Passionate Practice

Nothing is more engaging than being sat in a business meeting with someone who picks up a pen or pencil and starts to sketch out their idea, argument or point on a napkin or pad of paper.

Why is drawing in business meetings so important?

1. Drawing brings ideas to life.  You can witness ideas shaping and emerging before your eyes.  Ideas seem more tangible.
2. Drawing helps develop the idea in itself.  Seeing provides an opportunity for new insights and connections.
3. Drawing gives important visual clues for those of us who prefer information in visual rather than (solely) auditory form.
4. Drawing feels participatory and engaging – like you’re making the effort to draw just for me!
5. Drawing allows for connections between ideas to be spelled out – arrows and connecting lines help.
6. Drawing can make difficult or complicated ideas seem simple.  Sketch out a simple bar chart to emphasise differences in quantity.
7. Drawing displays a playfulness and willingness to think differently.  Re:thinking (Always).
8. Drawing allows for easier emphasis of specific points e.g. by circling or underlining.  Afterwards the image lies in front of the participants – continuing to wield its subconscious influence…
9. Drawing provides an opportunity to make an impact in a meeting.  “He / she who holds the pen, holds the power.”
10. Pass the pen to other participants for their input and collaboration to maintain a balanced conversation rather than a dull monologue.

What skills do you use to add a bit of passion and engagement to business meetings?

A simple Google Blog Search says a lot about the digital evolution of accountants compared to lawyers online.

A disappointing 294,000 hits for the search term “accountancy” within Google Blog Search.

Yet well over 130,000,000 hits for blogs on ‘Law’!

But why have lawyers seemingly embraced blogging as a communication tool whilst accountants have been caught napping?

One or more of the following could be at work:

• Lawyers are more technology savvy – doubtful
• Lawyers have been quicker off the mark to spot change coming – possibly part of the story
• Lawyers are more adept at networking (of which blogging is an (online) form) – doubtful
• Lawyers are less scared of the risk of publishing something litigious on the internet – pah! Highly doubtful
• Lawyers outnumber accountants by some serious factor – (by this much!?!) you can see I’m struggling here..
• Lawyers have more trailblazers who have been shining the beacon to show the benefits of blogging to the business of law and to law firms and lawyers’ personal profile
• Lawyers ‘get it’ (more) – they understand the increasing need to reach out to clients to better understand their needs.  To enter into meaningful conversations (you can’t see the benefit until you’ve tried).

It could of course be none or a combination of all of the above – I would be interested in your views!

[Postscript - I took the above screenshots a few weeks back.  The search hits have increased since but the trend continues...]

Like me, you’ve probably dedicated many years of your life to working hard and building your accountancy career from school to university and then professional practice.

Throughout this process I suspect you’ve been busy nurturing those all important left-brain analytical, logical and linear thinking skills.  After all, these are the skills that today’s successful accountants need – right?

Wrong.  These skills may have been sufficient to succeed but they’re woefully insufficient going forward. We can perhaps muddle through a few more years but someone (or something) is about to eat our lunch!

A new world economy demands new skills.

So what’s the solution?  These are some suggestions (but they’re only the beginning). We need to be able to:

• continually create new service offerings, ideas and business solutions
• move away from reliance on routine process-driven audit, accountancy and tax compliance work
• adapt and move quickly to meet new market needs
• think on our feet
• develop our emotional skills for better client relationships
• focus on the client experience rather than just the output
• keep asking WHY? we do the things we do (do our clients know, like or even care?)

To achieve this, we need to rapidly improve our right-brain thinking skills.  But is it too late for us left-brainers?

Not necessarily.  There is hope as right-brain creative skills can be (re)learnt.  We can reconnect traditionally left-brain thinkers (i.e. typical accountants) with right-brain creative, innovative and emotional skills.  By achieving this we should be able:

• To unlock potential new client solutions, ideas and services
• To connect and communicate with new and existing clients in new ways
• To build confidence in our abilities to continually innovate and create new services
• To be able to think on our feet and adapt as necessary
• To become more resourceful in an ever changing economy

The future lies in the hands of those accountants who also master right-brain thinking.  This takes passion, practise and commitment.

If you wish to join us on this journey … welcome.

Monday morning.  So easy to get swept up in the day to day.  Busy being busy.  Spending time doing stuff that doesn’t really matter or have any significant impact for clients.  In danger of majoring in minor things…

Take the time to plan the week.  Remind yourself of the overarching mission and strategy of the firm and your personal and team objectives.

What actions will really matter and make a difference?