chaotic, crazy, and utterly joyful.
by liz farr, cpa
i’ve been spending a chunk of time lately watching my grandson’s t-ball games. and i’m loving the rules – or, more accurately—the lack of rules they follow in this league.
more liz farr: jody grunden: subscription pricing is a game changer | loren fogelman: stop undercharging and start being client-centered | brannon poe: grow your business by preparing to let it go | dawn brolin says grow your firm by shrinking it | nicole davis & jw davis show how to create your own pipeline | chase birky builds the anti-cpa firm | what kind of leader are you? | jason blumer & julie shipp: move leaders out of client service |
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no one keeps score. there are no outs. everyone gets a chance to whack a baseball off the three-foot tee as far as they can. when everyone on the team has had a chance to bat, the inning is over. the last batter and all the kids on base run around the bases to home, and the other team goes up to bat. two innings, and the game is over.
i love it. it’s chaotic, crazy, and utterly joyful.
all these little kids are out there doing their best. some are really little, with their uniform t-shirt sleeves hanging past their elbows and their shoulders on level with t’s lowest position. if it takes 10 tries to get that ball a few feet into the infield, that’s ok. and if five kids run to the ball and it gets past all five, that’s ok also. we cheer for all the kids, even the ones on the other team.
some kids spin around as they swing the bat. more than a few have no clue what to do after they hit the ball. one little girl ran straight to second base. another kid is clearly not interested in the game, and his older sister continually shrieks, “lorenzo, quit playing in the dirt!” when he’s on the field.
now not all t-ball leagues run this way. when he was six, another grandson of mine was on a competitive traveling t-ball team out of san antonio that made it all the way to the t-ball world series in louisiana. yes, there is such a thing as the t-ball world series.
in that league, they very definitely kept score. kids could strike out. three outs, and the inning was over. unfortunately, i never got to see any of those games, but i bet there were more than a few tears shed. at the same time, those kids undoubtedly worked on their skills. the competitive nature of that league made them highly accountable to each other. they wanted to win as many games as possible.
the gap
thinking about the differences between these two very different t-ball leagues reminds me a bit of the differences between the new generation of accountants – the disruptors i interview on my podcast – and the traditional firms i worked in.
the newer generations are more collaborative and less hierarchical. they care less about keeping “score” by recording the required number of billable hours and care more about creating an environment where everyone does their best.
many of my guests have org charts with job titles and positions that reflect the strengths of their team members. they understand that their team members don’t always fit neatly into boxes labeled senior, or manager, or even partner. they might have a chief operations officer or client liaison specialists. many follow a corporate form of governance, with a ceo in charge.
they focus on providing their clients with value and excellent service—but not at the expense of anyone’s sanity. they understand that when their team members are happy and healthy, that translates to happier clients and more revenue. many focus on deliverables, not billable hour quotas, and offer flexible schedules so that team members can shape their work around their lives, not vice versa.
this new generation of disruptors isn’t following the same playbook as traditional firms. some spent time in firms, saw the model’s brokenness, and created something new. others came from outside of public accounting and created their own versions of what an accounting firm should look like.
they’re not billing solely by the hour. some sell services by subscription, others do value pricing, and many offer monthly packages. they embrace technology and use it to amplify their efforts. one thing that unites many of these leaders is their fanatical attention to systems and processes. the efficiencies they gain enable team members to provide value beyond compliance work. these systems also give firm leaders the bandwidth to work on their firms, not in their firms.
most are extremely picky about the clients they take on and are not afraid to fire clients who disrespect team members, deadlines, or boundaries. many are laser-focused on a particular industry niche or stage of business. they are innovators and adventurers, unafraid of trying new things and experimenting with technology, processes, and systems. like those little kids on the t-ball team, they’re not afraid of making mistakes. they know that eventually, they’ll figure it out, but in the meantime, let’s support our teammates.
and yes, these people are finding ways to make more money – sometimes much, much more – while working fewer hours.
in contrast, i’ve heard stories of traditional firms that still use billable hour quotas as cudgels to deny bonuses or promotions to people who found ways to do the work better, faster, and under budget while bringing in more revenue. and firms where work-life balance means they “only” work 55 hours a week during tax season.
in my own experience, advancement opportunities were limited by the lack of open slots above me in the org chart. firm leaders had a hard time seeing my role as anything other than the person who could crank out the biggest, most complicated tax returns quickly and accurately. while the tax partner acknowledged my role as a leader in the firm, i was never been granted the job title that allowed me to attend the leadership team meetings.
i might have stayed if i had been encouraged to create a new role that helped the firm serve clients better or streamlined our operations. onboarding liaison? client and workflow manager? operations organizer? client education specialist?
work-life balance was definitely out of whack during my time in public accounting. here’s just one example: when my oldest brother died unexpectedly in late august of 2009, my family had to postpone his memorial until october 17, the first saturday i had off.
i spent hours at some of these firms talking to the leaders about the new ways of serving clients at a deeper level that i was reading about in “subversive” journals like accounting today and hearing about on podcasts. to a man (and yes, they were all men in charge), they all said “great ideas, i’ll try them out when i have time.”
is it a gap or a range?
we tend to think of older, more traditional firms as monolithic, unified entities. but in truth, firm leaders have been doing things differently for decades. that’s what happens when most firms are small, and the owners create businesses that match what they think an accounting firm should be.
some firms have experimented with different pricing and service models, as jody grunden has with summit cpa, which has employed weekly subscription pricing for more than 20 years. others have focused on creating a healthy workplace culture and serving clients at a deeper level. these firms have always been part of the landscape of public accounting.
however, this innovation in business models and attention to employee well-being and client success haven’t been common in all firms. many of us have worked in firms where we were overworked, unappreciated and underpaid.
bridging the gap
what would accounting be like if we could combine the glee of the no-rules t-ball league with the discipline of the t-ball world series-bound team? can we create a new way of being accountants that lets us be joyful humans first while also practicing within the boundaries of our profession?
years ago, i asked the late australian podcaster and advisor to accountants, steve major, why he thought firms were reluctant to change from their current model. his answer was that firms were making too much money to change. this sentiment was echoed recently by my friend mike maksymiw when he posed the following question at accounting today’s firm growth forum in san diego and again on linkedin: how do we incent firms that are making more money than ever before to take risks necessary to change the profession we are all talking about?
there isn’t just one answer, just as there has never been one way to operate a successful firm. but i do know that the answers will emerge when we find ways to bridge the gap between the old ways and the new ways.
both sides have much to offer each other. one of my mentors in accounting was dennis burt, who founded his firm in the 1960s. he had a magical touch with clients and frequently found creative solutions to their problems. when i went to networking events, it seemed that everyone knew and respected dennis burt.
soon after i joined his firm, i noticed that he often wrote up the invoices for tax returns i had worked on. i asked him why he was doing that. at another firm, i was told that we sell our time, so even though i was efficient at getting the work done, he shouldn’t have been doubling or even tripling the bill based on the time i had in the project. he told me, “because that’s the value it has for the client.”
in retrospect, i see his statement as a radical departure from the billable hour norms of that time. that brief answer severed the link in my mind between the time spent from the value of the deliverable. and, perhaps not surprisingly, at that firm, we weren’t held to stringent billable hour quotas.
one day, i asked dennis what he considered his principles for success as a cpa. i still have the note, written on a sheet from a notepad with the firm logo:
- return phone calls
- be an advocate for your clients
- treat others with respect
- demand adequate compensation for services
i don’t think any of these principles are out of sync with the ways that the new generation of firm owners operates.
what will accounting look like in the future?
i’ve been asking this question of accountants, both in public accounting and on the corporate side for the last year or so. i don’t think anyone is thinking big enough yet.
shortly before his death, steve major told me the story of a world conference held in the early 20th century to find solutions to a growing public health issue facing all large cities: how to deal with the putrid, stinking mass of horse manure on their streets. however, as we all know, the invention of the automobile solved that problem, albeit while creating new ones.
i believe we are on the cusp of a similarly huge transformation in accounting, finance, and business. we can’t imagine the solution because it won’t look anything like what we think will solve the problems we now face.
i’m excited about this transformation, even as i acknowledge it will be painful for many, much as the advent of the automobile was a disaster for horse breeders and buggy whip manufacturers. but i do know that if we embrace this change from a foundation of empathy and openness, we’ll create something bigger and brighter for our teams, our clients, and the world.