Stacey Barr of PUMP Academy

As a leader or manager interested in achieving sustainable long-term success, you undoubtedly need to take KPI performance – Key Predictive or Key Performance Indicators – seriously, so that you can achieve what you want to achieve. 

In this podcast discussion with Stacey Barr of Pump Academy, Stacey unpacks some simple – but key – practical ways of improving your ability to identify and measure the right KPIs in such a way that you’ll be able to attain great team buy-in. This is crucial as, if the team haven’t bought in, it doesn't matter what KPIs you've put in place, it isn’t going to work well. 

I would heartily recommend that any accountant, leader or manager in an accountancy firm who wants to achieve sustainable success for their team, their firm, and their clients, because the KPI conversation is absolutely a numbers conversation your clients would appreciate – check out this podcast discussion with Stacey Barr of Pump Academy. 

The podcast is available at humanisethenumbers.online, or you can go to your favourite podcast platform and seek out the Humanise the Numbers podcast with Stacey Barr.

Please scroll down the podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Stacey and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

Transcript

Introduction

Paul Shrimpling 0:05

Welcome to the Humanize the Numbers podcast series. Leaders, managers, and owners of ambitious accounting firms sharing insights, successes, and issues that will challenge you and connect you and your firm to the ways and means of transforming your firm's results.

Stacey Barr 0:22

I think sometimes asking people where they want to go, where they want that to steer that raft to can be a little confronting if they've not reflected on that before. But you know, you know how humans tend to be more um like we're very hardwired to avoid things rather than pursue things. So we're we're we're much more motivated by risk than we are by um possibility, I think. Uh so sometimes it can really help to flip it 180 degrees around. And rather than asking them what goals do you have, where do you want to go, just say, what are we trying to make sure never happens? What's your worst nightmare? What do we want to move away from? What's going on now that's driving your baddie that you just don't like, you wish it was different, you want it to go away. And they'll find that much easier to talk about. And then once you get them talking about that and articulating it, you just then turn that 180 degrees back again and you're getting closer to what the goals might be.

Paul Shrimpling 1:21

Because you're listening to this podcast, it's logical that I assume you want a better accounting firm, a more human accounting firm, a firm that achieves greater results through numbers. And it's on this podcast with Stacy Barr of Pump. Stacy's an expert in KPIs. She's delivered processes and methodologies to help businesses all over the world improve how they use KPIs. I hope you enjoy this skill-based insight practical breakthrough discussion with Stacy Barr. Let's dive into the podcast now.

Stacey Barr 2:01

I am Stacy Barr. Hello. I'm also the creator of Pump, which is a methodology used all around the world about KPIs and evidence-based strategy. And so what I do with a bunch of wonderful licensees I have around the world is we help leaders get their strategy meaningfully articulated, much easier to communicate and get the organization aligned to and measured and monitored so they can achieve it better. That's what I do. And I do love that, but my dirty little secret is I love riding motorcycles. Uh, and I started that about six years ago. And I go on road trips and I go on day trips, and I have in the last two years started not racing, but tearing around the track on a motorcycle, and that that is um just it blows my mind. I just love it.

Paul Shrimpling 2:55

Oh right, wow, wow. Uh so what's the biggest uh biggest trip on the motorbike then, Stacey, you've done?

Stacey Barr 3:02

Eight days. Um wow and oh, it was wonderful actually. I I have a friend who I do the road trips with, and she and I um took the long way down to the Blue Mountains, which are just west of Sydney in Australia.

Paul Shrimpling 3:14

Yeah, yeah.

Stacey Barr 3:15

Um beautiful location. We did some hiking while we were down there, which which we needed to get a bit of time off the bikes, but you know, when you when you're on a motorcycle, you go the long way everywhere.

Paul Shrimpling 3:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant, brilliant, love that. And so um, I don't know how many motorbikes you've got, so I'm just gonna go with you. What's your favorite motorbike? Just because I know this, I know there's some motorbike addicts on the uh in the listener crew just because they're active customers of ours as well. So I just they'll be they'll be itching to know what the what the what your favourite bike is.

Stacey Barr 3:46

Oh, my favourite bike is my Jacati Super Sport 939, and I love it because it's a sport bike and it's also very comfortable. I can ride it all day long.

Paul Shrimpling 3:56

Right, brilliant, brilliant. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Okay, so um the reason I was so keen to get you on the podcast because you're gonna bring this evidence-based KPI view

What does Humanise The Numbers mean to you?

Paul Shrimpling 4:10

of the world, uh, which by the way is what accountants are uh uh turned to by all of their clients for. Uh, but you're gonna hopefully uh challenge the status quo on that, and we can um we can get some key insights that will help every accountant, help every one of their clients. So, to start with, my first question is uh for you, Stacy, given your experience in this space, what does the phrase humanize the numbers mean to you?

Stacey Barr 4:40

I um it's a really important question, you know. I think it very early in my career that question became quite relevant. I um I was hired into my first corporate job as a measurement consultant because the the my manager um who hired me uh saw in me um not only the technical kind of numerical skills, and I'm not from an accounting background, I'm actually from uh mathematical statistics background, so research statistics. He saw that, obviously, it was on my resume, but he saw something else in me that I didn't realize was there at the time. And he said, I had this way of just understanding people and having an empathy for them. And I think bringing those two things together has been vital in the work that I do. And if I were to bring it down to one thing, to me, in the work I do, humanizing the numbers is to take the threat out of them for people. Uh to help people feel like they are tools in their hand and not rods for their back, that they are information and feedback and power to help them make better decisions rather than the numbers making decisions about them or on behalf of them. I think that's really a st it's a it's a really big tension um in in the markets that I work with.

Paul Shrimpling 5:54

All right. So there's already uh loads to unpack there. Uh but I love the um what was the phrase again? There's the tools and the rods. Not rods for the back, but tools for Tools in your hand. Tools in your hand, not rods for your love. I love that. I love that. Um and it's about taking the threat out. Unpack that for me. And if you can, just point to a a story with a client or a business leader where that that we can understand what you mean by taking the threat out. Um, because numbers really are threat. You know, we live in challenging challenging times, but um go on, unpack that for me because I think that's fascinating.

Taking the threat out of the numbers

Stacey Barr 6:36

I think the the story I'll share will not well, it may. I I I'm not I don't know a lot about how accounting firms are run, but I think we could definitely draw a parallel. I um when I was uh a measurement consultant for this organization, I started working for like my job was to help all the managers measure things better. The safety manager was one of those people I was helping, and he'd been tracking various safety statistics for the organization for years, and uh wanted to see if he could get some more insights out of them. So I did that. I took those numbers that he was tracking and I showed those numbers in a way they'd never seen them before. They were used to looking at them in the typical financial way, like this month compared to last month, percentage variance, differences like that, this month's compared to the same month last year. I showed it to him in a time series graph. And the time series graph showed that absolutely nothing had changed in the last two years. And I presented this to him thinking I was sharing some marvelous insight and revelation that they'd never seen before. And he was furious. He he he in front of everyone told me I didn't know what I was doing. It was absolute, absolute idiocy what I was showing him. And I kind of left the meeting and just thought, my God, what happened? What happened was I threatened him. I had I hadn't said to him, look at this great insight. I had said, uh, you've done nothing, mate, for the last two years.

Paul Shrimpling 8:01

Yes, right, okay.

Stacey Barr 8:03

So people can often feel like numbers are evaluating them in some way. Sometimes it's overtly, sometimes it's designed into the performance management system in organizations. So they're used in their performance appraisals and reward and recognitions based on the numbers. Other times, and most times it's actually covertly, and it's a situation just like that with the safety manager that looking at the numbers is saying something really bad about me the person.

Whats the process for identifying the right KPIs?

Paul Shrimpling 8:28

But this but isn't that I guess part of the point of uh tracking the right numbers and sharing them in the right way is to bring transparency to like you say, help you make better decisions. There's a point to it. You know, one one of my challenges with lots of firms of accountants that we work with is you know that uh uh analysis paralysis, loads of numbers, but there's nothing happening as a consequence of those numbers. We've got 24 KPIs, but yeah, yeah, but you know what what changed in the last time we were looking at these is the is the key thing. So um what's um what what's needed, Stacy, to A identify the right KPIs, and I know that's a very broad question, and then after we've gone through that one, I want to know, all right, and what's the um what's the best way to then have those numbers influence a decision? Different question. But let's go with A. You know, what's the what's the process for identifying the right KPIs?

Stacey Barr 9:29

It's to it's to put the brakes on that question, what should the KPIs be? We've actually got to step back a fair bit, in fact, and say, why do we even want the KPIs? You know, what is it we're trying to change? What difference are we wanting to make in the world around us? What impact are we trying to have? What do we want to be different to how to how it is now? We we call them goals, right? Goals, objectives, you know, priorities. Um and no matter what we call them, what they are describing is a result that we would like to be different. And once we're clear about that, then we can start talking about the KPIs or the numbers. But getting clear about those results is actually a lot harder than people think. Um, not everybody is into goal setting. Um, if they're not, then I I think it's it's sort of not much different to just being on a raft being carried along with the tides and the currents and not really having much influence over the direction that you go in. Um, but when we do have goals and and where they are very, very common, there's still a big mistake that people make with them and it's how they write them. They're not specific enough. They they want to sound sophisticated, they they feel like they're supposed to use business type language when they write those goals. So they end up full of what I call weasel words, you know, like let's be more effective and efficient and let's be resilient and and let's um have more diversity and uh um we need to have a much more sustainable kind of practice, you know. All of these words sound great, but they actually don't mean anything. Um well that well, they do, but they only have meaning when you know the specific context they're being used in. So we try to get away from those words, get much more specific, and then, then, then, then we are clear enough to go, yeah, I can imagine what the world would be like around me if this was happening. If this result was real, this is what I'd see, this is what I'd hear, this is what people would say, this is what we'd be able to touch that isn't currently there, whatever. Now we're at the point where we can start having the measurement conversation. Because what KPIs or good measures are is really uh quantifications of evidence of those results.

Paul Shrimpling 11:40

And and isn't there something in there about the threat or the fear? Because if we get really specific, then we're creating um a level of clarity where there's nowhere to hide in terms of determining whether we achieve it or not. Is that is that fairly?

Nowhere to hide with the right KPIs

Stacey Barr 11:59

Oh, it's very fair. And and it's kind of a challenge, really, because it can go one of two ways. Um the way we don't want it to go is for that clarity about the results that really matter to suddenly feel really frightening to people, like I don't we don't actually believe we can influence that result. So if we start measuring it, the measure is just gonna prove that we can't make it change. We've got to stay away from that kind of thing. And and that can be by making the goal uh something that really is within the circle of influence of the people that are gonna, you know, be trying to achieve it and therefore measuring it. But um sometimes we can't do anything about that. There's just sometimes there are just people who are not ready to know the truth. I can't quite handle the truth yet because it is too threatening for them. It's like I have to say it, right? I've got to call it out because it's real. And and it's really important to know when you're working with somebody like that, because you can't push them down the track of um of coming up with KPIs, because you're just you're just making them feel even more scared and more defensive and less resourceful and less capable of moving in the direction of achieving their goals. But generally, the way we really want this to go is that we start the conversation with the people who own those results, who are going to own the measures, who are going to use those measures to make better decisions. And the idea is to guide them through the thinking process. So they're making all the choices along the way. They're choosing what the results are, they're choosing the best words to articulate them, and they're choosing what evidence is most relevant to them, and they're choosing which measures are the best quantifications of that evidence. So they involvement really matters.

Paul Shrimpling 13:42

Yeah, they build them rather than having them inflicted on them.

Stacey Barr 13:46

Yeah.

Paul Shrimpling 13:47

Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's I the the reason if you can see me wincing a little bit statement because I had uh just two conversations in the last 24 hours. The the the conversation with a business owner before this discussion, um, saying, Oh, we need we need someone to uh better hold us to account because we're just to use your phrase, we're just wandering around on this raft with the tides. Um and and and I go, Great. Well, if we're gonna have an accountability process, we need to know where you want to take the damn raft, quite frankly. So, you know, let's have that, and all credit to him. He said, Well, that's not about me, that's about me and my two fellow leader managers. Um, we need to do that together. And it's like, absolutely right. So I'm so I'm I'm marginally reassured that I'm I'm adopting the right process there. Um, the other conversation though was with eight managers that uh we're in a uh sort of training development program with, and um we're all on a Teams call. So, look, we're going into this next session in a few weeks' time, and we're gonna talk about goals. And I could see all their faces go, oh, duh, do I know? Um and it's like, well, I'm gonna have to deal with that in the session. It was what wasn't wasn't right to deal with that um uh energy downgrade because we're talking about goal. What is it about these are managers and leaders on a career path who ostensibly don't want to take goals seriously. What am I what am I doing wrong, or what do I need to do better when I get in a room with them in two or three weeks' time, do you think?

Stacey Barr 15:22

That's um that's a brilliant question. Uh the um I I think sometimes um asking people where they want to go, where they want that to steer that raft to can be a little confronting if they've not reflected on that before. But you know, you know how humans tend to be more um like we're very hardwired to avoid things rather than pursue things. So we're we're we're much more motivated by risk than we are by um possibility, I think. Uh so sometimes it can really help to flip it 180 degrees around. And rather than asking them what goals do you have, where do you want to go, just say, what are we trying to make sure never happens? What's your worst nightmare? What do we want to move away from? What's going on now that's driving your baddie that you just don't like, you wish it was different, you want it

Using risk to find real goals - pain and gain

Stacey Barr 16:16

to go away. And they'll find that much easier to talk about. And then once you get them talking about that and articulating it, you just then turn that 180 degrees back again and you're getting closer to what the goals might be.

Paul Shrimpling 16:28

Love that. Um so what are we 40 minutes into a conversation, and I've got oh, KPI is a change management tool that people are afraid of. Um and actually the way to overcome the fear is flip it 180 degrees. Let's talk about what they want to avoid at all costs, what they're really concerned about. Um, they have to participate in that conversation clearly, so they're the the and act they're actively involved, and then when we've got some clarity around that, we can flip it and then start to turn it into a KPI number, which is a goals focus rather than a you know, is that pain and gain thing, isn't it? Let's talk about the pain that you want to avoid before we talk about the gain that you want to achieve. Have I understood that right?

Stacey Barr 17:17

Yeah, I think so because often um well, A, the pain is so much easier for us to talk about and identify with. I mean, that it's the pains that wake us up at 2 a.m. and stop us from getting back to sleep, not the gains. Um, but the pains are a very, very good clue for what the gains should be.

Paul Shrimpling 17:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, cool. Uh so got to be specific and measurable, uh, KPIs. What what what evidence have you got that uh KPIs really make a difference to a manager or a business, Stacey? So I'm trying to unpack a little bit about pumping your organization and the impact you're having, but I'm trying to get to some evidence-based insights around, yeah, yeah, you get smarter on KPIs and it pays off. What can you share with us in terms of anecdotal, story-based or and statistic-based insights on that?

Stacey Barr 18:07

I can give you anecdotal stories and uh you'll have to take take it on my word that it's these anecdotal stories are so typical of what I hear all the time. Because measuring the impact of measurement in organizations that are new to measurement is so hard. If I was gonna do that, if I was gonna give you quantitative evidence that measurement makes a difference, there are there are two things I would I would try to measure for you. And when I say what they are, you'll understand why the data is so hard to collect for it. So, number one would be they would um you know, the users of the measures would suddenly be achieving their goals so much quicker than they had in the past. You know, we often set annual goals, five-year goals, quarterly goals. They would be achieving them much sooner. That would be the one thing. So it's a time-based KPI, that one. Uh, and

Anecdotal stories - data is hard to collect through time

Stacey Barr 19:00

of course, I can't get the data for that because nobody is recording how long it takes them to achieve their goals in the past. So it's kind of difficult. The second thing though, um Paul, would be what proportion of their goals they're able to achieve or at least make some progress on. Like we we tend to just do the planning, have some goals, and then throw around a few anecdotes at the end to say, oh, whether we achieved the goal or all the good reasons why we didn't didn't, but we don't actually quantify our ability to achieve goals. So that would be the other thing I'd be measuring. And and having good KPIs is a catalyst to achieve both those things because KPIs give us what nothing else can. There are no other anecdotes uh or um hearsay or stories or or anything that can can be as convincing as a as a number. Humans are not very good at tracking things through time, right? We're we're kind of more immediate. We we can't tell how much something has changed over the last two to five five years. We also uh have biases in where we put our attention. So often there'll be things numbers can tell us that we never can see with our eyes or ears, just by kind of hunting around and finding out. So numbers give us kind of like a well, you I said I like motorcycles, right? So I like working on motorcycles as well. Um we can't work on motorcycles with our bare hands, right? We can't. We need spanners and screwdrivers, ratchets. Um sometimes you need a hammer. You don't want to ever use a hammer, but maybe sometimes you so the tools are helping us do with that motorcycle what we can't do any other way. And that's what numbers are like in our business. They they do things for us that we can't do any other way. The anecdotes that tell me that this is all true, that measurement really does make a difference, is how excited I see people when I've just facilitated them through creating their first meaningful KPI that they feel incredible ownership of. They go, yes, this is what this is about. This is what matters to us, and yes, we really want to make this thing shift. And they go and they get the data and they put it in a graph and they get so excited to see signals and and to make clearer decisions. So they're the kinds of stories I hear over and over again. Um, and yeah, they're unfortunately they're the subjective anecdotal stuff. Well, maybe not unfortunately. I'd I'd like it to be quantitative as well, but the stories still do matter.

Paul Shrimpling 21:28

Yeah, yeah. I love that you've got that measuring the impact of measurement. It's like that that Satan almost flips your brain out a little bit, doesn't it? And then you go, how how hard could that possibly be? Well, clearly very hard. Um but I you know I I I revert to um the uh which you may be familiar with the the lock and lay them uh research, you know, 300 plus studies on goal setting uh that clearly shows it works, and it only works if ultimately it results in specific measures that guide and influence you. Decision making. So there's you know, there is if anyone's like itching for uh away from the anecdotal, we'll get into the deep research by Locker Leyden, which is okay, it's a little bit old now, but it's still referenced by anyone who writes anything and does any research on goal setup. Um, but there was there's a in in your anecdotal story, you suggested that someone would get excited about a single KPI, as opposed to what I see with lots of accountants who want to talk KPIs with their team and maybe talk about KPIs with their customers, their clients, uh, want KPIs for everything, uh, which then moves us away from focus, maybe. So, can we can you we just dive into your knowledge or experience in and around, you know, less is more on the KPI front? Or so what how do you how do you decide what are the right numbers? Yes, attached to goals. So I'm no one repeating myself on that question. Um, and you know, how many?

Stacey Barr 23:03

Um okay, two-part answer to this. I'll I'll come straight up with a number for you three to five for anyone person or team. You you just can't improve more than that. Now, um 40x, um Franklin Covey's four disciplines of execution, they write about this and I love it. They talk about wigs, wildly important goals. And they they say that you really, they would say only have one or two. Because uh there, I I don't know if they did research, but I think they have found that if you have if you have uh one or two goals, you're likely to achieve both of them almost with certainty. If you've got three to five goals, or three to ten, I can't remember now, um you're likely to achieve maybe half of them. But if you've got more than ten, you're not gonna achieve

How many KPIs - WIGs and the Should, Can, Will test

Stacey Barr 23:56

any of them. So the more goals you have, the fewer you're gonna achieve. And I think that's um that's you know, pretty, pretty uh Yeah, you're diluted your efforts, you're diluting your energies, aren't you?

Paul Shrimpling 24:08

Yeah. So you know that common sense would say that that that makes sense.

Stacey Barr 24:12

So that's but to get to that oh sorry, this is the second part of what I was gonna say, Paul, is that to get to that the the two or three that really matter most, um I like to use uh what I call the should can will test. Should we really improve this? Is question one. So you might have 10 goals. You'll ask should can will of all of all 10 of them. Should we really achieve this? Well, okay, maybe it's a yes, maybe it's a no, but it's probably a yes, right? The next question is can we achieve this? And in other words, do we have enough influence to really affect this? Is it within our circle? Not our circle of control. I don't like talking about that because um not much is is truly within our control, but is it within our circle of influence? Can through our actions and decisions we make some definite impact on this? That could be a yes or a no. And the third question is will we? And the will question is actually the hardest one to answer because it means you've got to you've got to be very honest with yourself. Have you got the resources? Have you got the time and resources to dead set commit to to improving it? Because it's not going to improve on its own. It's not gonna improve it just because you're monitoring it, it's not gonna improve it just because you tell everybody in your practice it matters and they should do something about it. It's only gonna improve if you dedicate time and resources to it, and that means taking time and resources off something else. So should can will is how you arrive at those one or two goals. And for those one or two goals, then then you're probably gonna end up with three to five KPIs.

Paul Shrimpling 25:50

Okay, okay. So just so that I I've I'm hard wiring this in the right way, I just want to sense check. So should we is about is this goal, is this KPI attached to that goal relevant to us in our situation? Um, can we is about can we influence it? And I've got a question on that in a second, and then will we is about commitment, time and resource. So so brilliant. So can we is can we influence resources, people, tool, whatever, in order to actually achieve the uh the KPI, the goal. Um isn't there something in there about belief as well, Stacey? I there's you know, um if um if people don't believe they can, they're never gonna be committed, are they? So I'm I'm uh it just triggered something often because it it's um doesn't matter how good, what tools, what resource, all the rest of it, if the belief isn't there, nothing's gonna happen. I mean, I might be wrong with that.

Stacey Barr 26:46

I never thought about that. Never thought about bringing belief into that, but I I I agree with you that it is absolutely relevant. And I do agree with you that it is under that um can question. Because can is a belief. Can I do this? Do I believe I can do this? If there's no belief there, then no, I can't do it. So yeah, I I I 100% doubt that. All right, then.

Paul Shrimpling 27:10

Well, let me go down that avenue a little bit further, then, because it comes out of the lock and lather research. This, which is if you've got um finite, limited uh time and resource, the can we is about having a realistic goal. And if it's realistic, so we build belief. If it's realistic, more likely that we can influence it as well. If we've got uh um less finite boundaries, for example, um, we've got in the next 13 weeks we want to achieve this goal. Here's two KPIs, and if we do the activity to drive those KPIs, we'll hit that goal. So that's a finite timeline. There needs to be some realism around that. So, for example, I've just started swimming again, and my uh 100 meter time is averaging um one minute and 52, and so I'm going, all right, by June, fairly limited amount of time because I only swim

Targets as a learning Trajectory

Paul Shrimpling 28:03

once or twice a week. Uh, can I get that down to um 130? Wow, that feels um unrealistic. But if I can get it to 140, I'd be delighted. Right, okay, and so I'm being more realistic because the timeline is limited. But if I go, oh, by the end of the year, can I get it to 130? Well, yeah, maybe I can, but maybe I'll have to swim twice a week, every week or year, and it's driving and influencing my decision making. And and Loch and Latham's research point to the fact that when you've got uh it's further away and means much more things can change, therefore, we can be more ambitious, which influences our thinking, and therefore also influences our belief levels so that we actually step into the space. Uh so I'm just voicing um insights, trying to fold it into this framework around should we, can we, um will we? So um there's I I always think of smart, you know, the smart framework, specific measurable A is for is it achievable or ambitious? Well, it depends on the time frame.

Stacey Barr 29:10

It's achieved achievable. And I think um uh everything is achievable if you have um the resources and the time available. Okay. And like you're actually adding another layer in here, Paul. So there's the should can will, which are questions that we ask to decide if a goal is a priority enough to bother measuring and improving. But what you're talking about, you're adding another layer, which is targets. And when it comes to targets, the targets attached to the KPI, right? So you told you you told us your baseline 100-meter time. You also told us what a target might be, and you started talking about the time to achieve it. This is where belief comes back into the equation, I think, uh, and and resource, of course. But one of the things um I encourage people to do when they're starting to set those targets for their KPIs is to to not think so much about achievable, but to think more about uh trajectory. And so I never generally set just a single target for a KPI, like by the end of the year, I'll take um what's it gonna be? 20 seconds off your 100 meter time.

Paul Shrimpling 30:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I would 22, I think.

Stacey Barr 30:28

Yeah, well, there you go. That's a lot. That's a lot. So um so my my my lap times around my favorite track on the motorcycle are about kind of um, they started out being about a minute 30. And then in the first year I got them down to about a minute 20. And then trying to get it down below that is taking so much time.

Paul Shrimpling 30:50

Marginal gains. Yeah, yeah.

Stacey Barr 30:51

Yeah, you got you the harder it, the harder, um, or the closer you get to your end goal, the harder it is to achieve it. So, what is a target trajectory? Generally, I would say it's three targets. So it could be that in six months' time, you've taken uh five or ten seconds off your hundred meter time. And really, you're picking something, you know, is pretty easy, pretty predictable, won't take you changing much at all to get to get that. And and why that's important, that first target, is that it builds our belief. It bolsters this feeling that we do have influence, that we can affect a change in this thing. It also teaches us what kind of change we can get for the effort that we thought it was going to take. So standing on the shoulders of that first target, a next harder target actually isn't quite as scary anymore. So the second target is something a bit more challenging. Um, it's still giving yourself enough time to achieve it. Um and you almost believe you can, you know, but achieving that first target is what really makes you think, yeah, let's go for it. I'm motivated, I feel like this is really something worth pursuing. But you sometimes you can set a third target, which is what we often call the stretch target, the one that is so far outside of your comfort zone, of your belief system, of your resource availability. But the reason for setting the stretch target is not to hit it, but to stretch you further than you otherwise would have gone.

Paul Shrimpling 32:24

I love that. I love that. Uh, and it's and it connects with some of the work that we do, some of the firms and some of the managers and leaders that we work with in terms of oh, okay, let's uh let's go after low-hanging fruit, build a sense of belief, and then do a reset. And the resets are now let's be a little bit more ambitious, but still in the realms of achievable. And so I've just I've written, well, if um uh five to ten seconds in six months is the build belief one for me. Um, maybe the next one is five to ten seconds in three months, so I've just changed the timeline rather than the quantum. Yeah, um, and then the the the um uh uh let's call it ambitious. The ambitious one is uh 20 seconds in the next three months. That's wild. That is absolutely wild. Now I have swum at at my I've never been a great swimmer at peak at 1.30. I have done that, I know I can do that. Um but it was in races 10 years ago when my shoulder worked. Um so there's that in the back in the back of my head is well, hey, you're 10 years older and you and your shoulders knackered, so that might not be we'll see. Um because there are limits, but I love that build belief, um, bit of a stretch, then big stretch, which change your thinking, um which you might not achieve, but you'll move yourself further forward than you otherwise would have done, maybe.

Stacey Barr 33:49

Um that's it. And you have fun doing it. It's not so much about setting these targets in stone and then judging yourself by whether you hit or miss them. I love the phrase reach for targets. I hate the phrase, hit targets. And what do we talk about in business all the time? I've got to hit that target. We really want the team to hit that target, you should hit this target. Hitting targets is not what it's about. Targets need to be motivating to work, and the only way they can be motivating is if we play with them, if we use them to help us learn about what it takes to make change happen and stand on the shoulders of each improvement that we make and go a little bit further.

Paul Shrimpling 34:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that that that then lends itself to uh uh another uh topic that I'm always challenging people on, and I'm not sure I'm doing it as well as I could, so I'm hoping you'll be able to influence this as well. Is uh so we've we've had a conversation with our team member or our client uh around goals, we've helped them focus through the should can uh will process. Um, so we've narrowed it down to one or two, maybe three, and then we're unpacking the specific measurable KPIs that then drive us to that goal, which for me uh Stacey, there's uh two types of numbers there's outcome and uh input, you know, input and output. There's the input or activity or causal KPIs, and then there's the output result um effect as a consequence. Um, do you want to just give us your thoughts on um whether we should be zeroing in on output numbers or input numbers?

Stacey Barr 35:33

The um the challenge I've always had, I totally hear you, Paul. Um, it's not gonna sound like I'm agreeing with you to start with, but look, give me a chat to get there.

Paul Shrimpling 35:44

Okay, I'll go with it. I'll go with it.

Stacey Barr 35:46

Yeah, yeah, just yeah. You can do what you like with it. They completely reject it if you want to. Um inputs and outputs are difficult to talk about because one person's inputs is somebody else's outputs, uh, and other people's outputs are other people's inputs. So it sounds too binary for me. I've struggled with it. So what we've always done in my work is we've we've really just built a cause-effect map of the and we call them results, we'll call them goals, but in our language we call them results because we're not talking about actions here. Actions definitely are the things we have to do to affect to make it a result different. But um but but a map, a causal map of results helps uh us understand um oh, what's a good metaphor here? It's kind of like the the story

The result map and inputs and outputs

Stacey Barr 36:39

of our business or the story of our hobby or our sport and all the different pieces in it that play a role and how the relationships they have to each other and understanding that bigger picture and and the organic, maybe organic's not the right word, but the that interrelatedness of it all is really powerful and important because it's too easy just to get myopic and focus on one or two KPIs, not understanding the consequences they have on other KPIs, or how there's leverage from a different set of KPIs that could be helping you out. So building that map is is an important thing. Look, um, I am more than happy to share this um with you. Maybe it's best to put it in the show notes because no one's gonna remember it from a conversation. But I've got an article on my website about a thing called a results map, which is the visual of exactly what I'm talking about. Now, a lot of people look at that and they get blown away. The first reason they get blown away is they go, oh my God, that looks complex. But once they understand how it works, they go, Oh my god, this is this is it. This is the clarity that I've needed. So mostly, of course, results maps are used to help tie different teams together and align them to the strategic direction of the larger clients that we have, the government agencies, the nonprofit organizations, whatever. But I have a results map just for me in my business. So it can work on both levels. You could build a little results map for your swimming. Um, I may admit to you that I've built a little results map for my motorcycle track days to try and get my lap times down. But the clarity helps you think through what are all the different moving pieces here that have got to move in unison and in synergy so that I can get that end result that I want.

Paul Shrimpling 38:24

All right. So I just want to turn that into maybe a practical, relevant discussion for an accounting firm who's listening into this. So we we we talk about a um interrelated, I guess we'd call that a map, interrelated map. Um, every every leader, manager of a team of an accounting firm want to achieve what we call sustainable results. Of course they do, you know. Yes, they want to grow and then they want to grow again. Grow what? Well, that's personal to each individual firm. So we're not necessarily dive into that detail. But they want sustainable success. Well, common sense suggests that you can't achieve sustainable success unless you've got client loyalty. Well, client loyalty breaks into okay, we've got to deliver a quality service or quality report, whether it be tax returns, audit report, annual accounts, whatever it is. Uh, we've got to do it in a timely way, and we've got to do it uh with care, i.e., the client feels in all the interactions that they feel looked after and therefore trust you. So there's three inputs to client loyalty, um, but there's the team have to deliver on that, and then there's inputs into the team from the managers that have to, and I'm just wondering, am I in the right space here in terms of building this interrelated map? And so we can influence one thing, but if it downgrades another, because we're investing more time in that than we are in that, and in an accounting firm, Stacey, typically people are massively invested in time and resources in doing the technical work of accounts, and they play down the fact that we should have more conversations more often with the clients to build a stronger relationship so that they stay loyal. Well, actually, the client needs both. Oh, and by the way, they need it on time. Uh, and so uh, but when they when we look when we do a time challenge, just show me how much time in the working week you've invested in talking to your clients. And they go, Oh, not very much. Well, okay. Um so I'm in the right space, am I, in terms of that relational, interrelated.

Stacey Barr 40:29

And your story even brings out another truth here, which is I think can often be the elephant in the room when people are trying to build this stuff, is that all of these things are in a tension or a balance with each other. It's not about maximizing all of them. You can't have a business where everything's maximized. You have to figure out what your trade-offs are going to be. So, are you an accounting firm that wants to be known primarily for your precision and accuracy? And then you position yourself that way and you don't ignore the client relationship stuff, but you take a different approach to it so that it's not drawing on too much of your bandwidth and and sort of robbing you from that that that positioning that you want to have around accuracy. Or you may want to be an accounting firm where you are known for um just being so approachable and make make your clients feel smart when they come to see you. And so if that's your position, you still need the accuracy, sure. But you're gonna put more effort into um that conversation that you have with your clients. Very well-crafted conversations, being able to have that empathy and really hear what your clients are struggling with and being at the ready to respond to them or to do something for them that puts them at ease and helps them feel like they are making good decisions or whatever. So it you balance, you find the balance that works for you, I guess.

Paul Shrimpling 41:53

Please forgive this brief interruption. Stacy and I are talking about KPIs, goals, sustainable success. If you want to dive deeper into a brief business breakthrough that you can read in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea or coffee about KPIs and sustainable success, check out the URL link in the show notes. Let's get back to the discussion with Stacy now. Yeah, I I've written balance, but I've also written uh focus and priority. But what I never thought we'd get here on this discussion, by the way. But actually, what you've just given me is a bridge between sort of the goals KPIs conversation in that um you know relational map of the influencers and the KPIs, and it connects with what your firm stands for, which is that core purpose. So, why why why do you exist in business as a as a as a firm? Um, then starts to influence your goal priorities and therefore your KPI focus and therefore what you actually deliver. Um, who'd have thought we'd have got from build a bridge between KPIs and purpose? I love that. Love that.

Stacey Barr 43:04

Well, look at the name of your podcast, just humanize the numbers. You can't not talk about the I love the fact that we're doing this.

Paul Shrimpling 43:13

Good, me too, me too. So let's um let's talk about something else then, because yeah, um if I there isn't a firm of accountants on the planet who doesn't measure some KPIs, some numbers every month, and doesn't maybe measure some numbers every quarter, and doesn't measure and track some numbers every year. So the yearly numbers look like profit and loss and balance sheet numbers, maybe some other KPIs in there in the marketing and sales space, uh people development space, maybe even. Because they're required to by their institutes. My question in this space is what's the right cadence to ensure that you perform on your KPIs?

Stacey Barr 44:00

Ooh, you even use the word cadence. I like that word. Often it's frequency. How frequently should I be reporting and measuring this? Cadence is a really important thing. There isn't one right answer. You can't know your profit and loss until the end of the financial year when it's properly calculated. So you can't monitor that any more frequently than annually. So that's the appropriate cadence for that. Does that mean you've got to wait 12 months before you know if you're going to be profitable or not? Of course not. There are other things you can monitor monthly that, you know, just a simple look at revenue and costs would give you a feel for where that's headed. The trends in costs and the trends in revenue are

Cadence to ensure you perform on your KPIs

Stacey Barr 44:54

really important as well because they will tell you are we heading in the right direction toward a profitable end of year or are we not? Or is it looking like it's same old, same old? And there could be other things that you want to track even more frequently because they are, I call them drivers, I guess, but you you mentioned before this this input-output cause-effect kind of relationship, things that are important to track weekly that might drive the revenue. And that weekly cadence might be a discipline in uh approaching new potential clients or learning the art and the skill of converting potential clients into actual clients and looking after the clients that you have. And these are things that you could monitor on a weekly cadence. So the cadence, um, you don't really know what it's going to be until you know what you're measuring. Um measuring more frequently, I think, is better generally than measuring infrequently because uh the looking at the the change in a KPI over time, you get much more reliable uh signals with more data, with more measure values, with in other words, a higher cadence. But some KPIs will not lend themselves to that where you simply do not have the data that frequently. It's either too expensive or it's illogical, it just doesn't exist, so you can't measure that frequently. So cadence is a decision that comes after you've decided what um what the KPI actually will be.

Paul Shrimpling 46:23

Okay, all right. And this is where you know, because we're in that humanize the numbers space. So if it's and it's easy to look at this from a team member uh perspective. So I I use a phrase which is I think um it doesn't matter what your sport is, but let's talk team sports, whether it be, you know, mine's rugby, as everyone on this podcast knows. Um uh football, netball, hockey. Uh we're in the middle of the uh Winter Olympics as we record this. So it could be ice hockey, um uh could be team. Uh I'm I'm I'm obsessed with the biathlon having uh died so that that's and then there was this team biathlon race, which I've invested an hour and a half in my life completely obsessed, thinking, oh, I wish I was 20 years younger, I'd like to do that. Um uh every game has got a timeline attached to it. So a rugby match is uh 80 minutes, two halves of 40 minutes. Um, we've got to play the game in that time. Um, I always think the working week is the timeline for the game called work for all of our team members, and that's why I've got this obsession around we've got to work out, and you've used the phrase which, or the word rather, which I think is key here, is um the KPIs that drive the performance of a week so that everyone in the team feels a sense of achievement. Which, if we dive into the Sorato research on enthusiastic employee with 13.7 million employee surveys, suggests that actually feeling a sense of achievement is key to a highly enthusiastic team, of course. Um, so we've got this weekly game being played called work, whether you're on a two-day week or a four-day week or a five-day week, whatever it is. Um, and therefore, I've just got if we've got weekly drivers and work them out connected with the goal that's relevant to us and the firm and the team, and we can see how it's interrelated, uh, we'll have a whole series of weekly signals which will influence our decision making. Uh, that sounds really powerful to me.

Stacey Barr 48:23

It is very powerful, very powerful. Um, you got me thinking about a um a webcast uh that my team and I ran uh last year called Um Four Measures of Progress, Four Types of Progress Measures we talked about. And you gave some examples there of one of the types of progress measures we call a quota measure. And quota measures are really good for team, teams, for individuals to set those weekly behavioral goals, like how many uh new prospective clients will I reach out to, or how many current client conversations will I will I have. And maybe the team's aiming for five or ten of those each. And and then they actually do them and they count them up and they compare them to how many they were hoping for, and then you've got your quota measure. And those quota measures

Healthy use of measures

Stacey Barr 49:18

can be, when they're used in the right way, can be a very healthy way to drive some of those performance measures of client engagement, client retention, new client conversion. But I I mentioned the word healthy when they're used in a healthy way because you I think we all have heard the horror stories of quota measures used in uh, say, call centers, where they've got to get through so many calls in a in a day, and they end up not doing any quality work at all and doing more damage to the bottom line rather than driving it in a positive way. So it has to be a healthy use of measures like the quota measures. So yeah.

Paul Shrimpling 50:00

No, it's um we spend uh a good chunk of our time talking about strategic health with all the leadership teams we work with. Yeah. Uh not strategy, strategic health. Of course, there's a sustainability element to that. So there's also, because we've touched on it in this discussion, there's we've got to maintain psychological safety across the team for them to feel that they can perform in this space. And so if KPIs take them out of that, they're going to be unhealthy. If they take them out of psychological safety, they're going to be unhealthy. Um, you know, we'll get some leaders who are pushed back and go, Well, in this woke world we now live in, we can't achieve what we used to achieve when in my day, um, because everyone's a bit soft now. Um, do you do do you buy that?

Stacey Barr 50:46

Oh, I I don't know. I think I think every generation goes through something that they can blame previous generations for and disconnect from previous generations. I try not to get into it. I think it I think we um being healthy with you know, looking after people in a healthy way in the workforce. Uh I think there are things that have just always been true about that, is um respecting that that everyone's got something to contribute, assuming that everyone is doing their best, and setting up the clarity of direction and the support systems to make it easier and possible for everybody to do that at the same time as getting something personal out of it. You know, the the old what's in it for me might be professional development, it might be uh feelings of satisfaction, it might be who knows. But I think that there are some true things that are that are always there. And if we keep our attention on those um and get less distracted by all the labels we give different things in different generations.

Paul Shrimpling 51:50

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's a that's a fair pushback. And you've just made me think about um if the only KPI, and and again, I'd like your view on this, if the only KPIs that attract and measured are about business performance, a team member can go, well, that's all right for you, but it's not necessarily alright for me, as opposed to in their work lives, in your firm, in your team, yes, there are KPIs that are about the firm's performance. Maybe, and this is where I like um uh you know, Ron, I don't know if you come across Ron Baker's book, um Measure What Matters to the Customer, which I think is a profound piece of writing, is um let's have KPIs that matter to the client because they're the paymas general. So, yes, let's look at KPIs for the firm, KPIs for the customer, and you can't leave out KPIs for you as a human being on your career pathway, whatever that looks like. Let's look at that, which might show up in their appraisals, and then we've got what you talk about the balance, is maybe um well placed in terms of building a highly enthusiastic uh team of people committed to the numbers as opposed to um resisting what needs to be done to achieve the numbers.

Stacey Barr 53:02

Yes, to everything you just said, Paul. And if everybody is involved appropriately in the choice of the goals and the measures, and involved in the use of those measures to um make make better decisions and be part of collaborative improvement, then I think we do have um uh um a business that is is truly having um uh a human-centered approach to its strategy. Um absolutely. Uh one of the one of the tools that we use in our approach, um we call it a measure gallery, but it's actually a bit more than that. You're not gonna like if you really want to adopt KPIs, you're not gonna have every single person in the firm sitting around crafting KPIs. You're just gonna have a few people that will spend a little bit of time doing it on behalf of everybody else. But um

Buy-in, ownership and input through measure galleries

Stacey Barr 53:56

when they get to a certain point where they've gotten clear about the goals and they've got some draft KPIs worked out, what what we what we generally do is have this measure gallery where it can be a fun thing. Like I'm I'm like thinking about it in the smaller companies that I've worked in, which will be more akin to what an accounting firm's probably like, is they would have um uh a little, you know, like the what do you call? I I've worked online for so many years now. It's just like a little recreation room or somewhere where people might make a cup of tea and sit down and you know, the employees might chat with each other while they're having a break. I don't know. A room like that. And and they kind of lay out their thinking that they've done, like how they arrived at the goals, what their their measure design template looks like, how they got to the KPIs. And they just have a chat, they put some cupcakes out and some fresh coffee, and they just invite people to from the whole firm just to drop in, and even some of their customers, they can invite customers as well, to drop in and just have a look at the thinking and remark on it, give some ideas, have some input into it, make some suggestions, and the team will take all of that on board and improve those KPIs. Suddenly, those people that weren't there in the room when the KPIs were being developed, but were there nibbling on their cupcake and having a coffee and chatting about it, suddenly have buy-in and ownership. And then that that buy-in and ownership can be right across the firm without too much effort. And then you really do get the input from people about what should be measured so they believe in the measures and own them and really want to contribute to to you know to reaching targets. Um yeah, it's just uh it profoundly changes things in such a simple way. Really easy way to to bring the humans and the numbers together.

Paul Shrimpling 55:43

The reason I'm um shaking my head is just that that fits with the methodology for building out a set of values and behavioral standards for the firm. Yeah, um, and if if the people aren't involved in that, it's and they're just inflicted on them, that they it just becomes wall art or something on the website, doesn't mean anything. Yeah, but um Doug in our team, who's uh really strong in this space, has worked with multiple teams, is you know, they um they identify the few who work in detail on behalf of everyone else in and around the values and behavioral standards. Doug actually gets the whole team to vote on who should be in that group. The leaders don't get me wrong, they have an influence on that as well. Um, but there's that there's you just build that sense of ownership because you're inviting them into the process, they're commenting, making suggestions, and so on. And um, because you've got to use your language, that their input, they believe in the outcomes and um um commit, and so therefore, the uh the likelihood of you will achieve those KPIs goes up. Um stunning. Uh Stacy, you've really unpacked a few really important, I think, practical ways of uh helping uh leaders managers work on KPIs with their team and their customers for that matter. Um my sort of penultimate question is what do you think the you've worked with how I don't know how many, lots of people in this KPI space. What are the key skills associated with the people who are best at helping KPIs come to life so that the firms, the teams achieve those KPIs? What are the key skills that those people have?

Stacey Barr 57:30

Well, uh there's technical skills, but there's some other left left of center kind of skills that they need to have as well. They they do need technical skills, right? Like um KPIs has always been something that people just brainstormed or or went uh and asked Google, now we're getting AI to design them for us, and we we're still not ending up with the ones that really matter. There is a deliberate thinking process to getting the and we've talked about some of them today. We've talked about um uh you know making goals really crystal clear in the way they're articulated. We've talked about being very clear about the evidence and then quantifying the evidence and the should can well, we've talked about a few of them, but there is a methodology, a proper approach to this. So that not going any further into that, there is the technical skill of being a performance measurement professional that matters.

The key skills to make KPIs work

Stacey Barr 58:23

But what else do they need? I think these are the more interesting things. They need to be bold enough to ask the scary, dumb questions. So if their uh their boss has said, here's a goal that we have, I want you to go away and measure it, chances are they're not gonna understand really what that goal is about. But generally, employees are too scared to ask because they will feel like they've been ignorant or they're dumb, they've somehow not paid attention when they should have, and they don't want to be in that position that's threatening. So a good measurement practitioner, a good KPI person isn't scared of that. They go, Hey, what on earth do you mean by sustainability? Help me understand. When you wrote this goal and had put that word sustainability in there, tell me what came to life in you, you know, they'll have a really good way of doing that. Another good quality that they'll have is they will be non-judgmental as part of their personality, is accepting and open, and they won't ever try to make anybody feel wrong, judged negatively in any way. That's so important. And again, it comes back to that tension between people and numbers, and in my world, how threatened people can be by anything to do with numbers. So they've got to really not make people wrong.

Paul Shrimpling 59:48

And it's that sense of psychological safety again, isn't it? Psychological create a psychologically safe space. Yeah, yeah.

Stacey Barr 59:55

Yes, yes, yes. Sorry, interrupted. So no, no, no, you're fine. Um, and to some extent, I'm kind of making this up as I go along, you're just drawing it out of me. Um, the third thing uh is is collaboration, is knowing that you will get a better outcome when you bring people together synergistically. You'll you'll measure that part of the firm over there when you involve the people who work in that part of the firm over there in the conversations. So wanting to be collaborative. Um, those three qualities will come together at the start through the middle and at the end, all stages of the measurement process of actually using numbers to inform better decisions, because all of those things become relevant in different ways.

Paul Shrimpling 1:00:39

Yeah, bold enough breaking more dumb questions. Yeah, and there's always more, isn't there? But I I think in in when you've got you know six sixty minutes to have a conversation is if we can get to the top layer of 20% of insight and skill. Um, you know, we're all going to move forward, aren't we? If we just implement one of those things. Um, so I'm I'm definitely uh itching to have a look at that sort of relational map, you know, cause-effect map that you talked about. So if we can uh we can get that in the show notes, that'd be brilliant. I'll in the show notes we'll get the lock and lay them uh link to their book and the Ron Baker, what matters most to customers, and um and you know the resources you want people to go and have a checkout around Pump, Stacey will get them in there as well. Um, my last question is um of everything we've covered today, what one thing do you think has the biggest impact on helping accounts professionals, whether working with their team or working with their clients, what one thing from everything we've covered off uh in this discussion uh will help them the most in um helping their team or their clients?

Stacey Barr 1:01:46

I'm gonna say that the most important thing is getting clarity on your goals, getting clarity on the results that you really want, because that is actually the hardest bit. If you understand what you want and can articulate it in very specific, clear, measurable language, the rest of it can just fall out. I mean, that that's what um, well, you mentioned pump, that is the methodology that we use, and it starts with that. And once that's sorted, all the rest of it, everyone goes, oh wow, that's just so logical. Oh, I didn't think it would be this easy. Oh, that's the you know, right through to looking at the chart of the KPI and and making decisions from it, it all starts with getting goal clarity.

Paul Shrimpling 1:02:33

Brilliant, brilliant. And so, you know, people can go to the show notes, but just in case they're itching to dive in, what's the best way

Getting clarity on your goals

Paul Shrimpling 1:02:40

of getting access to your insights, your knowledge, your the your way of working? Is there a URL that you want to um uh give us a shout out to that should be driving people to?

Stacey Barr 1:02:51

The um I I launched a new website last year as the home of pump to get it away from me and and put it out as a thing on its own because it really it is global. It's been global for so long now. Um so pump.academy is that website, and there's a whole lot of stuff on there, obviously the programs that we offer, but I've um I've got uh near on 30 years worth of content that I've written. So gradually getting it off my old website and getting it in there. Um I there are a few articles that have moved across to pump.academy that relate exactly to some of the points we've made today. So I'll I'll get them across to put in the show notes as well. That's fantastic. Yeah, that would be the the place to go.

Paul Shrimpling 1:03:33

Fantastic. I knew this was going to be good. I can't tell you how pleased we've been able to get the uh this hour together. And um uh uh I I I really appreciate the challenge uh on a couple of occasions. I think that's um uh vital that um uh we all move forward in business to better understanding how to achieve what we want for our team, what we want for our clients, what we want for our businesses. And I think what you shared today undoubtedly has um very well several elements that uh improve everybody's knowledge skill and hopefully the habits of using KPIs. Stacy, thank you very, very much. I've loved it.

Stacey Barr 1:04:12

Oh, you're so welcome. I I sincerely enjoyed it. I I I was really um thrilled by just how how much our thinking intersected. It was great. If we were in a pub, Paul, I imagine we'd be talking for hours about this stuff.

Paul Shrimpling 1:04:26

Uh we'd be drunk, Stacy, is what we would be. It was brilliant to talk through KPIs with Stacy on this podcast. One of the key things that brings KPIs to life is accountability, having them show up in regular conversations with either clients or team members. And the accountability process and the accountability skills is part of the development programme we call the Accountants Growth Academy. If you'd like to join like-minded ambitious accountants, please go to the Accountants Growth Academy link in the show notes. You'll find more valuable discussions with the leaders of ambitious accounting firms at humanize the numbers.online. You can also sign up to be notified each time a new podcast is made available. You're about to hear a short excerpt from a podcast discussion with Amy Spillard and John Toon of HLB, the International Global Accounting Firm. If you like what you're hearing about leading and managing change with the technology bias, then please go hunt out the Humanize the Numbers podcast at your favourite podcast platform or go to humanished numbers.online.

John Toon 1:05:49

Expanding on that a little bit more, Paul, as well. I often think that you we we operate in a world where we try to manage risk down as low as possible, you know, whether it's in In audit, whether it's around providing advice, uh, whether it's dealing with the regulators and stuff. And I think quite often in accounting, you know, and and some of the professional services as well, we we conflate risk with not experimenting and not taking chances. And actually, that's even more risky. You know, you're actually increasing your inherent business risk and your strategic risk by not looking at innovation, not looking up at change as an opportunity. You know, you do want that innovation almost to bubble up from the bottom. But actually, what you want leadership to do is you want leadership to manage that innovation in a way that doesn't introduce unnecessary risk to the business because they have an experience of going through change, they have an experience of how how the practice wants to be your view from the outside in, whether that's you're from the client base, from potential new uh you know, new employees from the regulators, etc. And you know, again, when you kind of look at structure around things, for me is that you know, actually implementing technology is is quite a structural thing. You know, we're we're we're changing some of the fundamentals of the business potentially, the change management, the people management that links to that can be actually quite structured. You can have a framework that you work to. What you've got to be able to have though is you've got to have the willingness and the agility to say part way through a process, actually, we're in, we're in here, but we need to scrap it because it's not gonna work. Or actually, we've made the wrong assessment and this product isn't for us, or it or it's just you know, something's not quite right here. We also need the the ability and the agility, and I think again, this is where a lot of practices fail, is that you know, I talked a lot about vision and strategy, and when we write these documents, they get passed to a board, the board looks at them, they'd like pieces of paper to look at, and then they sign them off, and then it gets junked and it gets put in a drawer. Like that that isn't strategy for me, that isn't vision. This has got to be lived and breathed. And and actually, you know, if I if I'm sitting in a practice today saying, Oh, do you know what? I think in I don't know, 18 months or two years, you're going to be on product X. We need to be willing enough to say, do you know what? I've got to June and I'm four months in, and actually we're gonna move to product Y tomorrow.