Accountants need to create space for innovation in their firms, and then build up the change management processes they need to implement the innovations they come up with, explains Heather Satterley, the director of education and media at Woodard and cohost of The Appy Hour webinar series.
Transcription:
Dan Hood (00:03):
All right. Welcome to a special edition of On the Air with the Accounting Today. I'm Dan Hood, editor-in-chief, and we are filming, sorry, recording — we're doing both actually, but we're live at the Firm Growth Forum, Accounting Today's Firm Growth Forum in San Diego. We're very excited to have with us, Heather Satterley, she's a director of, and I got to get this right, director of education and media at Woodard, longtime thought leader on a million different things from automation to all kinds of things, technological, but also change management. That's one of the things you've been talking about a lot today. Yes. I, sorry, I also forgot to mention co-host of The Appy Hour. Yes. And co-host with Joe Woodard of the Woodard Report podcast. That is right. So you bring a lot of expertise. You've worked with a lot of firms, and one of the things you've been talking, or two of the things you've been talking about at the forum today have been innovation and change Manager, which kind of go hand in hand, but are also, they do their own separate. They have their own intricacies. And I want to dive into that. And I want to start by asking about why should accountants be looking to innovate and experiment? This is a profession that sort of is famous for being cautious and conservative. These are values, creative accounting is not a positive phrase, right. But we know nowadays that they should be. Why should they be thinking about innovation and experimentation?
Heather Satterley (01:10):
Well, we are in a period of incredible disruptive innovation in our industry, and that's why we have to be paying attention with the changes in technology. Ai, a lot of accountants, most accountants are asking, am I going to be relevant in 2, 5, 10 years? And so we have to be innovative in the way that we think about the services that we deliver to our clients, the way that we complete processes within our own firms that affect our profitability, and how can we be innovative about attracting talent? There's such a short of a talent. We need to be thinking about what are ways within our firms and within the industry as a whole that we can bring more people into our industry.
Dan Hood (01:58):
Well, that's a tremendous number of challenges facing the profession. A lot of them coming from the outside, changes coming from the outside. Change requires change in response sort of a, it's interesting because one of the things about accounts is they said they're kind of conservative in a good way. They're conservative in a cautious way that said, they're professionally skeptical, all those sorts of things. And a lot of the work they currently do requires that, right? Absolutely. When you do, absolutely. When you do these things, we want you to follow the rules, go by the book, but when you want people to innovate and experiment, they've got to be blue sky and being comfortable breaking all the rules and tearing everything down. How do you manage that dichotomy that there's a little bit of a tension there,
Heather Satterley (02:35):
So you need to create a safe space to do that. So yes, when you're on a client engagement, we need to be cognizant of client security and following the rules and compliance. But if you create a safe space for your team to ideate and to think about what if there were no rules, you're going to get some nuggets and you have to encourage that, and you have to reward that within the firm because the ideas are where the next is. And asking questions about how do we service our clients better? What are you seeing with your clients and how do they feel a big, I talk a lot about design thinking, which I think is something that accountants definitely need to learn, and it's completely client focused. Right now, we're talking a lot about firing our C and D clients. Well, what if there was a way to turn our C and D clients into A and B clients?
Dan Hood (03:31):
Well, if there were a way to do that, sorry. I mean, that would be fantastic.
Heather Satterley (03:34):
My point is that the firm that figures that out, come on. And that the only way to figure that out is to talk to the c and d clients to figure out what's holding them back.
Dan Hood (03:45):
Let me go back just real quick. Design thinking, maybe define that for sure.
Heather Satterley (03:48):
So design thinking is an approach to innovation that is based on the customer's point of view or the client's point of view. Gotcha. So you're using empathy to solve a problem. So instead of just going at a problem, this is going to make it easier for my firm. You're looking at what is the problem needs to be solved based on the customer or the client that you're serving. And then using empathy to get to the bottom of what is it that they truly need, and then how do we meet those needs?
Dan Hood (04:22):
Excellent. And a lot of that, a big portion of that is just asking the right questions. And then a hundred percent listening to the answers. It's taking the time. These are things that people can do every day, but you don't necessarily think about that in terms of your regular workload.
Heather Satterley (04:35):
You have to make space for it. And what I would challenge firms to do and be bold enough to say is, you're going to have to make time for it. And it's not something that firms that are just doing the same thing every year, and they're not thinking forward, and they're like, I'm just going to get to the end of my career, are really missing out on a huge opportunity to influence the profession. And the way to do that is to ask questions.
Dan Hood (05:02):
There you go. Excellent. All right. I want to, the natural pivot from there. From innovation. Innovation we talked about there, there's a confluence between innovation and change. I want to dive more into change in a second, but we're going to take a quick break and then we'll come back. Alright. And we're back with Heather, sadly, of Woodard. And we're, we've been talking a lot about innovation and we've mentioned the change is a big part of innovation. So I want to pivot a little bit to talk about change and change management. Cause are, even if you're never innovative, you're going to have to change and there's going to be change coming on the profession.
Heather Satterley (05:34):
Oh, absolutely. I mean, it starts with mindset. So we, as you mentioned, we're an industry that is bound by rules and regulations and a code of professional ethics. And we really have to walk the line. And so thinking about being innovative and taking risks, because being innovative involves taking risks is very difficult for our profession because, and so
Dan Hood (06:01):
To be clear, and not in a timid way, but in a no, professionally, this is your job is to manage and mitigate and be careful about risk, just so we're clear. But yeah, no, definitely. I don't want people feeling like I'm saying accountants or Oh, timid woodland creatures, what
Heather Satterley (06:12):
We have to be. That's why we're trusted advisors. So as I mentioned before, separating the time to innovate from the time to actually perform our duty to our clients, which is the compliance type work and advisory work is really important. The change piece is, as accountants, we're so focused on getting the work out and moving on to the next project. That change is very scary to us because it'll affect our bottom line. It'll take our people's attention away from what we think we should be focusing on. And really, the problem is that if we don't change what's going to happen. And so the way to do that, I believe, is to create the space for team members to explore and pursue things that they're interested in, to experiment with new ideas, new processes, new technology. And then also they need to create teams to innovate.
(07:13)
And so there's this amazing author that I just stumbled upon, Michael Lurik. Okay. And he is a professor and PhD, and he speaks a lot about design thinking and innovation. And I've been reading one of his books that actually just came out a couple of weeks ago, design Thinking and Innovation Metrics. And he talks about creating a team of teams. And so he talks about creating a team of, and I'm trying to remember now, intro interconnected teams. Okay. And the are, no, I'm sorry, interdisciplinary teams. Okay. Yeah. So those are teams that are among different disciplines that interact together to innovate. And the idea is, is that by them coming together into a space, they can learn from each other and create a synergy within the firm is how I took it. Because he is talking about an organization, and then he also talks about disciplinary teams.
(08:08)
And the multidisciplinary teams are the experts. So the expert in tech, the expert in audit, the expert in cast services coming together to look at the big picture and drive the ship. And so he recommends creating a team of teams where you're taking people across the organization, having them focus on one problem within the team. And this is in addition to the audit work or the tax work, what they're doing, but giving them these teams that are going to focus on a particular problem within the firm. And they meet at regular times. They have a specific set of skills, and what they're able to do is synergize what they're seeing through the different areas of the firm to just to find out what are the latent needs of the clients, where are the opportunities, and how can they ideate and go through that of solving the problem in a way that's going to grow the firm and also increase client satisfaction. So it's really, really fascinating stuff. Yeah,
Dan Hood (09:06):
No, it's interesting stuff. But let me ask you this. Obviously in larger firms that's won't say it's easy. It's certainly not easy, but it's a core component of it that's relatively easy in the sense of you've got a lot of people to pick from. And I'm curious about talking about these teams of teams, or even just talking about regular ideation, innovation, that kind of thing. Is it possible that there are firms out there, it's just like there is no capacity for innovation with these people. I mean, should we expect everybody to be able to participate in innovation or
Heather Satterley (09:33):
With every situation, you know, have that bell, that bell curve of innovation where you have the innovators, the earlier adopters, late adopters, and the laggards, and you're going to have firms that don't say, no, I don't. My answer to that is you're going to have to, or you're going to be completely irrelevant in the next five to 10 years. Things
Dan Hood (09:55):
Are
Heather Satterley (09:55):
Going to change. They're going to change. And you're not going to be able to get people to work in your firm. Your clients are going to leave your firm for better client service and other services that you're not providing. It definitely is a cautionary tale of, you've got to get on board with it. You've got to start thinking about how can you start this process in your farm? You don't have to solve it all today. And I'm not trying to say, oh my gosh, but you have to start.
Dan Hood (10:23):
You should panic a little bit.
Heather Satterley (10:24):
Well, yeah, okay. Maybe a little bit,
Dan Hood (10:25):
But I can say that you don't have to, can say that.
Heather Satterley (10:27):
Yeah. But you have to start the conversation, even if you are a sole practitioner, even carving out, and I did this because I was a sole practitioner, and then I grew a firm. I just carved out two hours a week. Two hours a week that I called. And I stole this from my good friend Brian Claire. Tinker time. Tinker time, where I would go and I would try out new applications. I would have ideas about how to streamline a process, and then I would work on that. I also have a network of other professionals. And my good friend Liz Scott, from the App Hour, we use each other as a sounding board. So I'll have an idea, and I'll text her, can we set up a meeting? And I'll say, these are the ideas that I'm having. Help me ideate this. And I tell I'll you, it's super fun. Yep. It's super gratifying. And some of the best ideas, including the Happy Hour, came out of those sessions with Liz. So you're not alone, even if you are a solo practitioner, you're not alone. There's communities out here. And what I believe we need is a team of teams among the smaller firms and the solar practitioners. Well, we're creating these groups, these cohorts of people that are solving problems together.
Dan Hood (11:37):
I'm going to make a shameless plug for the Firm Growth Forum, because that's one of the ideas by it, is that there is no problem that an accounting firm faces that some other accounting firm hasn't thought about or come up with a solution for. Yes. Or at least can sympathize with. Right. And it's the more firms talk amongst themselves, the more individual practitioners talk amongst themselves. There's just a tremendous capacity for innovation, for change. And one thing we notice about accountants is if another accountant has done it, they're much more comfortable doing it. Yeah. Than if I tell somebody to do something, they're like, you're not a cp. What the hell do? They don't say that out loud, but so I think that's spot on. Getting those communications going on among smaller firms is crucial.
Heather Satterley (12:14):
A absolutely. And I think what's happening is the firms that are seizing the opportunity are becoming the guides for those that are a little further behind. And that's okay. And I think that that's, yeah, we are a community, so I think there's a lot to learn.
Dan Hood (12:30):
And there's work for everybody. There's
Heather Satterley (12:31):
Work for, oh yes, there's definitely work for everybody.
Dan Hood (12:33):
All right. We could talk a lot more about, cause this is a great topic and I love both of the innovation and particularly change management. We love both those topics, but we're running out of time. There's cocktail error going on, so there's a lot of pressure to wrap this podcast up. But thank you. There's so much. It's been a great conversation and just a tremendous interesting area and you've had a lot to say about it, so thank you.
Heather Satterley (12:54):
Well, thank you. This is fun.
Dan Hood (12:55):
All right, Heather Satterley of Woodard, thanks for joining us and thank you all for listening. This podcast was produced by Accounting Today with audio production by Kellie Malone. Rate or review us on your favorite podcast platform and see the rest of our content on accountingtoday.com. Thanks again to our guest, and thank you for listening.