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The gold in our failings

January 30, 2019

Secretly, humans are conditioned to love a good fail.  While stories of triumph are inspiring, epic fails are generally more relatable, and certainly more entertaining… #FailArmy #PaddleBoardYogaFails.  
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Achieving Better Leverage in Your Firm

December 11, 2018

We all know that the secret to success is to work smarter, not harder, right?  Yet we still get stuck in the day to day emails, client queries, file reviews, and activities that are highly important to others, but not necessarily to ourselves.  Working smarter becomes a pipe dream as we can’t see the wood for the trees.
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Let's stop talking about advisory - please!

September 13, 2018

Having just attended Xerocon Brisbane, I’ve had a solid dose of ‘Advisory Rhetoric’. 

You know how it goes - the compliance world is dying, technology and AI will make many services redundant, and the advice for accountants is they just need to rely on their Trusted Advisor status and do more advisory work.  Enough.  I call time out for two reasons:
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Value add services - delivered on demand or...

June 7, 2018

 

True story

An accounting firm relayed this scene to me this week.  One of the firm’s partners, Dan, was at a rugby game with a few of his clients.  They’d had a few beers and the banter was flowing.

Out of the blue one of Dan’s clients (his name is also Dan, which is confusing, but this is a true story, so I’m sticking to the facts.  Let’s call the accountant Dan One and the client Dan...
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8 Questions for Effective New Client...

June 7, 2018

Screening potential clients sounds rather clinical, a bit like screening for a disease.

Truth be told, D clients are like parasites.  They can be painful, demand attention, drain your energy, query your bills and if they refer you work - breed more parasites.  Most significantly, they’ll damage your brand, morale and culture.

Unlike the parasite and host relationship, accountants should...

The Evolution of the Accountant

June 7, 2018

There is no doubt accountants need to evolve.

The accounting industry is going through massive change in response to compliance automation, tax simplification and an increasing demand from clients for more proactive services.  Contrary to popular opinion (or fake news), I am not of the view that we are talking about a revolution here - the modern accountant will not become redundant; they...
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Where have all the 'Young Guns' gone?

June 7, 2018

Recently I ran a ‘Succession Insights Poll’ in New Zealand, with 441 accounting firms participating.

The most thought provoking question raised during the post-poll webinar was ‘What happened to all the Young Guns coming through; where are they and why do they not want a career in this industry?’

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Let's get to the Core of the problem

June 7, 2018

I’m a firm believer that everyone comes to work to do a great job - initially anyway.  So why do businesses have poor performers?  Likewise, why do team members find it difficult to deal with conflict in the workplace; that difficult client or demanding boss?

To get answers to these questions we need to look beneath the surface.  Go beyond actions and behaviour and look to the drivers of...
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Can I Outsource Leadership?

June 7, 2018

The biggest challenge in business stems from 'TLT' - too little time.

One of the best solutions to   TLT (Too Little Time) is to delegate more, either to existing team members or to people external to the business (outsourcing).  
 
It's as simple as looking at the number of hats you are wearing to see if you can delegate any of them.