Adrian G. Simmons

When the inevitable question comes up in social interactions: “What do you do?” one of my favored replies is, “I help people account for things…usually it’s their money, but not always.”

What is accounting really?

Once I was giving a presentation to accounting students and posed this question to them. We learn debits, credits, generally accepted accounting principles, Internal Revenue Code, cash, accrual, other comprehensive basis of accounting, and the list goes on. But what is it really all about?

Continue reading “Accounting For What?”

The four dimensions of time are: past, present, future, and nothing. Everything comes from nothing.

The past is already set: it’s not going to change (though how we understand it certainly can change). The present is really the result of the past: what was set in motion then becomes today’s now. And the future will be the result of what we do today. At first glance, it seems like a closed system: at one level at least, everything’s predetermined. The action-reaction chain has already begun, and it’s simply playing out.

How, then, can one change the time sequence? From the fourth dimension. Something has to come from outside the normal time system to alter its course. That something, I propose, is nothing.

Continue reading “The Power of Nothing”

Leadership is scary business. Both for ourselves, and our customers. It means moving from where we are now, to some place new, some place unfamiliar, some place unexplored. Leadership is personal — you cannot lead a crowd, you can only lead persons, individual people. Business is scary leadership.

In Choosing Your Surfing Style, we chatted about changing value propositions. The “wave” we looked at there (a wave comprised of successive adoption curves) charts a path of ups and downs as new value propositions move in, through, and out, of a market. Many companies participate in part of that movement. Few companies navigate it entirely. Changing value propositions is simply another way of saying leading our customers. We can lead our customers along the path of the wave as it moves through the market.

But leadership is hard. How can you help someone understand something they haven’t experienced before? How can you help them choose what you know will be helpful? How can you lead them to a better place?

Continue reading “Leading Our Customers”

I have to admit: I’d love to learn how to surf. I sorta imagine it’d be something like skateboarding (which I’ve tried a couple times, and happy to report no major accidents) or like snowboarding (which I haven’t tried yet, but maybe soon). Surfing involves mounting a wave, finding your position, then holding and adjusting that position as the water flows under you, supporting you with its force.

Let’s take a look at the anatomy of a wave:

Okay, so this isn’t the type of wave you’ll see at the beach – only the one you’ll find in the oceans of business. There, one adoption curve after another ripples through time: first the innovators begin the momentum, then the early adopters take up the flow. Next the early majority makes it their own, after which it moves into the late majority camp, and lastly the laggards begrudgingly accept it.

We all have our preference: some of us are itchy and are stirred to push onto something no one else has tried yet. Others would like to see at least a few go ahead before they follow. Then there are those who need to see it proved before they’ll make their move, followed by those who finally catch the drift, and in the back, those who only come because someone made them.

Continue reading “Choosing Your Surfing Style”

A few years ago, I was working on the interior components of our firm, and there were so many different ideas coming at me, that I had a hard time putting them all in context. I started to think about it: is there a way to see the firm from a bird’s eye view that can help me keep track and prioritize what’s changing, what’s not changing, what needs to be different, what should be left alone, etc? Thus was born the accounting firm process model.

Processes aren’t strategy per se; they aren’t your business model exactly, nor your organizational structure by itself. Processes are simply the way things get done. They get touched by, and touch all these other elements, so they need to live and breathe with your “why.” But having a place where basic steps are outlined goes a far way to enabling you to effectively help your customers.

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You know that Marvel comic book hero, Cyclops? The one that emits a powerful energy beam from his eyes? Yeah, that reminds me of accountants.

Flow. It comes from somewhere deep inside. Some combination of the powers of our soul: memory, imagination, will, intellect, emotions, passions, and more. You might even think of it as a spring bubbling up from within, overflowing from wells far underground. But it’s a spring which must be fed or it runs dry. Our eyes, our ears, our mouths, our bodies, our noses – all of these are ways to feed the flow. If you’ve been keeping your Big Ideas Journal, you might recognize this as the New Stimuli section – the ways we open ourselves to new experiences, broadening the types and numbers of “dots” we can connect. I like to think of it as exercising the curiosity of a child. Looking at diagrams at the doctor’s office, interacting with kids (did you know the Polaroid was invented by a father whose son asked why he couldn’t see the photo right after it was taken?), watching public television specials, taking ballet lessons, digging deeper into something you’re interested in, even if there’s absolutely no utilitarian value. It creates a flow, which can get quite powerful actually (side note: be careful what you feed in).

Continue reading “Channeling Creativity”

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” -Sir Ken Robinson

That quote is taken from this 2006 TED talk video, which I highly recommend watching if you haven’t seen it before (or even if you have, for that matter – it’s that good). In it, Sir Robinson offers some observations and insights about the education system, and how we might make it better.

 

It brought to mind a particular observation about accountants: that we’re used to knowing the right answer, and that people rely on us to be right. It breeds in us a predisposition to shy away from the unknown, to adopt a “wait and see” approach to new ideas, and to not step out unless we’re certain.

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

Continue reading “The Courage To Be Wrong”

I think we’ve been duped: you, like me, have probably been told somewhere along the line that ‘accounting is the language of business.’ It’s not.

I think we like to think it is. I think we feel good that we can say that about our chosen profession. But I think we do a disservice to ourselves and our customers by subscribing to this notion.

Continue reading “Accounting Is Not The Language of Business”