Recent research from the AICPA says that the business environment for CPAs and their clients will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now an imperative to learn a new competency–how to accurately anticipate the future. This session will show how to anticipate these trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager. At the end of the session participants will set actionable steps to elevate and accelerate their organization’s strategy.
The #1 reason clients leave their CPAs is that they are receiving service instead of proactive advice. Tom will show how firms are exploring new value added services and position their practices for success in a rapidly changing world. He will discuss the major "shift change" and the trends shaping business today and give participants a framework to provide more proactive services and strategic advice and a plan to get started. But these services require new skills and approaches which is a big opportunity for firm HR and Learning Leaders.
Presentation to AGN International in San Diego #NARM16 for Managing Partners in MAP Track
It May be Time to Reinvent Your Firm - CPAFMA National Practice Management Co...Tom Hood, CPA,CITP,CGMA
What is the accounting professionals' role in creating a culture of innovation? How are CPA Firms innovating? Reinventing themselves? Creating magnetic cultures?
Studies are showing a growing expectation for accounting professionals to lead these initiatives. In this session we will discuss tactics to foster innovation in your firms, technology's role and advising clients to do the same through tools you provide.
This session covers the latest research from the Business Learning Institute (BLI) about what it takes to create a magnetic firm culture and scores the latest issues facing CPA firms, top skills needed, and an innovation index.
From a session at the CPAFMA National Practice Management Conference in Baltimore in 2016.
For more information see www.blionline.org
Recent research says that the business environment for CPAs and their clients will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now an imperative to learn a new competency--how to accurately anticipate the future. The key to success in this fast-changing environment is to learn how to move from being reactive to proactive and flip from crisis manager to an opportunity manager. Tom will show how to explore new value added services and position their practices for success in a rapidly changing world.
Recent research from the AICPA says that the business environment for CPAs and their clients will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now an imperative to learn a new competency–how to accurately anticipate the future. This session will show how to anticipate these trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager. At the end of the session participants will set actionable steps to elevate and accelerate their organization’s strategy.
The #1 reason clients leave their CPAs is that they are receiving service instead of proactive advice. Tom will show how firms are exploring new value added services and position their practices for success in a rapidly changing world. He will discuss the major "shift change" and the trends shaping business today and give participants a framework to provide more proactive services and strategic advice and a plan to get started. But these services require new skills and approaches which is a big opportunity for firm HR and Learning Leaders.
Presentation to AGN International in San Diego #NARM16 for Managing Partners in MAP Track
It May be Time to Reinvent Your Firm - CPAFMA National Practice Management Co...Tom Hood, CPA,CITP,CGMA
What is the accounting professionals' role in creating a culture of innovation? How are CPA Firms innovating? Reinventing themselves? Creating magnetic cultures?
Studies are showing a growing expectation for accounting professionals to lead these initiatives. In this session we will discuss tactics to foster innovation in your firms, technology's role and advising clients to do the same through tools you provide.
This session covers the latest research from the Business Learning Institute (BLI) about what it takes to create a magnetic firm culture and scores the latest issues facing CPA firms, top skills needed, and an innovation index.
From a session at the CPAFMA National Practice Management Conference in Baltimore in 2016.
For more information see www.blionline.org
Recent research says that the business environment for CPAs and their clients will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now an imperative to learn a new competency--how to accurately anticipate the future. The key to success in this fast-changing environment is to learn how to move from being reactive to proactive and flip from crisis manager to an opportunity manager. Tom will show how to explore new value added services and position their practices for success in a rapidly changing world.
How to Accelerate Growth, Innovation, and High Performance for CPAs, Account...Tom Hood, CPA,CITP,CGMA
The # 1 challenge facing CPAs, Accounting and Finance Professionals is 'not enough time' who creates the equivalent of a gravitational pull of the past when it comes to changing their mindsets and thinking. How will we go from a historical perspective to a more future-focused, from rearview mirror to windshield and from being reactive to proactive?
Our latest research from the Business Learning Institute sows the critical competencies that will make a difference have not changed in the past seven years. What has changed is the gravitational pull has gotten worse as we enter what Josh Bersin calls the age of the 'overwhelmed employee'.
What we need is a new approach to learning these critical competencies. A blended approach that uses nano-learning nuggets (very short 2-3 minute single-concept videos), rapid application templates to apply each concept to the business, and a series of job aids and performance support tools to turn the learning into immediate on the job application. This is our award-winning Anticipatory Organization learning system by Burrus Research. In about one third of the time as traditional CPE, CPAs and accounting and finance professionals can learn the critical competencies of:
Anticipation; Strategic Thinking; External Awareness; Vision; Continuous Learning; Innovation ;Creativity; Problem Solving; Prioritization; Business Acumen; Decisiveness; Influencing/Persuading; Emotional Intelligence; Consensus Building; Collaboration; Inspiration; Risk Management; and Communication.
The Anticipatory Organization can support an entire cultural shift for an organization or team with the added implementation guide and collaboration tools. See more at http://www.blionline.org/ao
Our new MBA Express is another option to create or add a series of critical success skills to your technical training portfolio in on-site, on-line and on-demand learning formats. http://blionline.org/featured/8-hour-mba/
We believe we need new approaches and new tools to break the pull of the past and the inertia from 'overwhelmed employees'. These exciting new learning formats are one step in this direction.
Accounting Today Editor, Daniel Hood said this after selecting the Anticipatory Organization as a Top Product for 2016 in the Learning Category, “Everyone keeps telling accountants that they need to change their focus from the historic and the backward-looking, and to start being proactive and offering future-focused advice – but no one tells them how. The beauty of the Anticipatory Organization program is that it actually gives you a set of tools to harness the hard trends that are shaping the future, and use them to create new value for your firm and your clients.”
The day the robots stole your job adapting hr functions post automationMax Armbruster
As automation transforms the nature of HR, professionals will need to re-invent themselves and take on new functions that are more creative, more analytical and more strategic for the organization. Talkpush CEO shares how leading employers such as AirBnB, Sheraton and Credit Suisse have reinvented the HR functions via automation.
Welcome to the Fast Future: The Anticipatory Accounting and Finance ProfessionalBill Sheridan, CAE
From the Montana Society of CPAs' Industry Conference: Recent research says our business environment will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now imperative that leaders learn a new skill – how to accurately anticipate the future. This session will show you how to anticipate future trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager.
On October 13, 2016, Tom Haak of the HR Trend Institute gave a keynote at "HR on the Move 2016", organised by AOG School of Management. This is the pack of slides he used.
Cielo's 2016 Talent Rising Summit - Innovating Talent Acquisition in a World ...Cielo
The world continues to change at a rapid pace, with industry after industry being disrupted by technological advancement. But something different is happening from a human capital perspective.
Impact of Firm Wide Adoption - The Anticipatory Organization Accounting and F...Tom Hood, CPA,CITP,CGMA
This is the first accelerated learning system for accounting and finance professionals featuring nano-learning and rapid application tools. The Business Learning Institute and the Maryland Association of CPAs customized the learning system with a co-creation group working with Daniel Burrus. Accounting Today Magazine recognized this learning system as a 2016 Top Product in Learning.
This presentation covers the experience of firm-wide adoption of the Anticipatory Organization: Accounting and Finance Edition at several major organizations with focus on the first firm to adopt this for their entire firm. Joey Havens, Executive Partner of HORNE, LLP a Top 50 CPA Firm outlines the reasons he made the AOAF learning system a cornerstone of his Growth Mindset and implemented it across his entire workforce of almost 400 people. he also explains why he thinks an "anticipatory skill set is essential for today's accounting and finance professionals.
The Anticipatory Organization™ Model, created and developed by Daniel Burrus of Burrus Research, Inc., has changed how many of the world’s most successful businesses plan their future and accelerate growth. Now, Daniel Burrus is bringing what he calls the greatest missing competency – the ability to anticipate change – to CPAs, CFOs, controllers and management accountants. This model represents a new way of thinking, planning, and acting – a paradigm shift that’s required in a world of accelerating change, competition, and uncertainty.
This innovative learning system will jump start your ability to anticipate and learn critical competencies like strategic thinking, external awareness, vision, continuous learning, innovation, creativity, problem solving, prioritization, business acumen, decisiveness, influencing/persuading, emotional intelligence, consensus building, collaboration, inspiration, risk management, and immediately apply it to your own situation at work.
For more information visit our website http://www.blionline.org/ao
On October 19, 2016, Tom Haak of the HR Trend Institute gave a keynote on Talent Management Trends at the 10th Talent Trends seminar of Teneo in Brussels. This are the slides he used.
The HR Technology Market: Trends and Disruptions for 2018Josh Bersin
This presentation describes the direction and trend for HR Technology in 2018, by Josh Bersin. It shows how the core HR market has evolved, the emergence of "systems of productivity" as the next major trend, the use of AI, and how applications like recruitment, wellbeing, feedback, and performance management are going through radical change.
The future-ready CPA: Waves of change, oceans of opportunityBill Sheridan, CAE
How can we become future ready if we don’t have enough time? Even worse is that everyone expects this pace of change to accelerate. The latest trends in research indicate we are in a period of exponential change with no signs of slowing down. So how do we stop the insanity? It’s about turning around and looking into the future waves of change coming at us instead of the shoreline, learning how to avoid being swamped by the
waves and, even better, learning how to look for the opportunities in each wave and how to ride them. The alternative is to stay stuck in the present and risk being left behind in the same change of forces accelerating before our eyes.
Are you ready for the Fast Future?
We have entered a period of exponential change. Recent research from the AICPA says that the business environment for CPAs and their clients will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now an imperative to learn a new competency–how to accurately anticipate the future. This session will show how to anticipate these trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager. At the end of the session participants will set actionable steps to elevate and accelerate their organization’s strategy.
Presentation at the Wolters Kluwer CCH Users Conference in Las Vegas
What do next generation leaders say they need to be 'future ready'? This report is from 200+ next generation leaders attending the #AICPA_EDGE Conference in Las Vegas in August, 2016.
Next Gen leaders will be called to lead in a different environment than many leaders of the past. These times of exponential change will require a different skill set. They will be leading in transformational and adaptive times which require new skills and new practices.
This report highlights top challenges, top skills, insights from the session and more.
These polls were integrated during a presentation on "The Future Ready CPA" where we covered the 5 C's - Context, Certainty, Capacity, Competency, and Core Purpose & Values.
We are living in “exponential times” where the size, scale and scope of change is incredible. That means there are incredible opportunities for those who can see through the fog of uncertainty and anticipate what’s next. The biggest opportunity is to harness the wisdom of our older generations with the fresh perspectives of the tech-savvy younger generations. The next generation of leaders is enthusiastically ready to have a seat at the table. The future is not created; the future is co- created. Let’s get to work!
VHMA Annual Meeting: Anticipatory Leadership in the 'Fast Future'Bill Sheridan, CAE
Recent research says our business environment will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now imperative that leaders learn a new skill – how to accurately anticipate the future. This session will show you how to anticipate future trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager. At the end of the session, participants will set actionable steps to elevate and accelerate their organization’s strategy.
We tend to think of “innovation” in terms of new technology – gadgets, hardware, new apps, and software. But true innovation more often comes in the form of new business models, workflows, service offerings, and office and staffing patterns. This session will center on those innovations that are significantly impacting our firms and our clients. You never know where innovation might sprout!
This session was produced for the DCPA15 Conference in Las Vegas.
For latest information see http://www.blionline.org/ao
Recent research from the AICPA says that the business environment for CPAs and their clients will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now an imperative to learn a new competency--how to accurately anticipate the future. The key to success in this fast-changing environment is to commit to changing before you are being forced to. This session will show how to anticipate these trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager. At the end of the session participants will set actionable steps to elevate and accelerate their firm's strategy.
- Anticipate marketplace trends that will shape future markets
- Understand emerging innovation faster
- Identify opportunities
- Develop clear actionable steps to accelerate growth for the organization and its customers
Keynote for the AICPA Global Manufacturing ConferenceThe number one issue facing businesses is a need to innovate. Innovationis fundamentally about learning and how to keep your rate of learning (as individuals and as organizations) greater than the rate of change and greater than your competition. We think (and research supports this) it is time for a “paradigm shift” in talent development and learning. The need for a strategic and systematic approach to talent development already is under way in many high-performing organizations. Are you ready for these sweeping, even disruptive trends? Participants will learn:
• The latest trends in learning and talent development facing organizations
• How to approach learning and talent development in a strategic and systematic way and develop five action steps to take back with the
How to Accelerate Growth, Innovation, and High Performance for CPAs, Account...Tom Hood, CPA,CITP,CGMA
The # 1 challenge facing CPAs, Accounting and Finance Professionals is 'not enough time' who creates the equivalent of a gravitational pull of the past when it comes to changing their mindsets and thinking. How will we go from a historical perspective to a more future-focused, from rearview mirror to windshield and from being reactive to proactive?
Our latest research from the Business Learning Institute sows the critical competencies that will make a difference have not changed in the past seven years. What has changed is the gravitational pull has gotten worse as we enter what Josh Bersin calls the age of the 'overwhelmed employee'.
What we need is a new approach to learning these critical competencies. A blended approach that uses nano-learning nuggets (very short 2-3 minute single-concept videos), rapid application templates to apply each concept to the business, and a series of job aids and performance support tools to turn the learning into immediate on the job application. This is our award-winning Anticipatory Organization learning system by Burrus Research. In about one third of the time as traditional CPE, CPAs and accounting and finance professionals can learn the critical competencies of:
Anticipation; Strategic Thinking; External Awareness; Vision; Continuous Learning; Innovation ;Creativity; Problem Solving; Prioritization; Business Acumen; Decisiveness; Influencing/Persuading; Emotional Intelligence; Consensus Building; Collaboration; Inspiration; Risk Management; and Communication.
The Anticipatory Organization can support an entire cultural shift for an organization or team with the added implementation guide and collaboration tools. See more at http://www.blionline.org/ao
Our new MBA Express is another option to create or add a series of critical success skills to your technical training portfolio in on-site, on-line and on-demand learning formats. http://blionline.org/featured/8-hour-mba/
We believe we need new approaches and new tools to break the pull of the past and the inertia from 'overwhelmed employees'. These exciting new learning formats are one step in this direction.
Accounting Today Editor, Daniel Hood said this after selecting the Anticipatory Organization as a Top Product for 2016 in the Learning Category, “Everyone keeps telling accountants that they need to change their focus from the historic and the backward-looking, and to start being proactive and offering future-focused advice – but no one tells them how. The beauty of the Anticipatory Organization program is that it actually gives you a set of tools to harness the hard trends that are shaping the future, and use them to create new value for your firm and your clients.”
The day the robots stole your job adapting hr functions post automationMax Armbruster
As automation transforms the nature of HR, professionals will need to re-invent themselves and take on new functions that are more creative, more analytical and more strategic for the organization. Talkpush CEO shares how leading employers such as AirBnB, Sheraton and Credit Suisse have reinvented the HR functions via automation.
Welcome to the Fast Future: The Anticipatory Accounting and Finance ProfessionalBill Sheridan, CAE
From the Montana Society of CPAs' Industry Conference: Recent research says our business environment will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now imperative that leaders learn a new skill – how to accurately anticipate the future. This session will show you how to anticipate future trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager.
On October 13, 2016, Tom Haak of the HR Trend Institute gave a keynote at "HR on the Move 2016", organised by AOG School of Management. This is the pack of slides he used.
Cielo's 2016 Talent Rising Summit - Innovating Talent Acquisition in a World ...Cielo
The world continues to change at a rapid pace, with industry after industry being disrupted by technological advancement. But something different is happening from a human capital perspective.
Impact of Firm Wide Adoption - The Anticipatory Organization Accounting and F...Tom Hood, CPA,CITP,CGMA
This is the first accelerated learning system for accounting and finance professionals featuring nano-learning and rapid application tools. The Business Learning Institute and the Maryland Association of CPAs customized the learning system with a co-creation group working with Daniel Burrus. Accounting Today Magazine recognized this learning system as a 2016 Top Product in Learning.
This presentation covers the experience of firm-wide adoption of the Anticipatory Organization: Accounting and Finance Edition at several major organizations with focus on the first firm to adopt this for their entire firm. Joey Havens, Executive Partner of HORNE, LLP a Top 50 CPA Firm outlines the reasons he made the AOAF learning system a cornerstone of his Growth Mindset and implemented it across his entire workforce of almost 400 people. he also explains why he thinks an "anticipatory skill set is essential for today's accounting and finance professionals.
The Anticipatory Organization™ Model, created and developed by Daniel Burrus of Burrus Research, Inc., has changed how many of the world’s most successful businesses plan their future and accelerate growth. Now, Daniel Burrus is bringing what he calls the greatest missing competency – the ability to anticipate change – to CPAs, CFOs, controllers and management accountants. This model represents a new way of thinking, planning, and acting – a paradigm shift that’s required in a world of accelerating change, competition, and uncertainty.
This innovative learning system will jump start your ability to anticipate and learn critical competencies like strategic thinking, external awareness, vision, continuous learning, innovation, creativity, problem solving, prioritization, business acumen, decisiveness, influencing/persuading, emotional intelligence, consensus building, collaboration, inspiration, risk management, and immediately apply it to your own situation at work.
For more information visit our website http://www.blionline.org/ao
On October 19, 2016, Tom Haak of the HR Trend Institute gave a keynote on Talent Management Trends at the 10th Talent Trends seminar of Teneo in Brussels. This are the slides he used.
The HR Technology Market: Trends and Disruptions for 2018Josh Bersin
This presentation describes the direction and trend for HR Technology in 2018, by Josh Bersin. It shows how the core HR market has evolved, the emergence of "systems of productivity" as the next major trend, the use of AI, and how applications like recruitment, wellbeing, feedback, and performance management are going through radical change.
The future-ready CPA: Waves of change, oceans of opportunityBill Sheridan, CAE
How can we become future ready if we don’t have enough time? Even worse is that everyone expects this pace of change to accelerate. The latest trends in research indicate we are in a period of exponential change with no signs of slowing down. So how do we stop the insanity? It’s about turning around and looking into the future waves of change coming at us instead of the shoreline, learning how to avoid being swamped by the
waves and, even better, learning how to look for the opportunities in each wave and how to ride them. The alternative is to stay stuck in the present and risk being left behind in the same change of forces accelerating before our eyes.
Are you ready for the Fast Future?
We have entered a period of exponential change. Recent research from the AICPA says that the business environment for CPAs and their clients will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now an imperative to learn a new competency–how to accurately anticipate the future. This session will show how to anticipate these trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager. At the end of the session participants will set actionable steps to elevate and accelerate their organization’s strategy.
Presentation at the Wolters Kluwer CCH Users Conference in Las Vegas
What do next generation leaders say they need to be 'future ready'? This report is from 200+ next generation leaders attending the #AICPA_EDGE Conference in Las Vegas in August, 2016.
Next Gen leaders will be called to lead in a different environment than many leaders of the past. These times of exponential change will require a different skill set. They will be leading in transformational and adaptive times which require new skills and new practices.
This report highlights top challenges, top skills, insights from the session and more.
These polls were integrated during a presentation on "The Future Ready CPA" where we covered the 5 C's - Context, Certainty, Capacity, Competency, and Core Purpose & Values.
We are living in “exponential times” where the size, scale and scope of change is incredible. That means there are incredible opportunities for those who can see through the fog of uncertainty and anticipate what’s next. The biggest opportunity is to harness the wisdom of our older generations with the fresh perspectives of the tech-savvy younger generations. The next generation of leaders is enthusiastically ready to have a seat at the table. The future is not created; the future is co- created. Let’s get to work!
VHMA Annual Meeting: Anticipatory Leadership in the 'Fast Future'Bill Sheridan, CAE
Recent research says our business environment will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now imperative that leaders learn a new skill – how to accurately anticipate the future. This session will show you how to anticipate future trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager. At the end of the session, participants will set actionable steps to elevate and accelerate their organization’s strategy.
We tend to think of “innovation” in terms of new technology – gadgets, hardware, new apps, and software. But true innovation more often comes in the form of new business models, workflows, service offerings, and office and staffing patterns. This session will center on those innovations that are significantly impacting our firms and our clients. You never know where innovation might sprout!
This session was produced for the DCPA15 Conference in Las Vegas.
For latest information see http://www.blionline.org/ao
Recent research from the AICPA says that the business environment for CPAs and their clients will be characterized by “unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change” through 2025. To thrive in this new age of hyper-change and growing uncertainty, it is now an imperative to learn a new competency--how to accurately anticipate the future. The key to success in this fast-changing environment is to commit to changing before you are being forced to. This session will show how to anticipate these trends and move from being a crisis manager to an opportunity manager. At the end of the session participants will set actionable steps to elevate and accelerate their firm's strategy.
- Anticipate marketplace trends that will shape future markets
- Understand emerging innovation faster
- Identify opportunities
- Develop clear actionable steps to accelerate growth for the organization and its customers
Keynote for the AICPA Global Manufacturing ConferenceThe number one issue facing businesses is a need to innovate. Innovationis fundamentally about learning and how to keep your rate of learning (as individuals and as organizations) greater than the rate of change and greater than your competition. We think (and research supports this) it is time for a “paradigm shift” in talent development and learning. The need for a strategic and systematic approach to talent development already is under way in many high-performing organizations. Are you ready for these sweeping, even disruptive trends? Participants will learn:
• The latest trends in learning and talent development facing organizations
• How to approach learning and talent development in a strategic and systematic way and develop five action steps to take back with the
Keynote Presentation to CPA America Int'l in Portland, OR in September, 2014.
In a period of rapid change and increasing complexity, the winners will be those who can keep their rate of learning greater than the rate of change and greater than their competition or their L > C.
It's time to reimagine the CPA profession around the concepts of talent development and learning. New skills, new ways of learning, and new thinking. The need for a strategic and systematic approach to talent development is already underway in many high-performing organizations. Are you ready for these sweeping, even disruptive trends?
This presentation covers the latest trends and what we see as "next" practices emerging and how we, at the Business Learning Institute, are working to help CPA firms, corporations, government, and nonprofits with a new approach to talent development and learning designed to get two things: (1) business results and (2) engaged employees who are willing to give you their discretionary efforts!
Anticipating the future is hard. But in today’s fast paced world it’s more critical than ever. And there are techniques available that can help you mitigate innovation risk and be more effective at strategic planning. Daniel Burrus, one of the world’s leading futurists on trends and innovation and NY Times bestselling author, uses his success and expertise to teach others how to build their competency of anticipation.
In this session, Erik Asgeirsson, CEO of CPA.com, and Daniel Burrus will discuss:
The hard trends report gathered from firms at DCPA 2016
What this means for firms
How to capitalize on the opportunities created by these trends.
Get unstuck from analysis paralysis, and gain tools and inspiration to facilitate your firm’s growth with certainty!
Closing the Employee Skills Gap: A Framework for Future Success | Webinar 11....BizLibrary
According to the US Department of Labor July 2014 report, there are more than 9.7 million people seeking work that are unemployed. At the same time, US Bureau of Labor statistic reports there are 4.5 million unfilled job openings in the US economy.
Does a skills gap really exist in the American economy? Are there truly open jobs for which there are no qualified applicants or people to fill them? In this webinar we’ll discuss:
• Information and research about where organizations are struggling to find talent
• Practical advice, best practices, and tips to help find or nurture talent to fill both current and future skill gaps
• The business benefits of focusing on three critical areas: leadership skills, technical/professional skills, and IT/computer skills.
Will your firm thrive or just survive? Anticipation - The critical competency...Tom Hood, CPA,CITP,CGMA
Today, the world of professional education, and accordingly the accounting profession, is migrating toward a competencies-based learning approach. But what are the most critical competencies for practitioners and firms to thrive in today’s ever changing, fast paced business environment?
Research from the Business Learning Institute identified the Top 5 Competencies for CPAs, accounting and financial professionals as:
1. Strategic & Critical Thinking
2. Communication
3. Anticipating and serving evolving needs
4. Inspiring and motivating others
5. Collaboration and mobilizing consensus
In addition, research from CPA.COM shows that only 8% of CPAs are future ready. Future Ready is the Is the capacity to be ANTICIPATORY (aware, predictive and adaptive) of emerging technology and trends in business, demographics, and the social environment impacting your organization and industry.
Together this group of skills and competencies have been researched with a leading global futurist who has put together an innovative learning system, the Anticipatory Organization: Accounting and Finance Edition which is being used to transform firm cultures to build and enhance proactive business advisor skills.
Most of us wish we had the power to predict future trends, and would benefit by learning tactics to do so. Daniel Burrus is one of the world’s leading technology forecasters and innovation experts and the featured keynoter speaker at this year’s DCPA16. He is globally recognized for his exceptional 30+ year record of accurately predicting how technological, social, and business forces converge to create untapped opportunities.
Joey Havens, Executive Partner at Horne, LLP (A top 50 CPA Firm) discusses how he has used the Anticipatory Organization as a foundational learning system throughout his firm. He is requiring his whole firm of 400+ professionals to take this and running collaboration sessions by practice areas to create group learning and a shared language around anticipatory thinking that is being applied inside the firm and outside with clients.
This presentation is from the July 20th, 2016 webcast by CPA.COM. CPA.com President and CEO, Erik Asgeirsson as he discusses the critical Anticipatory competency with Daniel Burrus, HORNE LLP executive partner Joey Havens and the CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute, Tom Hood.
For more information http://www.blionline.org/ao
You will learn:
Why anticipation is the critical competency for today's accounting and finance professionals
The difference between hard trends and soft trends
Why it is important to identify trend types
Use cases of how these skills are being used in the profession
How this learning system can be used as a foundational skill set to help CPAs and accounting professionals be more proactive business advisors.
CCH User Conference: How to Innovate When Your Boss Says NoBill Sheridan, CAE
Innovate or die, you've been told, so you've burned the midnight oil coming up with some great ideas for how your organization can beat your competition to the punch. You present them to your boss, who answers with the dreaded, "No." You know your organization's future depends on its ability to do things differently, but how do you do that when leadership blocks your path?
Leading 5 Generations in the Workplace: The Generational Secret Nobody is Tal...Bill Sheridan, CAE
You've heard it all before: Millennials want flexibility, state-of-the-art technology, career development, purpose, and meaning in their work. But really ... who doesn't want these things? This isn't a Millennial problem, a Gen Xer problem, or a Baby Boomer problem. This is an organizational problem.
Get ready for the fast future: Why anticipation is the must-have skill of tom...Bill Sheridan, CAE
According to the AICPA, the business environment of tomorrow will be characterized by "unprecedented, massive and highly accelerated change." Not surprisingly, clients are demanding that their CPAs and accountants help them deal with that change by providing future-focused, proactive advice -- but only 8 percent of CPAs say they are future-ready and even fewer say they have the time to become so. This session will examine the trends that are impacting our profession and offer three steps that CPAs and accountants can take to become future-ready.
New Jersey Society of CPAs: Personal Branding via Social MediaBill Sheridan, CAE
Thought leadership used to be reserved for best-selling authors or ivory-tower researchers. Not anymore. Social media gives us the tools to build our personal brands and turn us all into thought leaders.
Digital CPA 2016: Winning the Talent War in Business Process OutsourcingBill Sheridan, CAE
BPO's rise has led to new niches within the CPA profession, leaving an army of new CPA consultants in search of the competencies that will help them rule the BPO world. Offering your team the skills they need for BPO success will set your practice apart and give you a leg up in the war for new talent.
Tweet It: An Overview of How Social Media Can Enhance Your Business?Bill Sheridan, CAE
In this presentation to the AICPA's 2016 Forensic and Valuation Services Conference, Bill Sheridan makes the business case for social media and offers some advice for how to build a successful network.
A crisis of competence: The 'skills gap' and what it means for businessBill Sheridan, CAE
Many young professionals are unprepared to meet the challenges posed by a changing and complex world. The reason? The “skills gap.” There’s a chasm between the skills they need to succeed and those they actually possess. Bill Sheridan examines the skills you will need to succeed going forward … and how to get them.
Look, Lead, Love, Learn: Four Steps to Better Business, a Better Life, and Co...Bill Sheridan, CAE
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Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/startuplviv
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3.0 Project 2_ Developing My Brand Identity Kit.pptxtanyjahb
A personal brand exploration presentation summarizes an individual's unique qualities and goals, covering strengths, values, passions, and target audience. It helps individuals understand what makes them stand out, their desired image, and how they aim to achieve it.
Personal Brand Statement:
As an Army veteran dedicated to lifelong learning, I bring a disciplined, strategic mindset to my pursuits. I am constantly expanding my knowledge to innovate and lead effectively. My journey is driven by a commitment to excellence, and to make a meaningful impact in the world.
Implicitly or explicitly all competing businesses employ a strategy to select a mix
of marketing resources. Formulating such competitive strategies fundamentally
involves recognizing relationships between elements of the marketing mix (e.g.,
price and product quality), as well as assessing competitive and market conditions
(i.e., industry structure in the language of economics).
Cracking the Workplace Discipline Code Main.pptxWorkforce Group
Cultivating and maintaining discipline within teams is a critical differentiator for successful organisations.
Forward-thinking leaders and business managers understand the impact that discipline has on organisational success. A disciplined workforce operates with clarity, focus, and a shared understanding of expectations, ultimately driving better results, optimising productivity, and facilitating seamless collaboration.
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In this deck, you will learn the significance of workplace discipline for organisational success. You’ll also learn
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• The best and most practical approach to implementing workplace discipline.
• Three (3) key tips to maintain a disciplined workplace.
The world of search engine optimization (SEO) is buzzing with discussions after Google confirmed that around 2,500 leaked internal documents related to its Search feature are indeed authentic. The revelation has sparked significant concerns within the SEO community. The leaked documents were initially reported by SEO experts Rand Fishkin and Mike King, igniting widespread analysis and discourse. For More Info:- https://news.arihantwebtech.com/search-disrupted-googles-leaked-documents-rock-the-seo-world/
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11. “When the job is in
the way of the work,
consider changing
your job enough that
you can go back to
creating value.
Anything less is
hiding.”
Seth Godin
12. Top five issues
impacting CPAs
1. Keeping up
2. Information overload
3. Doing more with less
4. Being proactive vs. reactive
5. Complexity
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning
Institute
13.
14. 0 2 4 6 8
Poor reputation
No personal relationship
Inadequate staff to meet…
Out-of-date technology
Fees were too high
CPA lacked expertise
Referral to a new firm
Poor responsiveness
CPA advice not proactive
Why SMBs leave their CPA /
accountant
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning
Institute
15. Source: CPA.COM Insight into
the CPA of the Future Study 2014
Only 8% of CPAs are future-ready
Future-ready is the capacity to be
aware, predictive, and adaptive of
emerging challenges, tech
innovations, and trends and
changes in business, population,
and social environment.
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning Institute
16. “You can’t stop the waves, but
you can learn how to surf.”
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
Oceans of opportunity
17. 5 steps to becoming future-ready
1. Context
2. Certainty
3. Capacity
4. Competence
5. Core beliefs
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning Institute
19. “We stand on the brink of a technological
revolution that will fundamentally alter the
way we live, work, and relate to one
another. In its scale, scope, and
complexity, the transformation will be
unlike anything humankind has
experienced before.”
-- Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning Institute
20. “In the next five years,
game-changing
technologies
will transform every
business process,
including how we sell,
market, communicate,
collaborate, educate,
train, and innovate.”
-- Daniel Burrus
21.
22.
23. Source: Frey & Osborne,
“The Future of Employment,” Oxford University
Race against the machines?
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning
Institute
24. 47%of all jobs gone within 25 years
‘No government is
prepared’ for that level of
job loss
Source: The Economist
25.
26. Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning Institute
Are your offices, workspaces,
and technology future-focused?
Do you know what your clients
are facing now and in the future?
Are you using the language of
the future or the past?
Will students and potential
employees feel like they are
traveling back in time when they
walk through your door?
29. Hard trends = future facts
Four hard trends:
1. Government regulation
2. Technology
3. Demographics
4. Globalization
30. Disruption and RONI
The gap is widening, faster!
Source: Clayton Christensen, “Innovation Killers”
We think this
is the
trade-off
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning
Institute
32. 6 ways to create
capacity
• Maximize the software and tools you have
• Use the latest, most efficient technologies
• Workflow and process efficiency
• Focus on your best ‘A’ clients / customers
• Communicate your services (cross-sell)
• Engage your people
33. Competency
Disruptions before they disrupt
Problems before you have them
Customer needs before they have them
New opportunities before the competition
Anticipate
Source: Daniel Burrus
34. The research
The latest research inside and
outside the CPA profession re-
affirms the top competencies
and skills needed by accounting
and finance professionals.
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning Institute
35. Top skills that accounting and finance
professionals need today
BLI Research in 2015 with over 1,000 responses from all segments of the CPA
profession identified these top skill needed to be successful in these rapidly
changing times. This confirms and reinforces the research from the Conference
Board, AICPA’s CPA Horizons 2025 report, Bersin, and Burrus Research.
75%
covered by
these top 5
skills
36. #FutureReady
Is the capacity to be anticipatory
(aware, predictive and adaptive) of
emerging technology and trends in
business, demographics, and the
social environment impacting your
organization and industry.
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning Institute
37. Respond lightning fast
Access an encyclopaedic memory
Stay awake 24 x 7 x 365
Remember conversations
Analyze on the fly
Continually learn and improve
Advantage,
machines
Source: AccountingWEB
38. Intuition
Political acumen
Challenging
Reading the back story
Who’s who?
Probability of change
Culture
What’s in it for me?
Advantage,
humans
Source: AccountingWEB
40. “What can I become quite good at
that’s really difficult for a computer t
o do one day soon? How can I
become so resilient, so human and
such a linchpin that shifts in
technology won’t be able
to catch up? It was always
important, but now it’s urgent.”
-- Seth Godin
45. 5 steps to becoming future-ready
1. Context
2. Certainty
3. Capacity
4. Competence
5. Core beliefs
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning Institute
46.
47. Calendar: The No. 1 app
Spend just one hour per week in the future …
48. “We are
called to be
architects
of the future,
not its
victims.”
R. Buckminster Fuller
49. “The best way
to predict
your future
is to create it.”
Abraham Lincoln
52. Download these slides:
Slideshare.net/BillSheridan
Follow me:
MACPA’s blog: CPASuccess.com
Facebook.com/BillSheridan
LinkedIn.com/in/BillDSheridan
Twitter.com/BillSheridan
YouTube.com/BillSheridan
SlideShare.net/BillSheridan
Flickr.com/photos/Sheridan
The future-
ready CPA
Bill Sheridan, CAE
The Business Learning Institute
Editor's Notes
So we’re going to talk a little bit today about this notion of future-readiness – what it means to be future ready.
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Assuming the average thickness of a sheet of paper is a tenth of a millimeter,
-- 4 folds would give us a sheet of paper as thick as a credit card.
-- 11 folds = the height of a can of soda.
-- 17 folds = about 4 feet tall.
-- 25 folds = almost as tall as the Empire State Building
-- 30 folds = a little over 6.5 miles, about as high as commercial planes fly.
-- 40 folds = 6,832 miles. That’s about where GPA satellites orbit the earth.
-- Just 5 more folds will get you to the moon.
-- 100 folds = more than 8 billion light years in thickness.
-- By some estimates, just 3 more folds, or 103 total, gives you a sheet of paper as wide as entire known universe.
Exponential growth.
In fact, a graph of exponential growth looks nothing like this.
It looks like this.
Gradual, then sudden.
Stories like that are fun, but there’s a phenomenon happening in our world right now that’s exactly like the paper and the rice.
It’s called Moore’s Law.
Know what all of that means? It means that computers today are about 130,000 times more powerful that they were in 1988. That your iPhone 6 is as powerful as Apple’s most powerful laptop was just a decade ago. That an iPad Mini is as powerful as the world’s biggest supercomputer was in 1985. We’re all carrying mainframes in our pockets.
But Moore’s Law has given us more than a bunch of cool new gadgets to play with.
It means that everything and every job is changing – and not just changing, but transforming. (health care)
It’s all too much for any single person to keep up with, let along get in front of. And why?
In Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations, Thomas Friedman writes that Intel engineers recently tried to illustrate the power of Moore’s Law by calculating what would happen to a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle if it had improved at the same rate as microchips have over the past 50 years.
“Today,” Friedman writes, “that Beetle would be able to go about 300,000 miles per hour. It would get 2 million miles per gallon of gas, and it would cost 4 cents.”
Intel’s engineers took it a step further, Friedman writes, and “estimated that if automobile fuel efficiency improved at the same rate as Moore’s Law, you could, roughly speaking, drive a car your whole life on one tank of gasoline.”
It’s all too much for any single person to keep up with, let along get in front of. And why?
So how many of you are busy?
How many are really, really busy?
How many are so busy you’re too tire to raise your hands?
That’s really what I believe is our biggest challenge – we’re so busy trying to keep up that we’re too busy to be future-ready.
Consider this from Seth Godin: We’re so busy doing our jobs, we can’t get any work done.
And that’s a great place to hide, isn’t it? That’s a great excuse to NOT do the really important work.
I just don’t have time.
And that’s a crock. It’s just an excuse. The truth is, we make time for the really important stuff.
And folks, THIS is really important.
In our surveys over the past year, we’ve seen a few issues that seem to keep bubbling up to the top when we ask, “What are the top challenges you’re facing?” Interestingly enough, this is across the entire profession – public practice of all sizes, corporate, government, and not-for-profits. The same ones keep coming up.
And they all have to do with this notion of disruption – new stuff, new technologies, regulations, demographic shifts, global and economic issues. They’re all ganging up on us, aren’t they? And making our lives really, really complex at the same time.
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Now, combine those with recent research from The Sleeter Group – this is a report called “What Small and Mid-Size Business Want From Their CPAs.” These are the biggest reasons why clients say they leave their CPAs.
Look at number 1. In essence, clients say they leave because their CPAs aren’t future-ready enough.
By the way, look at how low fees are on that list. Often when we talk to CPAs, they complain that clients leave because they complain the fees are too high. What the research tells us is that they won’t pay your fees … if you aren’t giving them proactive advice. I think the flip side of that is that if you DO give them proactive advice, how might that change? That’s a critical issue, right? That difference between reactive service vs. proactive advice. And a lot of times, it starts with a simple question: What’s keeping you up at night? If you ask that question and pay attention to the answer, a world of opportunity suddenly becomes clear.
And this idea that we’re not future-ready? Research within the profession bears that out. This is a report from CPA.com, which is the technology arm of the AICPA. The report is called “Welcome to the Fast Future.” It found that only 8 percent of CPAs believe the profession is future-ready.
And how do they define “future-ready?”
I think the key here is that we have to move beyond accounting. We have to start moving beyond the historical data that has traditionally driven this profession and start looking at those weak signals of disruptive change that are coming at us from the horizon.
And there’s our predicament, right? We don’t have enough time to become future-ready. And our clients are leaving because we’re NOT future-ready.
If all of this is true, an important question arises: How will we EVER make time to think about the future if we’re constantly stuck in the day-to-day minutia of trying to get our work done?
Here’s your answer.
Look, disruption is going to happen whether we like it or not. Our lives will continue to become more complex whether we like it or not. We can’t do anything about that.
What we CAN do is learn how to spot those disruptions before they disrupt us and take advantage of the opportunities they provide. Those who do that will be the winners going forward.
So let’s talk about those surfing lessons – some ideas that might help us be more future-ready.
Five steps. We like to call them the 5 Cs. If you pay attention to these five things, you’ll position yourself as a much more future-ready CPA or accountant – and you’ll bring your whole firm along with you.
So let’s talk about each of these.
Context is simply being aware of what’s going on around you.
So let me ask you a question: Is disruption most like to come from inside our profession or outside of it? Outside, right? It’s not going to come from inside.
So being able to look outside the profession and identify some of these trends and issues will be critically important going forward.
Consider this: It’s a quote from Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum. He’s the author of a mind-blowing book called “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Pick up a copy today. It’s an important book.
But here’s what he had to say:
Now think about that word that both of them used. That’s transformation. They didn’t say “slightly change” or “tweak.” They said “transformation.” That means EVERYTHING is different.
Now, what does that mean?
That means things like this: Did the taxi cab industry see Uber coming?
According to the New York Post, there are now more Uber black cars in New York City than yellow cabs.
(Story about Valentine’s Day 2015 in NYC, trying to get a cab to dinner.)
Then there’s AirBNB. It took Marriott and Hilton 100 years to get a million rooms under their management. It took AirBNB six … six years to hit a millions rooms. Did Hilton or Marriott see that coming? And it came from outside the hotel industry, didn’t it? It didn’t come from inside.
That’s the kind of thing that worries me about the CPA profession. Are we paying attention? Are we taking that longer view – and through the windshield, not through the rear-view mirror?
We’d better be.
These are estimates from Oxford University. The odds of certain professions being completely automated within the next 20 years.
The only profession worse than us? Telemarketers. The safest profession? Massage therapists.
The point is, it’s coming. What will we do when it gets here? Will we be scrambling to keep up, as usual? Or will we have already positioned ourselves to move beyond that disruption and create future-focused value?
Other studies offer similar predictions.
Art Bilger, a venture capitalist and expert at the Wharton School of Business, says 47 percent of the jobs in all developed nations will disappear in the next 25 years — that’s blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Moreover, says The Economist, “no government is prepared” for that level of job loss.
Other studies aren’t quite that alarmist. James Manyika, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, says “more jobs will change than will be automated away in the short to medium term.” Still, that change will be extreme. While only 5 percent of jobs can be completely automated over the next 10 years using current technologies, Manyika says at least 30 percent of the activities in 60 percent of all occupations can be automated over the next decade, from welders to gardeners to CEOs.
One way or another — complete automation or partial — our jobs are about to change. This type of disruption is coming. In one notable example, in fact, it has already arrived.
Let’s talk about IBM Watson. Many of us will remember when IBM’s Deep Blue computer beat Gary Kasparaov in chess in 1997. Then, IBM’s Watson technology beat Jeopardy’s reigning human champion, Ken Jennings.
Now, fast-forward to last year. A futurist we work with, Dan Burrus, traveled to Toronto to watch Watson prepare a meal. So here’s what they did. They told Watson to read a million cookbooks from all over the world and come up with an innovative recipe. Now, Watson couldn’t cook the meal, but Watson read a million cookbooks and produced a completely unique recipe for the chefs to cook. How long do you think it took Watson to do that?
One second.
Now, given the exponential nature of change, how long will it take next year?
Here’s the really interesting thing: In March, KPMG announced plans to apply the Watson technology to the KPMG professional services offerings – including audit, tax, and advisory services.
This comes a little close to home, doesn’t it.
It makes you wonder: How long would it take Watson to analyze the tax code? And recommend tax reform?
Now, rest easy: I think our tax code is so screwed up that Watson wouldn’t stand a chance. So I think we’re safe … for a little while.
But this stuff is coming … and it’s coming fast.
So that’s context. I want you to be thinking about these questions and ask yourself, am I aware of these trends? And how will I KEEP being aware of them. That’s what context means.
Are your offices, workspaces and technology future-focused? And if not, what does that say about you?
Do you know what your clients are facing? Are you just reading the footnotes to them, or are you asking them questions that will reveal how their business is doing and what’s keeping them up at night?
As you have those conversations, are you using the language of the future or the past?
And what image are your offices and technology projecting to students and potential employees?
These are questions I want you to keep in mind as you think about context.
Now let’s talk about the next C – certainty.
Can you predict the future?
So let’s see. Right now it’s summer. What comes after summer? Fall? And after that? Spring? You just predicted the future.
How many of you have a smartphone? Will the next one be …
So there are things about the future we can predict.
If you can start basing your strategies and opportunities on things that are certain, you’ll have a much higher success rate and much lower risk.
That’s what we mean by this idea of certainty.
Our friend, Dan Burrus, a world-renowned futurist. He likes to say there are 4 hard trends – things that are definitely going to happen – four hard trends that are impacting our profession:
-- government regulation
-- technology
-- demographics. So let’s predict the future: Next year, will you be a year older? So will every other person on earth. What will that mean? We all need more managers, right? Well, how long does it take to create, say, a 35-year-old manager? 35 years, right? They’re not going to magically appear. We need to figure out a way to ramp up the leadership skills of some of our high-potential millennials.
So again, there are some things you can predict about the future. If you narrow those down and base your firm’s strategy around those certainties, risk goes down, higher rate of success.
One more thing about certainty: Our inability to decide or move on some of these certainties is starting to cost you money. This is research from Clayton Christianson on disruption. And what he found was, the cost of saying no is zero. If I don’t spend money, I’ll be OK. I might not MAKE money, but in a stable environment, I’ll be OK.
But in a fast-changing, disruptive environment like the one we’re in, saying no can actually cost you money. It can actually be fatal. And that’s worth thinking about.
THE CURVE:
For years, the issue was ROI – what’s the return over time.
Now let’s talk about capacity. How do we make time to deal with these things from a future perspective.
One of the secrets is technology. Are you using the technology you have to its fullest.
So here’s a simple example: How many of use use Microsoft Word? How many functions and features are there in Word? I’ve heard as high as 4,000. How many have you paid for? 4,000. How many do you use?
That’s what we’ve got to stop doing. We have a huge opportunity to say, what are the time-saving features of the things we already have that we can use to start creating time for us? Right? We have to start making time and learn to work smarter, not harder.
Use the latest, most efficient technologies – are there apps that will do things for us that we’re now doing by hand? Ask your young people. Bring a few of them in and just ask them: How could we do this pivot table better.
Workflow and process efficiency – I’ve heard of firms that have made major strides in tax, for example, by deploying workflow technology. Are you saving time so that you can be more proactive? Because that’s what your clients want.
Another reason to create capacity is so you can build new competencies – knowledge, skills and abilities.
And the one key competency that we believe is critical today – and we’ve researched this through the CPA Horizons Project, with firms and in the corporate community, and with Dan Burrus – is anticipation. That is the key missing competency.
How can we anticipate disruptions before they disrupt, problems before we have them, customer needs before THEY have them, and new opportunities before the competition.
And all of the major research that we’ve seen out there tells us the same thing. Studies conducted by the Conference Board, CPA.com, the new CGMA Competency Framework, right on up to the CPA Horizons Project.
https://www.cgma.org/Resources/Tools/DownloadableDocuments/competency-framework-overview.pdf
http://www.aicpa.org/Research/CPAHorizons2025/DownloadableDocuments/cpa-horizons-report-web.pdf
http://www.cpa.com/whitepapers/welcome-fast-future-cpa-future-2015-study
http://www.ddiworld.com/ddi/media/trend-research/global-leadership-forecast-2014-2015_tr_ddi.pdf?ext=.pdf
And what is that research telling us? Well, the top skills that accounting and finance pros need today – from study to study to study.
But you see, we’re all facing the same thing. These are things we need to learn how to do in this increasingly complex world.
The funny thing is, when you ask CPAs how much they are investing in teaching these competencies to their teams? Very little. They say they need them, but they’re not spending the money to acquire them. That has to change.
Right? And this goes right back to that definition of future-ready we talked about earlier.
Respond lightning fast: AI doesn’t need to put clients on hold, write email replies, or queue at the airline check-in counter.
Access an encyclopaedic memory: AI can understand and access thousands of business tools and processes.
Stay awake: 24 x 7 x 365.
Remember conversations: Track and analyze all conversations ever had with a customer for future learning.
Analyze on the fly: Review data trends to predict future behavior.
Continually learn and improve: From thousands of conversation patterns.
Intuition: A feeling as to whether a customer can achieve their objectives.
Political nous: Understanding the power plays and relationships within a business.
Challenging: An ability to question direction and the vision of owners or managers.
Reading the back story: What has been the track record of a business’ implementation success?
Who’s who?: Identifying high achievers with time to invest on a project, the blockers, and those people it’s imperative to get “on side” to drive the team.
Probability of change: The likelihood of the team to change their behaviors for a given time period.
Culture: Identifying strategies with the biggest impact on buy-in from the team.
Highlighting WIIFM (What’s in it for me?): The team’s appetite for achieving stated goals.
“I still believe professional judgment and expertise is not replaceable by machines. I’ve never met a machine with courage and empathy, one that can read body language and adjust what they say. While we’re going to digest larger volumes of data and information, the key is to use artificial intelligence to augment what the human does. … Using these technologies to augment human intelligence and find the insights in the data is more important than ever.”
Cathy Engelbert
CEO, Deloitte
One more time from Seth Godin, this time with a key question:
So here’s the question: Are we going to be able to beat the machines? No.
Our only hope to be friends with the machines.
The good news is, we’re starting to see more and more resources being developed specifically to deliver these types of competencies for accounting and finance professionals.
One is Daniel Burrus’s own Anticipatory Organization. The Business Learning Institute worked with Burrus to create a version of his Anticipatory Organization learning platform specifically for accounting and finance pros. That’s available now and is becoming extremely popular in the profession.
Another is IBM’s Big Data University. It’s an online curriculum designed to help accounting and finance pros learn key skills in artificial intelligence, Big Data, and cognitive computing. And based on what we’ve been talking about today, these skills are going to be huge differentiators going forward, and will help CPAs play a bigger role in guiding digital transformation within their organizations.
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And the fifth C, the fifth step to being future-ready: Our core values.
Jim Collins famously said, “We have to protect the core and stimulate progress.”
And that came straight from the CPA Horizons Project as well. In 2011, the AICPA hired a futurist, we facilitated discussions with CPA groups from coast to coast to figure out how the profession needed to change going forward. About 1,000 CPAs in 16 cities took part, and they identified the competencies we talked about as well as a core purpose for the entire profession: Making sense of a changing and complex world. Pretty cool – in 2011 they were already thinking about how the profession needs to be more proactive.
And these were the core values they identified.
And as a profession, we’ve always been good at continuous learning. Now the challenge is redirecting it and applying it to these new skill sets that everyone is saying they need.
And this ties directly to engaging young professionals, by the way. The one thing the millennial generation will consistently say is that they want to work for a purpose-driven organization. And that purpose has to be about more than just making money.
Let’s recap:
Context: How are you learning to look further and wider at the trends and issues in our industry AND in the industries you serve? You’ll never be proactive if you don’t understand your clients’ context as well.
Certainty: What can you be doing to make good bets on the future, on things you actually CAN predict with a great deal of certainty.
Capacity: How will you create capacity to become future-ready?
Competence: How will I provide our teams with the key skills they need to succeed going forward?
Core beliefs: Have you even thought about it?
So the bottom line is that you actually CAN make time for the future, but you have to do it strategically, and not let the tyranny of the urgent kill you when you get back to work. You’re all going to leave here and go back to work and have all of these voicemails and emails and day-to-day stuff to do, and you’ll lose everything we talked about here today in about a week. And I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want you to look like this.
So here’s what I want you to do – and this, again, comes from our buddy, Dan Burrus. He says the most important app on his smartphone is his calendar.
So right now, block off just one hour of time within the next week to think about the future.
-- one hour to look at a new app or to better understand a technology that you already have
-- one hour to read a book about the future
-- one hour to scan the internet for clues about hard trends that are impacting you and your clients.
-- one hour to think about how this profession is changing and what you can do about it.
Then make it a recurring appointment. One hour a week. And you can’t say you’re going to do it. It won’t get done. Schedule it. Make an appointment on your calendar with yourself. Just one hour a week to think about the future.
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