDGE LEADER: Is Your Team Climbing the Right Wall? | How to Build a Standout Team | Competing for Talent in a Private-Equity World | Five Keys to Becoming a High-Performing Firm | Assessing Your Firm | The 4 Traits of Great CPA Leaders | Why Leaders Must Ensure Clarity | Incremental Vs. Exceptional Success | Do You Lead or Just Manage? | Managing Vs. Leading | Is Your Leadership Team at the Edge? | 6 Leadership Challenges Through COVID and Beyond | Edge Leaders Share 7 Strengths | Leadership Must Drive Culture | Leading from the Edge
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Sounds crazy but the following quote (slightly modified) is what I think aligns with how an Edge Leader will think about strategy:

“Strategy starts with thinking the right way about competition. Many managers (leaders) compete to be “the best”—but this is a dangerous mindset that leads to a destructive, zero-sum competition that no one can win. Competing to be unique, on the other hand, is the basis of a sound business strategy…”

How many firms go through the annual ritual of budgeting and partner retreats that in the end, at best, create some tactics that might improve the firm’s results incrementally?  How many leaders at these firm retreats focus on tactics versus strategy?  How many leaders think that developing long-term strategies (3 to 5 years) is unproductive given the challenge of thinking about the future so far down the road?  Finally, how many leaders, when strategy is discussed, focus on being the best versus being unique?

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The FinTech Flood: Accounting Will Never Be the Same

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Venture capital and private equity are pouring billions into financial technology start-ups. And this business will never be the same.

Watch the video or listen to the podcast: Follow CPA Trendlines Podcasts on Apple Podcasts here or grab the RSS feed here.

With Rick Telberg
For CPA Trendlines

Transcript and slide deck available exclusively for PRO Members (login required).

A tsunami of venture capital and private equity is flooding into new tech startups, enough to swamp the entire tax, accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll sector, according to a new study by CPA Trendlines.

MORE: How Private Equity Changes Everything | The FinTech Flood: Accounting Will Never Be the Same | The Disruptors: Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson |  The Disruptors: How to Scale with New Padgett COO Amanda Aguillard | Eat that Frog: Asking for a Prospect Meeting | Growing Revenue Through Client Service | Lease Accounting Is About to Get Very Real | Google Ads for New Tax Season Clients | Exclusive: Eisner CEO Charly Weinstein Explains the Private Equity Deal  | Flash Briefing: A “Call to Arms” after Private Equity Deal | Four Ways to Beat the Staffing Shortage, with Pasha Malik

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Transcript and slide deck available exclusively for PRO Members (login required).

Here CPA Trendlines founder, publisher, and editor Rick Telberg delivers the keynote at the Terrapinn Finance & Accounting Show, explaining what it means for the future of the profession, including:

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The Disruptors: When Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey Schmidt

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Watch the video or listen to the podcast.

 


Follow CPA Trendlines Podcasts on Apple Podcasts here or grab the RSS feed here.

The Disruptors with Liz Farr

Corey Schmidt’s Take-Aways

  • Offer your staff different paths to being successful.
  • Pinpoint the talents you have on your staff, and nurture those special skills.
  • Carve out time for people to work on those skills, not just the backlog.
  • Challenge your people earlier in their careers so they have three years of experience rather than one year repeated three times.
  • Create roles for the kinds of skills your people have.

MORE: The Disruptors: Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson |  The Disruptors: How to Scale with New Padgett COO Amanda Aguillard | Eat that Frog: Asking for a Prospect Meeting | Growing Revenue Through Client Service | Lease Accounting Is About to Get Very Real | Google Ads for New Tax Season Clients | Exclusive: Eisner CEO Charly Weinstein Explains the Private Equity Deal  | Flash Briefing: A “Call to Arms” after Private Equity Deal | Four Ways to Beat the Staffing Shortage, with Pasha Malik

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  • A forgotten metric is client happiness. If we provide a service that makes them feel good about what they’re getting, they’re going to be willing to pay more and will stick around much longer.
  • Firms should own who they are. A firm with a hard-driving culture that values working long hours should seek out team members who like that kind of work culture.
  • Think about where you want to be in five years, and start hiring people who fit that kind of work culture. Build in the people, processes and systems around that end goal.

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