Transcription:
Dr. Jessica Levin (00:08):
Welcome everyone to Accounting For Times, evolve or dissolve. I am Dr. Je Lev, Dr. Dr. Jessica Levin. My friends call me Dr. Je Lev.
Rachel Anevski (00:21):
And almost a doctor, very close to it, so that's why you see the loading. But I will be Dr. Ray. Just give me like six more months. She started it. I had to let her go first and finish it and give all the answers to me.
Dr. Jessica Levin (00:38):
So we are not CPAs, but we might play them on tv. That's very, but we do have almost a half of century of experience combined in the accounting profession.
Rachel Anevski (00:51):
We don't look that old, right?
Dr. Jessica Levin (00:54):
I started out as a Director of Marketing in a firm, worked at an Association of Accounting Firms. I started a consulting business. So I am a business owner and understand the needs of business owners. And I am also a fractional COO of Abacus Worldwide, which is a global association of law and accounting firms.
(01:20):
In addition, my doctoral dissertation was on strategies to create positive culture to attract and retain CPAs. So I knew a little bit about the profession just a little bit,
Rachel Anevski (01:35):
So and Jessica and I met very long time ago, and I think one of the things we first talked about, I think I might have even come up to you and said, I would love to write a book with you. You did say that. Which is where we went. So I had worked at an accounting firm as their Director of Human Capital and certified in HR. And then I worked for a little bit of a larger firm. Some of you may know of it, sit Cooperman when it was tiny, right before it kind of got very big there. I was the Director of Marketing and Business Development. After that, my first two firms became my first two clients, still clients today of a company I opened called Matters of Management, where we provide fractional HR support.
(02:13):
We developed the infrastructure of growing companies. Where I started was developing the infrastructure of growing CPA firms. So it's been 12 years since then. And about a year and a half ago, we sat down and said, let's do this. Let's write this book.
Dr. Jessica Levin (02:28):
I think it was a little bit longer, but then we both decided to go back to school and time flies.
Rachel Anevski (02:33):
Exactly. So we're here.
Dr. Jessica Levin (02:35):
So what we're going to talk about today is just a little preview of what is coming out in the book, which will be out this summer. And I want to preface it, were you all in the opening session this morning? So Dan made a very good comment about this is to give you ideas and to plant some seeds, but if we tried to talk about everything that was in the book, we would be here for three weeks. And we know right now we're the only thing standing between you and happy hour. So we're going to try to be concise and hit just a couple of the points. And the good news is that the conversation will be able to continue.
(03:15):
So we're going to do a little poll. And just so you know, we have bright lights in our face, so it's really hard to see you very hard. So we're going to ask you to use these clappers to respond through this. How are we feeling about accounting today? And by the way, we love accounting today. The publication.
Rachel Anevski (03:34):
Yes. There we get that.
Dr. Jessica Levin (03:37):
But how do I feel about the profession? Is anybody frightened? Okay, that's good. No clap. What about uncertain?
Rachel Anevski (03:49):
So they're on a good path.
Dr. Jessica Levin (03:50):
Indifferent. Wow. Okay. Has anybody checked out? Okay, thank you for being goddess.
(04:03):
Anybody frustrated? Alright, how about this? Anybody optimistic? That's me.
Rachel Anevski (04:15):
Alright, so glad to hear you say that. Say that.
Dr. Jessica Levin (04:19):
Yes. And we were after this morning's session and how refreshing it was. I'm even more optimistic than we've ever been before.
Rachel Anevski (04:26):
A thousand percent.
Dr. Jessica Levin (04:28):
Our goal for this session is to scare you. But how many of you like to go to carnivals and fairs? Alright, good. You're catching up, not me. So when you go to a fair and you go to the haunted house, you make a choice to be scared. Well, we want you to make that choice. We're going to scare you a little bit because we want what happens after you're scared, you get exhilarated and your adrenaline starts pumping.
(05:01):
There is a roller coaster on there. We want you to feel the excitement that comes with learning and change. And we assume that because you're attending a conference that is called Growth Forum, that you're interested in growth.
Rachel Anevski (05:20):
That's what we hope. We hope that you're going to embark on this and all of the concepts that you're going to learn today, tomorrow, and take them back to your firms and be open to just feel that rush, take that rollercoaster ride, walk into that very scary house and make some change. Feel good about yourself doing it.
Dr. Jessica Levin (05:41):
So what are some of the things that we're dealing with today? And again, we're going to use our clappers. How many of you are dealing with recruiting and retaining people? Alright, exponential technological advancement. We've been talking about AI for a long time, and then all of a sudden, ChatGPT just blew up our lives.
Rachel Anevski (06:04):
But here today, so we did not, someone asked me earlier if we're going to be focusing on the technology aspect, and we don't in this session, in the book, there's good amount. But the truth of the matter is the way that technology is changing, we could talk about it today. And by the time the book is in your hands, it's going to change again.
Dr. Jessica Levin (06:22):
By the time we're done with the session, it's going to change.
Rachel Anevski (06:25):
So with that in mind, it's more conceptual than it is tangible when we're talking about those things
Dr. Jessica Levin (06:31):
And changing client requirements and expectations. And so those technological advances and recruiting issues, your clients are facing the same things.
(06:45):
Socioeconomic volatility, this is one of those things. There's a lot going on in the world that's not in your hands, but we're still facing it. And then of course, there's the division of compliance and consulting services. In some cases it's the formal division where we're seeing some of the big four, some of the next tier actually splitting into two companies to separate compliance and consulting. But then there's also the, well, how do we actually do consulting? Did we miss anything? Wow, we were thorough. Nice job. Well done. All right. I want to hear claps. All right, so we are going to challenge you. Are you ready to evolve or dissolve? And by the way, if you get through this, if you get through this conference, if you get through this year and you decide I'm done, that's up to you. But we hope that we are giving you the tools to be able to evolve.
(07:50):
And there's one thing that this is the key. This is the secret. If you walk out of here and take nothing else away, it's having a flexible mindset. And we're going to talk about this over and over again. We want you to just be malleable. Just be flexible. Just think about everything that you're used to doing and throw it out the window.
Rachel Anevski (08:13):
I agree. So even though, I mean think that the verbiage has always been have a growth mindset that's been spoken about, even this conference growth forum, we want you to take it one step further. We want this flexible mindset from you. We see how change and how rapid change is occurring in order to do that. Growth is not enough to be flexible to change and accept it and move others be more transformational. That's what we're talking about. That's what the book's based upon.
Dr. Jessica Levin (08:44):
So we don't want to get too much into the weeds in terms of changing firm structures, but we firmly believe, well, actually, let's ask it a different way. How many of you think that the current traditional model of accounting firms still works? You can clap. Y'all think so? I mean, yeah, it sounds like, but what do you consider the current partnership owned executive committee decisions are all made by CPAs.
Rachel Anevski (09:15):
Why don't you show them? I think maybe you should show them.
Dr. Jessica Levin (09:16):
How about this?
Rachel Anevski (09:18):
Oh, this is the problem. You guys have the wrong slides.
Dr. Jessica Levin (09:23):
We don't have our current slides. And we had a really cute slide up here.
Rachel Anevski (09:27):
So, alright, since we're not with a current slide deck there, we'll tell it to you this way just to keep a continuity in a traditional firm, you're going to have your managing partner on top, and then you're going to have this long line of partners.
(09:53):
We just, oh, actually we do. They bump into each other, right? And they all have CPA after their name, by the way, all have CPA after their name. And then right underneath them you have directors or managers also with CPA after their name because you can't make manager or director without a CPA and then a whole bunch of staff who only aspire to be a CPA. So that's the traditional model. And so from that perspective, we're really challenging you to change that model, to change that corporate structure and that mindset. Once you are able to do that, just incredible opportunities come your way.
Dr. Jessica Levin (10:36):
If you're still looking at that hashtag, you're doing it wrong. But the good news is there's no right way. The right way is having this flexible mindset, even if your model is working, are you questioning it? Are you looking at it?
(10:51):
Are you evaluating it on a regular basis? That's true. So as we mentioned, we were not going to go too deep into this, but we do want to talk a little bit about some of the evolved or evolving options in terms of firm structures. Because if we're going to change the way that we do business, we have to start with the fundamental structure.
Rachel Anevski (11:14):
So let's start with a COO. And I'll tell you that just a couple of minutes ago, and I don't think I see him here, but I was walking after I got my coffee and I bumped into a gentleman who had COO on his name tag. And so I stopped him. I was so excited. I knew we were going to talk about this. And I said, may I ask you just one quick question? I said, were you a partner before you were COO?
(11:39):
And he said, no. And I almost dropped dead because where does that happen? And we want that to happen, but it's very rare. So it was very rare for me at this moment, five minutes before this conference to meet my very first COO who was not born and raised inside a public accounting firm. He was actually hired by a PE firm to come in and help the company. And initially the thought process was that he would work at that PE firm and do COO work fractionally for a bunch of people. But clearly he saw the need at the firm that they had presented him. And he's been there doing great work, no public accounting experience at all. And I'm so excited to see this firm and see what he does.
Dr. Jessica Levin (12:17):
So the COO role could be somebody within your firm, but it's basically the first step in saying, alright, you know what?
(12:26):
We're going to take somebody who has the skillset, not necessarily whether they're in or outside, but how does the skillset to run a firm does not have a book of business, or if they did, they gave it up to actually run the firm. The next level of that is the traditional corporate structure that many of your clients have.
Rachel Anevski (12:44):
We're missing something. Game of Thrones fans. Anybody? Okay, I'm a huge Game of Thrones fans. If you peek at my LinkedIn, I wrote a little article about it, but the leadership lessons and Game of Thrones totally rocked me. And I think Game of Thrones is for everybody. I tell my kids to watch Game of Thrones, everything but the hand of the queen, the hand of the king in Game of Thrones really is that person that takes all of the strategy, all of that leadership, and makes sure it happens.
(13:18):
And so that's our mindset. And so over a cup of coffee, this is how we've decided we want firms to go.
Dr. Jessica Levin (13:26):
So when we look at a corporate structure, that's the traditional c-suite with the respective functional areas under them. And does ZA work in a firm where you have that? Where you have a traditional C-suite? No one. Okay. Oh some, right?
Rachel Anevski (13:42):
So like your CIO, your CHRO, have you gotten there yet? Or just you're at the director level, you've got a director of it, a director of marketing. So haven't yet risen to that level yet. Okay. That's the next step in the corporate structure.
Dr. Jessica Levin (13:55):
And part of this is that why would you put, and I'm not you collective view, put the same skillset in every job type. Why would you take somebody who's been trained as an accountant and put them in charge of HR and put them in charge of marketing and put them in charge of it? Why do we do that?
(14:24):
Exactly.
Rachel Anevski (14:24):
But we do it all the time.
Dr. Jessica Levin (14:26):
We do it all the time.
Rachel Anevski (14:27):
All the time. It's like those that can't teach, right? It's like that. I don't know.
Dr. Jessica Levin (14:33):
Remember, we're trying to get you thinking here. There's no right or wrong answers.
Rachel Anevski (14:36):
Can you imagine me as an accountant? I can't do it
Dr. Jessica Levin (14:41):
In my next life I'm coming back as an accountant.
Rachel Anevski (14:43):
They drink well.
Dr. Jessica Levin (14:46):
So alright
Rachel Anevski (14:49):
Anyone on that one? 40 more minutes. Moscow Mule.
Dr. Jessica Levin (14:52):
The next thing that we're seeing, and we're hearing a lot about it, especially at this conference, is the entry of private equity into the space. And this is done for a number of reasons. We know the number one reason is because partners are retiring and they're sucking money out of the firms. And private equity firms are like, oh, people need compliance work. That's not going away. This is a good investment opportunity.
Rachel Anevski (15:18):
Look, and I think some firms this is a great solution for, it solves one of their big problems. Recently I witnessed a private equity firm come in and gobble up a couple of firms all at one time. And I spoke with some of the infrastructure there, some of the staff that I had worked with throughout years. And what I learned right away was that that private equity firm had blown through three directors of recruiting in a matter of six months. Those firms, their major problem was recruitment and retention. And that private equity firm, like I said, solved one of their problems, is definitely not able to solve the problem of staffing. It's just not ever going to happen. And so what we've talked about Jessica and I, is that while again, private equity may be a solution for some that we do think that sometimes you're going to live and learn.
(16:13):
And in this case, a prediction I might have is that some of these firms, at least one of them, might not make it through the long term with this private equity firm.
Dr. Jessica Levin (16:23):
So another thing that we're starting to see is the ESOP model. That's my favorite one.
Rachel Anevski (16:31):
So we did some research on all the different ways. And the first three firms that came up in my research about ESOPs and employee, that's the first letter there. And I'm a people person, so of course I love this. And I think it solves an employee issue. It's the only one up there that actually engages the employee. So the first three firms that did this, and this was many, many years ago, 15, 20 years ago, that these firms did this. They were small firms, they were 15 person firm, a hundred person firm. And they're still in it and they still love it and it still works for them for so many reasons.
(17:12):
And so I wanted to learn more because not an accountant. And so I asked two accountants very specifically, why wouldn't more accountants choose an ESOP for their exit strategy and to solve the problems that we're currently seeing? And one of them said, it will never work in public accounting firms because it's too risky and there's too much debt. And there young people. And there was just too many risks involved in it. And then another person wrote this great article, and she's in a mid-size firm. She is in a mid-size firm. And she said very specifically that this is the solve that we're all missing. And so I encourage you in your models, and if you're a person who has an ESOP specialist in your firm that talks about it and tells it to your clients, that you think about it for yourself. And again, not saying it's going to work for everyone, I initially thought that it was a small firm fix.
(18:09):
It's not VDO could talk about that. I do think it's just very specific, but it's awesome and I love it.
Dr. Jessica Levin (18:16):
So there's another concept that I have not seen a lot of in accounting, but it certainly happens in other organizations, which is a management company or basically a company of people with the right skill sets, take care of all the operational functions, all the administrative functions, and the accountants do accounting work. And this is something to consider, especially in a firm that might have some talent that are really, really good accountants and really, really bad at running a firm. And we've talked about what this might look like and associations do this. There's other healthcare companies do this. And it's something that, I mean, we never thought private equity would come to accounting. So the management company, it's an option. It's all sort of this hub and spoke model.
(19:06):
And Trevor this morning talked a little bit about this, about having maybe not necessarily employees, but a network, not a loose network, a very tight network of go-toss for specific expertise. I work for an association and our members sort of follow this model. It's not a firm, it is not really a network or it's an association. But if they do not have the expertise in a particular area, they have access to all of these other firms who do have the ability to serve a particular client's needs. And looking at your firm and instead of trying to serve every possible need of a client, look at building out your network, the centralized point, and then pulling in the resources that you need. And then of course there is the merger and acquisition model. And there's nothing wrong with that. The focus of our book, and I am not going to speak for anybody in this room, but it is targeted at leaders who say, I want to remain independent, but I know that I need to evolve to get there.
(20:23):
I do not want to be acquired. I want to stay independent. Because the other option is what we saw the people on the stage this morning is they created their own destiny. So instead of being at a firm that didn't mesh with their values, they did their own thing and they started their own thing. Reinvented. Yeah, they reinvented. We see this a lot in law where the law firms have been gobbled up and created these big mega firms. And then groups of lawyers have over time broken off and started smaller firms. We haven't seen it as much in accounting, partially because I think that accountants by nature may not necessarily be as entrepreneurial. Certainly they're not quite as much of risk takers.
Rachel Anevski (21:14):
Well, I mean, how many of you are managing partners here? Okay, alright, good. It's awesome. Do you teach the business of accounting in your firms?
(21:25):
You teach it? Okay, so for many, many years, every firm I spoke to never did this. They didn't discuss it, they didn't know how to teach it. They didn't know how to talk about what it is, how it is to run an accounting firm. So I think one of the reasons why so many people don't leave to do it on their own is they really just don't know how to run an accounting firm.
Dr. Jessica Levin (21:44):
You don't know what you don't know. And then when it keeps happening, so the next generation didn't have anybody to learn from. And again, it's not right or wrong, it's the way that the model was set up, which is why we say, do you think the model, so let's ask it again. Do you think that the current model still works? The traditional model? Okay, we haven't changed any minds yet.
(22:10):
All right. It's awesome. We still have time.
Rachel Anevski (22:12):
Ooh, does anyone know what game this is? Yes. I love that. I'm so glad that this slide works because, so this is my favorite thing. And so every time we talk, we get in these conversations, and I don't know, people who know me know that I could have this conversation about public accounting firms all day, all night, exhaustive. I could totally have them, but every time we would have this conversation, we would solve a problem and it would create another problem. Exactly. And so that's what we're, we're over here as consultants in your industry and we're just seeing you guys whack away. That's what we are doing. So obviously, right? And so what we challenge you to do is when you think you're solving, and I'll use the example of merger and acquisition, a new partner managing partner, that was his focus, merger and acquisition.
(23:02):
And he would come in and I'll go quick. He'll come in and he would say to the staff, be careful if you leave the firm because we're acquiring firms and we just might acquire a firm that you move to creating problems. So every time he would acquire a new firm, they would look at the roster to see how many other people had worked at the originating firm first. So it's just one problem solved, another problem created. And so we encourage you to think about those next steps and who it affects you guys. We have no slides. One second. Cool beans. Okay, can you sing?
Dr. Jessica Levin (23:38):
I cannot sing. If we go to karaoke tonight, I will be part of a group. Is karaoke tonight? Tomorrow? Karaoke is tomorrow. Tomorrow night there'll be a group saying maybe I do hope. So are we up to, I wish you memorize the, we're up to the recipe, right?
(23:56):
Do your recipe. Okay. We're going to give you a little recipe. The recipe for accounting for times. I think that's the next slide. So what makes accounting for times the first ingredient is culture. The second is leadership, the third is mentoring, and the fourth is business acumen.
Rachel Anevski (24:27):
I'm so proud of you right now. That's awesome. And if you pay attention, if you link in with us after this session, whatever, I actually had ChatGPT, write us a full-blown recipe. I mean it details how long you bake the leadership. It's pretty fantastic. See that
Dr. Jessica Levin (24:46):
It also created us a beautiful cake. Totally. Which you'll say soon, but it's okay. Exactly. Because the next slide actually on culture, which is the first ingredient. And so what I'm going to talk to you right about now, culture was from my doctoral dissertation.
Rachel Anevski (25:06):
And how many pages was that dissertation?
Dr. Jessica Levin (25:09):
So it was 165 pages. I'm very happy to share with you the executive summary, which is two pages. If you're really interested, I am very happy to share the log version with you. It's great with a glass of wine. But there were a few major takeaways from it. The first one we're talking about the flexible mindset. The first one, in terms of culture and culture as a tool, building culture is a tool to retain and attract talent, which is just right people, everything to a firm is flexibility. And flexibility is not work from home. Work from home is an arrangement, hybrid is an arrangement, but flexibility is a mindset. And every firm leader that I spoke to look at that every firm leader that I spoke to said that they were able to increase their retention by not just offering hybrid or work from home, which during COVID, we didn't even have the option, but that they switched their mindset and it was like a light bulb.
Rachel Anevski (26:26):
Well, so Elisha this morning, she kind of was the visual for me about this, what Jessica's talking about right now. And as a director of human resources, I think culture has always been very important to me. But describing it and making sure that everyone felt it the same way has always been kind of tricky. And what she said today, this morning about that flexible mindset, I think really hit home in terms of this, that they don't work on Fridays. Even though she works on Fridays, she makes sure culturally it is still felt that they don't work on Fridays. That's what this is talking about right here, understanding it from the top down, all of those things.
Dr. Jessica Levin (27:07):
So the second takeaway was having formal coaching and mentoring programs. And the reason for this was that the whack-a-mole example, when you were regularly coaching and mentoring your people, you are getting ahead of a problem if there's a problem, if an employee is getting ready to leave, if they're unhappy, if they're dealing with something because you're proactively doing it.
(27:32):
And firms had very different ways of doing it. But every firm that I spoke to that had done a really good job of recruiting and retaining, had a formal coaching and mentoring program. The next part is that they are firing clients. And we heard this from the stage this morning, and it might not necessarily be firing clients, but setting boundaries falls under that, right? But all of that ties into culture. And so all of those were again, from my study, which I'm happy to share with you, but there's one underlying theme for this. You cannot build a good culture without strong leadership.
Rachel Anevski (28:20):
So because Jessica went first in her doctorate, and I get to go next, and I am just at the point where my dissertation has begun. So one of the things that I'm working on is understanding and recognizing transformational leadership at the top of firms and why it's so necessary right now and how we're teaching it, what we're doing with everyone to continue to create transformational leaders.
(28:46):
And so here, and again, this is an old.
Dr. Jessica Levin (28:49):
We have a much better slide in the new version.
Rachel Anevski (28:52):
It's true. But what we wanted to just share with you is that we take that old model of training and development, and we want to just make sure that we're mentoring and coaching those people, that that's where the true learning is happening. That we're taking the time one-on-one to develop. And there's only one firm that I really know that took the time to develop this. Since a mid-size firm. They actually created a model where they trained first the coaches. It was a very specific program on what they wanted, the end user, the staff to learn. But first, not everyone can be a great coach or a great mentor. You have to start with that model and train and lead those people that are going to embark on them, imprinting the next generation.
(29:40):
So important. It's such an important step that a lot of people fail to do.
Dr. Jessica Levin (29:43):
Leadership training programs are important, but if you think that leadership training is putting somebody in front of a webinar, that is not going to work. And I don't know that any of you have done this, but I have seen many firms say, sure, we have a leadership training program and they're just popping on the video. It's like you're putting your kid in front of a YouTube video to keep him busy.
Rachel Anevski (30:07):
So 90 percent firm bought a package, right? Like an upstream academy, a package, and it's all coursework, person on the screen talk, talking in away, put all of their staff, young professionals in a room together and said, watch this. This is your leadership curriculum. Go. And it's interesting because I had placed a recruiting person in that firm and that person was watching the staff learn about leadership, and she was downloading to me, everyone's on their cell phone, no one's paying attention. What are they learning here? How did they climb? How much did they pay for this course? Oh My God, what's going on here? And so those are going to be great leaders.
Dr. Jessica Levin (30:54):
So the last piece, what is the one thing? This is a recipe, right? So we're building this cake. What's the one thing that you cannot bake a cake without? An oven. An oven. What else? You're closer on oven A can.
Rachel Anevski (31:20):
Why don't we think of oven?
Dr. Jessica Levin (31:22):
So you can't take a cake without a pan, and you can't build an account for without structure.
Rachel Anevski (31:29):
That's so true.
Dr. Jessica Levin (31:31):
Or a business without structure or a pan. So that leads us to business acumen. Do you want to, yeah, do get the hand out?
Rachel Anevski (31:38):
Oh yeah, no, I have it. Okay. So I'm going to hand something out with you for you to do. It's an activity. We have an activity.
Dr. Jessica Levin (31:43):
Thank you for bearing with us.
Rachel Anevski (31:46):
So let me just say this when it comes to business acumen, three things. Transparency.
Dr. Jessica Levin (31:54):
Oh, there's a cake. Oh, there's their cake. Sorry. So this is the cake.
Rachel Anevski (31:57):
Oh, look at this. These are actually your.
Dr. Jessica Levin (31:59):
This is the cake ask when you leave out business acumen.
Rachel Anevski (32:06):
So let me see if I can go back. So transparency, that's the first thing. Firms must have transparency. So, so hard to do this, especially when you have closed compensation committees and no one talks about that stuff and no one knows how to make more money. Then you have that partner that brings in $400,000 of new business and he's making the most money out of everyone. So it's just an interesting thing. So you have transparency. That's got to be part of business acumen, right?
Dr. Jessica Levin (32:35):
Yeah. So you can't have a cake without a structure. And by the way, we can share these because I don't know where they're shared. This is our cake. When you don't have structure or business acumen, it's kind of melted and it's not quite, it didn't rise to the top.
Rachel Anevski (32:51):
I talked about you when you weren't here. This is our COO by the way.
Dr. Jessica Levin (32:55):
So as we were going through planning this session, I have a number of activities that we've developed. I have a really amazing core values activity. I have a really cool activity for how do you develop a new service. But when we talk to firms, we often hear, when we talk to 'em about business acumen. How many of you think you have strong business acumen? Strong business acumen? Not everyone. It's okay. It's all right. We were talking about if nobody taught you it, how are you going to learn it? You don't know what you don't know. And so we decided that for this activity that we're going to give you some framework, and this is going to be group activity. So if you're sitting by yourself, make a friend, we have the pillars of business acumen on your sheet with some more detailed definitions. We would like you to read through those. And you don't have to pick all of 'em. In fact, we highly encourage you, one, not to pick all of 'em. And two, don't pick financial literacy because we're going to assume that that's probably what you have some strength in. And we want you to go through this exercise. We have about 10 minutes. I know tap hour. We don't want to cut into that.
(34:26):
We want you to go through this and just think about your firm. Be open with each other. Feel like this is a safe space. If you have weaknesses, go through this together and jot down your thoughts. Follow the guide. The definitions are on one side. And then there's the guided activity. And in about 10 minutes, we're going to regroup and we're going to have a little bit of a discussion. Don't worry, we're not going to have you reporting back what you write. That's a big pet peeve of mine. We'll walk around if you have any questions, but I don't, just take a few minutes and again, do these together and share ideas and feel open about sharing what your challenges are. Can you guys turn us off?
Rachel Anevski (35:19):
You either love these or you.
Dr. Jessica Levin (35:21):
It works like summer camp. Put your hands up. All right. Can we bring everyone back? I always hate, I hate breaking up. Good conversation. I know y'all have to tell them next year. They need to bring us back for an entire day. Yes. So the other thing that I always find personally a little annoying is when everybody goes around the room and shares what they talked about. So we're not going to do that, but this is what we are going to do. You're, you're not off the hook yet.
Rachel Anevski (35:55):
We're not testing anybody.
Dr. Jessica Levin (35:57):
We want to know how was this experience for you? How did it make you feel? Where did you struggle? What were your pain points in going through this exercise? As a leader, who does want to share? Go for it.
Rachel Anevski (36:11):
Go for it.
Audience Member 1 (36:12):
I think just being honest with ourselves about where the
Dr. Jessica Levin (36:15):
Being honest with yourself and vocalizing it. Love that. Anybody else?
Audience Member 2 (36:24):
Yeah, I would say that what's true for one firm might not be true for another. So there are very unique needs for by firm. And what's worked for somebody else may not work for another
Rachel Anevski (36:34):
A thousand percent.
Dr. Jessica Levin (36:35):
What works for, I'm repeating them for the video. What works for one firm may not work for another firm. Anyone else? One more. Yes.
Audience Member 3 (36:46):
Just said, I was going to say this. We are four females.
Dr. Jessica Levin (36:49):
Okay, four females.
Audience Member 3 (36:54):
What should be done? We all knew what should be done.
Dr. Jessica Levin (36:57):
So right away,
Audience Member 3 (36:58):
People were humanized,
Dr. Jessica Levin (37:00):
Were humanized.
Audience Member 3 (37:04):
My first job years ago, I'm aging myself, was with, when they were called Pete Wick, the managing partner. I wanted to get my MBA in. I had my CPA and the managing partner, why do you want your MBA? You have your CPA. I said, I grow. He said, no, have your CPA. You done enough growth. So I think we all realize that we need, we talked about seniors and juniors and we shouldn't do that. There shouldn't be labels like that. Team members.
Dr. Jessica Levin (37:42):
So not labeling people and creating team members, that's how you succeed. I think that deserves, I agree. Yeah.
Rachel Anevski (37:52):
So as I was walking around, we have a gentleman in the back before we go there, who does this for firms, right? So this was like cakewalk. He saw this, he, I could do this. I know this. I did this. It was awesome. And I would love for every firm to have a you. Not everyone is so fortunate, but I think it's awesome. Up here we had some questions. Where do we start? Who's responsible to do this, right? What does it mean for everybody? And so that's what we were going with this. Oftentimes we talk about a business acumen or we talk about the soft skills that we have to train people. And then we get ingrained in all of the compliance work and all of the technical work and teaching what we know how to teach. And that was another question. Who teaches it? Who teaches it?
Dr. Jessica Levin (38:40):
The other thing is, the one thing I've done a lot in my life, the one thing I have not been able to figure out is how to manufacture time. If anybody has this formula, please let me know.
Rachel Anevski (38:50):
Next book.
Dr. Jessica Levin (38:51):
Next book. But the good news is that as we said, this is just a resource and we want to keep having these conversations. We want to be a resource for you. We want you to leave this session as we start out saying, if you take nothing else away, have this flexible mindset and use that, whether it is to develop business acumen, whether you're trying to develop a new service, whether you're trying to identify your culture or your structure, or any of the multitude of issues that we face on a daily basis. If you start with this, this is how you evolve.
Rachel Anevski (39:28):
So just go back one more time. So we also recognize that oftentimes great conversations happen in a room like this, and then we leave and we forget them. Or we have other conversations with partners back at our office, and they have difference of opinions. They kind of block that flexible mindset. So in the book, we kind of give a depiction of all of those different types of blocks that might come your way, that will preclude you from having this flexible mindset. And really what we want you to do is have it, feel it, understand what that means. And so we dive real deep into that. And then how do address the people that are holding you back from remaining flexible?
Dr. Jessica Levin (40:10):
So this is us. And when we say, please feel free to reach out, don't be shy. We'd love to talk to people. We'd love to help people. We'd love to see firms change and evolve. I said, we've been doing this a very long time. We've seen the change this morning. I made the comment that it was the most refreshing session I've ever heard, and it gives me a lot of optimism. I hope you all do too. And I believe, don't quote me on this, but the bar is probably open. Thank you. Thank you so much. Sorry, one more thing. Take these with you. And when you feel frustrated, when you've accomplished something, when you've gotten through any of these obstacles, think of us. Give yourself a class.
Track 1: Accounting for Times
June 5, 2024 2:10 PM
41:08