Future-Proof

We’ve got royalty on the show today, as our guests are none other than Ron Baker and Ed Kless, co-hosts of the influential podcast Soul of the Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy.

 

They are two of the deepest thinkers I’ve ever met, and they’ll challenge YOU to think deeper about, too (they’re a bit fanatical about that, in fact, which is one of the things I love about them).

 

Before we dig into the meat of the show, let’s learn a little bit more about these two:

 

Ron started his career as a CPA in 1984 with KPMG before going on to found the VeraSage Institute, which is a leading think tank dedicated to educating professionals. He is also THE leading evangelist for value pricing and killing the time sheet.

 

Ed is Senior Director of Partner Development and Strategy at Sage and a Senior Fellow at the VeraSage Institute.

 

So, all of that is just lip service to the fact that these guys are guys you need to listen to. They know their stuff and they’re not afraid to tell you about what YOU need to know about where this profession is going – and what you need to be doing to stay ahead.

 

In This Conversation We Cover:

• Why the billable hour is on its way out (and why the time sheet needs to watch its back)
• The argument against cost accounting
• How we can start thinking about moving this profession forward
• Why Ron thinks the profession should lose its regulated monopoly
• Changing & innovating our business model
• What the future of the profession looks like to Ron & Ed

 

The Robots Aren’t All Bad

 

There was a report from PwC out of the U.K. about A.I. and automation, but don’t worry – this isn’t the same old story about robots coming to steal our jobs.

 

Actually, it’s a much more positive perspective on the impact of automation: “AI will create as many jobs as it displaces by boosting economic growth.”

 

In the PwC report, it says artificial intelligence is set to create 7.2 million jobs over the next 20 years, slightly more than the 7 million jobs predicted to be lost to automation over the same time span.

 

That’s right – A.I. will create MORE jobs than it will destroy over the next 20 years, but we don’t often hear that side of narrative.

 

Now, there is a caveat: Some professions will benefit more than others from that level of job creation. Health care, for example, will benefit significantly. On the other hand, manufacturing will be on the losing end of that spectrum.

 

But what about the accounting and finance profession? PwC lumps it into a category called “Financial and Insurance Activities,” and that will be on the losing end as well. According to PwC, we’re going to see an 18 percent increase in job creation and a 25 percent decrease in job displacement. So we’ve got some work to do.

 

The important takeaway, however, is that technology is as much a job creator as it is a job destroyer, and we don’t often stop and think about that.

 

Nor do we often stop and think about the fact that if we take the time to learn a few new vital skills, we might have the opportunity to seamlessly move into some of these new jobs that technology will be creating.

 

We don’t have to fade into irrelevance – We can learn our way into some future-proofed careers!

 

Resources:

• Listen: Soul of the Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy
• Learn more at VeraSage.com
• Connect with Ed: EdKless.com | LinkedIn
• Connect with Ron: LinkedIn
• Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy by George Gilder
• The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters by Peter Block
• Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time by Jeffrey Pfeffer
• The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services by Paul Dunn and Ronald J. Baker

We spend the bulk of each show trying to help accounting and finance pros become a little bit more future-ready – just a little more forward-thinking than they were an hour ago.

 

And this week, we’re talking to an accounting and finance pro who already IS future-ready – or as future-ready as they come. Our guest this week is none other than Jody Padar, the CEO and principal of the New Vision CPA Group and the original Radical CPA.

 

Jody is also an enthusiastic evangelist of all things new; any advancement that promises to make her firm more productive and to help her better serve her clients, she’s going to try it.

 

Jody was one of the profession’s earliest fans of social media, she embraced cloud computing before cloud computing was cool, and she is deeply investigating things like A.I. and machine learning to see what they might be able to do for her firm – and more importantly, for her clients.

 

It’s not just new technology, either. Jody also plays around with business model innovation and fixed pricing models. She is definitely pushing the edge of the envelope.

 

In This Conversation We Cover:

• Why Jody, a Chicago-based CPA, is a member of the MACPA
• What it means to be a Radical CPA
• Why project management is the way of the future
• The first steps towards becoming Radical
• Incorporating social media into your business model
• Building innovation into the DNA of your firm
• Value billing & fixed-price models
• What diversity & inclusion means for Radical CPAs
• Jody’s vision of the future for this profession

 

The First Step Towards Being a Radical CPA

 

If you do just ONE thing to make your firm more radical and future-ready after listening to this episode, Jody thinks it should getting rid of the timesheet.

 

That may offend your sensibilities and you probably won’t be able to do it in one fell swoop, but you can start small: just block of four hours once a week, or even once a month, to stop thinking about being billable and start thinking about what you can do differently.

 

“Because if you have that mindset that you always have to be billable, you’ll never be innovative.”

 

This doesn’t have to be implementing new technologies, either. Real innovation often consists of small changes to how we do things – it doesn’t have to be something huge or groundbreaking.

 

We Need More Radical CPAs!

 

We believe our profession NEEDS more people like Jody.

 

To support that statement, we turn to some numbers that Barry Melancon shared during last week’s podcast.

 

Barry cited a McKinsey report titled “Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained: Workforce Transitions in a Time of Automation.” That report estimates that by the year 2030, up to 375 million employees worldwide may need to switch occupational categories and learn new skills in order to remain relevant in their work.

 

And that includes accounting and finance pros.

 

Jody can be seen as a role model for all of that. She’s perfectly willing to try anything new if it’s going to make her smarter and give her firm a leg up on the competition, and most importantly, better serve her clients. “Same as last year” doesn’t fly in Jody’s firm.

 

In fact, Jody has written the book (quite literally) on this profession – twice! Her first book was called The Radical CPA: New Rules for the Future-Ready Firm, in which she shares her story and a roadmap to move towards the Radical CPA mindset.

 

Her latest is titled From Success to Significance: The Radical CPA Guide, and it’s a step-by-step handbook with hundreds of strategies, tools, tips, insights, guest experts, and case studies that will help any firm start moving towards a future-proof business model.

 

Resources:

• Learn more at newvisioncpagroup.com
• Connect with Jody: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Listen: Let’s Get Radical: Business Talk Unfiltered

 

• From Success to Significance: The Radical CPA Guide

• The Radical CPA: New Rules for the Future-Ready Firm

 

Today we talk with Barry Melancon, who you probably know as the president and CEO of the American Institute of CPAs. He’s been with the AICPA since 1995 and is now the longest-serving CEO in the AICPA’s 129-year history.

 

Barry also delivers these incredible professional issues updates for his members, telling them everything they need to know about… well, pretty much everything relating to the accounting and finance profession.

 

So today, Barry’s going to share a kind of a Reader’s Digest version of his professional issues updates: what’s happening in the profession, how it’s impacting us, and what we should be doing about it.

 

Resources:

• Learn more: AICPA.org | AICPA-CIMA.com
• Connect with Barry on LinkedIn

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

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