CPA Success

The next generation to dominate the workplace

The next generation to dominate the workplace will be Generation Flux and they will have a new set of skills.

And the good news is Generation Fluxers can be any age, according to Fast Company editor Robert Safian, writing in the must-read February edition and lead article, Generation Flux (photo source: Fast Company).

He introduces the concept in "from the Editor":

"In our hypernetworked, mobile, global world, the rules and plans of yesterday are increasingly under pressure; the enterprises and individuals that will thrive will be those willing to adapt and iterate, in a disciplined, unsentimental way...Generation Flux is a term that describes all of this -- the chaotic business era that we have moved into -- as well as the people who are poised to thrive in this environment."

Fast Company has no doubt that people and organizations can and will thrive in this new environment. 

But how?

The most important skill for this chaotic future is quite simply the ability to acquire new skills, according to Safian. Our own research as part of the CPA Horizons Project led us to the same conclusion. 

We saw it as a future-minded and flexible mindset combined with boundary-crossing "network leadership," because change can come from anywhere, anytime. We even had a group of young professionals describe the leadership model of the future in a MACPA whitepaper titled, "What got you here won't get you there."

According to these young professionals, the future is one in which CPAs:

• are proactive, flexible, adaptive and collaborative by nature;
• have regained the trust of their clients and the public at large
• have successfully bridged the profession’s “leadership gap” by focusing on succession planning,
• personal growth, and generational cooperation
• have created the profession’s premier global industry standards and best practices
• have redefined the profession through work / life integration, collaboration, and a team-first approach; and;
• have earned a reputation as technological innovators.

To achieve this vision of the future, they will need to focus on these six key strategies:

1. Professional unity
2. Work / life integration
3. The evolving nature of leadership and new leadership models
4. Proactive, goal-focused planning
5. Networked collaboration
6. Embracing and adopting new technologies 

Sounds a lot like Generation Flux, doesn't it?

Then there are these core competencies to succeed in the future from the CPA Horizons 2025 project:

1. Communications skills
2. Leadership skills
3. Critical thinking and problem-solving skills
4. Anticipating and serving evolving needs
5. Synthesizing intelligence to insight
6. Integration and collaboration

These are different skills that the CPA has traditionally held, yet they are the key to surviving and thriving in a rapidly changing and complex world. What are the skills you think will be most important in the future and how do you plan to get them?

Applications are being accepted for MACPA's next Leadership Academy class on May 7-9 in Timonium, Md. Get details and an application here.

Looking for these future-focused skills? Try the Business Learning Institute. 

• New MACPA white paper outlines future CPA leaders' vision for the industry
• Next-generation CPA Leaders chime in on the future
• What's over the horizon for CPAs?

Learn. Share. Repeat.

My daughter had one of those "Why do I have to learn this stuff?" episodes on the way home from school recently.

Using, without a hint of irony, some of the math skills she's learned on the way to fourth grade, she said, "I can't believe I have to go to school for 12 more years!"

Partly because parents are required to say stuff like this but mostly because I believe it, I said, "If you do it right, sweetheart, you'll be learning new stuff for the rest of your life."

That's what I love about CPAs -- you get to learn for a living. Most of us struggle to carve out time to learn new stuff, but your designation -- your very careers -- depend on it.

How cool is that?

And yet I still hear instructors complain about folks who come to their CPE programs and hide behind newspapers or laptops for two or four or eight hours. "I don't really want to learn anything," these "students" are implying. "Just give me my hours."

Really? In a life this short, you're going to blow this opportunity to learn something new?

Given the rate of change and complexity these days, you could throw a digital dart at our online catalog and find a relevant technical topic you need to learn. Or ditch the technical stuff and brush up on some "success skills" -- leadership, sustainability, social media, change management, personal growth. There's plenty of that to be found through the Business Learning Institute.

Or forget about CPE for a while and learn something really radical -- like computer programming, or web development, or pretty much anything that MIT has to offer. Even places like iTunes U, TED and the Khan Academy offer fantastic education opportunities -- and they're all free.

Here's a great list of some other free educational opportunities floating around out there.

Look, I don't care what you do. Play guitar. Cook. Needlepoint. Map your family tree. Rewire your house. Create a blog and start writing for it every day. (Imagine that.)

Just learn something. Then learn something else. Then share it. Don't forget about that part -- share what you've learned with others. Help other people learn. (Social media is a great way of doing that, by the way.)

The point is this: Always be learning. Most everything else is a waste of our all-too-short lives.

Is your CPE life changing?

If not, it should be!

That was one of the tweets made during our BLI Thought Leader Symposium held last Friday at the CPA Center in Towson, Md. (Pictured are BLI's Top Guns Ryan, Perry, Padar, Dean, Pisano, Magee, Margaritis, Birnbach, Elder, McDaniel, Park, Alrichs, Sheridan, Hood, Conderacci).

Are you kidding? Life changing CPE? How?

The answer is simple: BLI. 

BLI is short for the Business Learning Institute, a center that facilitates the development and sharing of competencies and strategic knowledge required for leadership in today’s rapidly changing business environment. BLI delivers competency-based curriculum, courses, content and community to enhance learning and grow intellectual capital for organizational and executive leadership. See our story in a short clip here or read more about us in our glossary here.

BLI was formed in 1999 as a subsidiary of the MACPA to provide the high level success skills need by CPAs and businesses to compete in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world. Last year BLI ran almost 600 customized on-site programs across the US, including 21 state CPA societies.

BLI partners with the best of the best to work with the best of the best. Pictured above is a recent meeting of BLI's instructors at our first thought leader symposium. The meeting started with yours truly playing Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone," reflecting our "Top Gun" instructors. You can follow this meeting on our Storify page and on our blog post, "Top Guns" featured at BLI Live in Towson, Md.

Listen to testimonials from young professionals who attended the AICPA's Leadership Academy in 2009.

• Check out the Twitter stream from our "Top Gun" session.
• Check out our blog here.

So the next time you are thinking about CPE or training for your firm or organization, make it life changing by contacting BLI and asking for one of our Top Gun instructors.

View our course catalog of customizable programs that can be delivered on-site at your organization or firm. For information, contact Pam Devine at Pam@bizlearning.net.

The No. 1 job of a leader is ...

“A person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weakness, let alone on something one cannot do at all.”  ― Peter F. Drucker 

Know thyself (and your team). Pictured is the MACPA Leadership Academy mapping their strengths.

Leadership is about being self-aware, knowing your strengths and those of your team, and maximizing the use of those strengths.

The research is clear: Focus on opportunities (not challenges) and build on strengths (not fix weaknesses). This is true for organizations as well as individuals.

So where do you start?

With yourself. Gallup has been researching leadership and strengths for over 50 years and interviewed over 10,000 people about the best leadership traits. Here is what they found. (Click here for Gallup's research):

• The most effective leaders invest in strengths: There is an eightfold increase in engagement when leaders focus on and invest in people's strengths.
• The most effective leaders surround themselves with the right people and then maximize their team: The strengths of the leader are not important; it is the strengths of the team that make the leader. Gallup found 34 strengths spread over four domains of leadership -- executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking. 
• The most effective leaders understand their follower's needs: It is not about you, it is about your followers. All followers have four basic needs -- trust, compassion, stability, and hope.  

I am going to use me as an example of applying "strengths-based" leadership. Using the book, "Strengths-Based Leadership," by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie, I took the online test with the access code at the back of the book. I received two customized reports about my strengths and how they work with leadership (about 22 pages' worth).

Here are my top five strengths and their associated "leadership domain":

The Strengths-Based Leadership report maps your top five (of the 34) strengths to the four domains of leadership and outlines a dominant strength domain (if there are two or more in one domain). My dominant strength is in Strategic Thinking, as three of my strengths are in that domain. I have none in Relationship Building. My COO, Jackie Brown, has a dominate strength in the Relationship Building domain, which exemplifies exactly what Gallup talks about. It is not the strengths of the individual, but the team's that count most.  

Here are my top five strengths and how they fit:

Input (Strategic Thinking)
People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information. 

Maximizer (Influencing)
People strong in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb. 

Strategic (Strategic Thinking)
People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues. 

Achiever (Executing)
People strong in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive. 

Futuristic (Strategic Thinking)
People strong in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future. 

The report is personalized to me and includes strategies for addressing the needs of your followers in addition to major insights about how you naturally work best. I have used lots of personaility tools (Kolbe -- long green; Myers-Briggs -- INFP; DISC -- S) and what I like most about this tool is that it really is about how business works -- executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking -- and deals with the business leadership context. 

So in my case, without strength in relationship and execuion, I should (and regularly do) seek out team members who have the strengths that I do not. Fortunately, my discipline as a CPA allows me to get into the details and execute when necessary, although I find it takes incredible energy and is not fun for me. Therein lies the secret of working to your strengths; it is energizing and natural, which leads to higher engagement and more discretionary effort. 

We have mapped our entire organization to the strengths matrix and even our Board of Directors. It is great way to increase communication, engagement, and trust. 

 Here are five ways you can start using strengths to your advantage:

1. Find your strengths: Buy the book Strengths-Based Leadership book and use the access code in the book to take the strengths-finder test (the code is also in the e-book edition on Kindle).
2. Explore what they mean to you: Read the report and share with your colleagues and listen to their reactions. Do they represent you? Which ones do you rely on the most? Is there a shadow side to your strength?
3. Align your work with your strengths: What areas of your work do your strengths help with most? What are the areas that don't fit your strengths well?
4. Understand your team's strengths: Create a map of your team's strengths and see if you are balanced across the four domains. Any areas that you are lacking in? Who in your organization can help round out the team. How can you draw on those strengths to accomplish more?
5. Start focusing and investing in strengths: Use it with your teams to map strengths to critical projects, consider mapping your board and strategic partners. I have seen some organizations use it for screening new hires. Begin trying to reallocate work to people's strengths. 

We have found this to be one of the favorite exercises and discoveries of young professionals in our work with the AICPA, Maryland, and Utah leadership academies.

What are you going to do in 2012 to maximize your strengths and those of your organization?

Data (and XBRL) is the new plastics

Remember the Simon & Garfunkel song "Mrs. Robinson" from the movie, "The Graduate?"

It follows the story of recent college grad Benjamin Braddock, who was trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. He then gets seduced by an older woman, Mrs. Robinson, only to fall in love with her daughter. It is a classic '60s comedy featuring some great performances. 

If you were rewriting the movie script for "The Graduate," you could change the scene where the guy walks up to Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman as the young graduate) to give him career advice from "Plastics ... enough said" to "Data ... enough said!"

That is structured and standardized data, the kind that XBRL Global Ledger creates. Combine standardized data with data visualization tools that help make sense of the data and you can see why data is the new plastics!

Actually, the full "Graduate" reference is from Steve King's post, Data is the new Plastics, over at Small Business Labs, and I couldn't agree with him more. Steve is the futurist who helped Intuit examine the future in its 2020 report. (He also attended the CPA Horizons 2025 future forum in San Francisco last spring.) Here is what Steve said in his post:

"Last week we held a workshop on data and analytics with our research partners at Intuit.  We had a mix of experts on data and analytics from both large and small organizations. 

There was a very clear consensus that there is a shortage of people with data and analytical skills  -- and this shortage is going to get worse and last a long time."

Data ... enough said!

Once again, the research from Intuit and Steve King is spot-on with the research from the CPA Horizons 2025 report, which identified technology (XBRL, transparency, the cloud and social technologies) as the biggest driver of change (and opportunity) for CPAs in the future. Check out these three key insights from the Horizon's report:

"The way CPAs report and analyze financial information will be changed because of changes in technology."

"Technology is going to drive financial reporting to be faster, even to the point of being real time."

"The profession will need to adopt and become a leader in effectively using new technology."

Then there is our own experience with data. We used XBRL GLobal Ledger to tag all of our transactions from several systems to create drill-down financial statements and automatically generate our KPI analysis. See our case study and the presentation to the XBRL US Conference. You can also follow all of our posts about XBRL here.

See our earlier blog post, Dy-no-mite opportunity for CPAs. 

The writing is clearly on the wall. Data is the new plastics for CPAs.

Wanted: CPAs who understand technology and have data and analytical skills. 

What do you think? Is data is the new plastics?

Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson ...

XBRL: It's all the niche you'll ever need

Here's what we know: CPAs are going to be in high demand and incredibly marketable for at least the next decade or so.

Here's what we can assume: There will be a jump in the number of students who are studying accounting in college for the next few years. If the market wants more CPAs, we're going to see more people studying to become CPAs.

Here's my question for all of those future CPAs: How are you going to differentiate yourselves?

It's a fair question. In a market that is begging for talented CPAs, how are you going to get a leg up on the competition?

The answer might be four letters long: XBRL.

Ernie Capozzoli, an accounting professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, has spent the last six years or so shoehorning XBRL in to his already-crowded accounting curriculum. It wasn't an easy thing to do.

"Accounting curriculums are crammed with required courses to meet the demands of the industry," he said. "Consequently, introducing new material means that something else has to be given up."

That's evidence of XBRL's importance, though, isn't it? Here's an accounting professor who's willing for forego some other part of the curriculum so that he can teach XBRL.

Still, it might be a worthwhile task if Capozzoli could give us proof that learning XBRL is paying off for his students.

Enter Jeff Petka.

A accountant with Georgia-based energy giant Southern Company, Petka says he owes his career to what he learned in Capozzoli's XBRL lessons.

"It has improved my career exponentially because it's given me a very valuable niche in the company in which I can help them use XBRL," Petka said. "I've been able to take over the XBRL side at Southern Company and help that grow."

Did you catch that? How many of us have waited years to find a niche that sets us apart from the rest and puts us on a path to greatness? Petka found it right out of the gate, thanks to Capozzoli's foresight.

Here's the deal: If you're studying accounting and looking for an edge in your job search, you might want to consider learning all there is to know about XBRL. It's a technology whose time has come, not just for public companies, but for non-profits, governments, auditors, and politicians alike.

Need convincing? Listen to my interview with Capozzoli and Petka in its entirety.

Want to learn more?
Check out our upcoming XBRL programs:

• Webcast: What Small Public Companies Need to Know About the New XBRL: Dec. 19 |Jan. 19 | Feb. 22 | March 22 | April 24 | May 24


• Webcast: What Auditors Need to Know About the New XBRL Filing Requirement: Dec. 27 | Jan. 23 | Feb. 8 | March 5 | April 21 | May 15 | June 27


• Jan. 13: XBRL and the New Era in Financial Reporting: Moving Beyond Theory

The No. 1 issue facing the CPA profession

The No. 1 issue facing the CPA profession is a lack of leadership.

Listen to AICPA past Chairman Paul Stahlin as he facilitated an i2a: Insights to Action session with Maryland CPAs from our 2010 CPA Summit.

He specifically addresses the issue identified by the group as, "The impact on our profession of the lack of young professionals' expression of desire to take leadership positions." 

Paul says, "That is one thing the profession is changing right now and has changed significantly in the last few years with the work of the AICPA and many state CPA societies."

I could not agree more!

Through leadership academies and young professionals' networks (see our own NYPN), we are all working to develop the next "varsity" squad of leaders for the profession.

Having worked with the AICPA team to design their Leadership Academy and our own in Maryland and another in Utah, I am in awe of the talents, enthusiasm, and willingness to step up to leadership by these young professionals. But they will not just show up; we have to ask. As Paul says in the clip, we, as current leaders, are responsible for cultivating the next crop of leaders in our profession.

Is it working? Since Paul made these remarks, look at what these young leaders are saying and doing:

• The AICPA's Leadership Academy Doesn't Sound So Awful After All, by Going Concern blogger Adrienne Gonzalez


• Then there is our own MACPA's 2011 Leadership Academy's whitepaper on the future of leadership in the CPA profession and Adrienne's take here, where she says:
  
  "The interesting part about the MACPA's project is that opinions and visions are a dime a dozen in this industry, but Leadership Academy participants went beyond postulating about the future to map opportunities from a future CPA leader's point of view complete with action plans, timelines and desired results. This isn't simply a report on the state of the industry at some point in the future but a report on how young leaders can get us there in the here and now."


• The MACPA Leadership Academy video story, by Bill Sheridan


• Reflections on the AICPA Leadership Academy from Joshua Partlow, partner at Johnson & Lambert


• Then there are the numerous Facebook postings, links, and e-mails talking about how these young leaders are actually applying their new skills at work to inspire and mobilize their colleagues. 

Listen to the Season 1 graduates of the AICPA Leadership Academy in their own words, then tell me: Do they sound like they don't want to lead?

Another myth busted!

Applications are being accepted for Maryland's spring 2012 Leadership Academy, scheduled for May 7-9, 2012 in Timonium. Get details and apply here.

For more information about bringing a Leadership Academy to your organization, see our BLI information page.

Maryland native earns Top 10 score on 2010 CPA exam

You don't need an official proclamation to know that Maryland is a hotbed of accounting excellence, but we've got one anyway.

It comes courtesy of Mike Berryman. The 23-year-old CPA in Ernst & Young's Baltimore office is a winner of one of the AICPA's 2010 Elijah Watt Sells awards. The prestigious honor is given annually to the candidates with the 10 highest cumulative CPA exam scores in the nation.

"I'm really surprised and honored," the Sykesville native said, and why not? No more than half of all candidates even passed any of the four sections of the exam during 2010. Simply passing the exam is a major accomplishment. A top 10 score? That's just downright awesome.

In Berryman's case, though, I don't think we should be surprised. The University of Maryland graduate has a pretty good head on his shoulders, especially when it comes to the state of the profession.

"Our profession is changing significantly, and I don't think that's ever going to stop," he said. "What's going to make us successful going forward is our ability to be flexible and see opportunities in those changes."

Sounds like he took some lessons from author Tim Sanders. "(A)lmost all of what you call 'bad news' in your life is really 'You're going to have to get busy and change' news," Sanders told me recently. "That's really where the opportunities lie."

Berryman is already strolling down that road. Wherever he ends up, he has a bright future ahead of him.

Congratulations, Mike. Maryland is proud of you.

3 percent withholding rule dies; here are the details

That 3 percent withholding requirement on government contractors is history, thanks to Congress's resounding (and, given the current political climate, surprisingly bipartisan) decision to repeal the mandate.

The AICPA has already chimed in with its response to the repeal. "The AICPA commends Congress for recognizing that it makes sense to repeal the requirement," said Edward Karl, the AICPA's vice president of taxation.

Now it's CCH's turn.

The software giant has released a special report that takes a closer look at the legislation. The report examines many of the bill's provisions, including government withholding, incentives for hiring veterans, the IRS's expanded "continuous levy" authority, the Veterans Affairs-IRS information exchange, a tax gap report, and a revised health care program eligibility.

• Download the CCH report in its entirety.

Every once in a while, it seems, our elected officials do the right thing. Now, we can enjoy the holidays.

Until the next crisis comes along, that is.

Update:
We'd be remiss if we didn't recognize the efforts of the MACPA's own Government Contractors' Committee in getting this requirement repealed. Members of the committee submitted official comments on the repeal on two separate occasions and were among the CPA groups that were instrumental in driving this legislation forward. Thanks, everyone! 

Want to learn more?
Speaking of taxes, you won't want to miss the MACPA's 1040 Fast Track set for Nov. 28-29. This comprehensive individual tax seminar for CPAs and their staff is among the most extensive in the country. The seminar also will be held on Jan. 9-10. Get details and register here.

Also, don't miss the Dec. 6 webinar titled, 'Facilitating Access to Capital.' This free webinar on state-supported finance programs for Maryland business owners, Chamber of Commerce members, bankers and accountants is sponsored by the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, the MACPA, and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. Get details and register here.

Next-generation CPA leaders chime in on the future

Remember the MACPA's Leadership Academy? That group of 40 young professionals who gathered in September to learn a bit about leadership and drafted a blueprint for the future of the 
profession instead?

They've put that blueprint into words.

It's in the form of a new white paper titled, "What Got You Here Won't Get You There: Maryland's Young CPAs Create a Vision of the Profession's Future," and it's a pretty remarkable piece of work.

It comes on the heels of the profession’s CPA Horizons 2025 project, which leveraged input from CPAs, regulators, thought leaders and futurists to identify key trends and map what the profession will look like in 2025.

The MACPA’s Leadership Academy took that report a step further. Using the trends identified in the Horizons work as a foundation, participants mapped those trends and corresponding opportunities from a future CPA leader’s point of view. Then, they dove deep with action plans, timelines and desired results for each of those opportunities.

Their conclusions?

With the pace of change and complexity on the rise, CPAs must become more global-minded, proactive, future-focused, balanced, and tech-savvy to maintain their competitive edge.

Getting there, they say, will require a brand new set of skills and characteristics. Among them: Unity and flexibility, the ability to collaborate and crowdsource, a mind shift from history to possibility, and a new tech-focused mindset.

In short, it's not your parents' CPA profession.

The hard part with any visioning project, of course, is that the future is a moving target. As soon as you set your sights, some unforeseen shift -- what leadership guru Emmanuel Gobillot would call "clear-air turbulence" -- knocks you and your best-laid plans for a loop.

The Leadership Academy folks, though, took that into account. Part of their learning centered on the notion of strategic thinking, which, according to the white paper, is "the ability to think strategically all of the time –- to be nimble enough to alter your course in mid-stride to navigate an ever-changing landscape."

Given the rate of change and complexity today, that's a skill we're all going to need going forward.

“There have been a lot of questions swirling about the next generation of business leaders. Topping the list is, ‘Are they ready to lead?’” said MACPA Executive Director Tom Hood. “Our Leadership Academy provides the answer: Not only are they ready to lead, they’re hungry to lead, and this white paper is their starting point.”

• Download the white paper in its entirety.
• Find out more about the Leadership Academy.

Here's my point: The folks with seniority aren't the only ones thinking about the future. Our Leadership Academy proves that. After all, the younger you are, the more future you'll have to deal with, right?

So give it up for tomorrow's leaders. They're more ready to lead than we think they are.