6 minute read
career preparation: soft skills
A Critical Accounting Tool
The study of accounting delves into many important concepts, rules and laws that must be mastered to succeed in the field. These concepts and formats standardize the practice and allow efficient
By Neil communication between
Fauerbach, accountant and client or
MBA accountant and employer. These are the technical aspects of working in accounting. When you enter the workforce, whether as an intern or staff accountant, you will discover that accountants are very visible within their organizations. You will certainly work on audit or tax teams during the “busy season.” But you will also find yourself working on teams across departments on projects from business development to quality improvement to marketing initiatives to strategic planning. You may also be working with clients and vendors.
Soft skills
These activities require you to master skills beyond the technical. They require mastering “soft” skills: listening so you understand and communicating so you are understood. Your ability to communicate effectively will contribute to your success as an accountant.
Listen up!
The Center for Creative Leadership defines a thoughtful process for active listening as listening to understand, not just to answer. • Grant attention — Show you are genuinely interested in the discussion; focus on the moment.
• Withhold judgment — Be open-minded to new or different ideas.
• Reflect with the person — Paraphrase what you heard to confirm your understanding. • Dig into the topic — Seek clarification, use open-ended questions to gather more information and summarize key ideas and themes.
• Share — Once you understand the issues, introduce your ideas and suggestions; discuss potential solutions.
This is a good process to consider when working with colleagues as well as clients. When people listen passively, we often feel that they are simply waiting for their turn to speak. Don’t be that person. Listen to understand, not simply to respond. Putting that skill to work is Steven Pullara, CPA, a tax partner with the Madison office of BDO USA LLP. Pullara has been a practicing accountant for 37 years and is the incoming chair of the 2022–2023 WICPA board of directors. When working with clients, Pullara stated, “It is critical to first listen and understand the client’s needs and goals before we develop our advice. Then the most important communication skill we use when delivering that advice is to simplify, in nontechnical terms, the options they have available. These could be tax, financial statement reporting or business management opportunities and obligations. We need to remember that as CPAs we advise, and the client decides.” So clear communication is critical to the client relationship and to advising the business or individual to make data-driven decisions.
Know your audience
Who will be on the receiving end of your communication, and what is their level of understanding of the points you wish to present? A common mistake professionals make is to use industry lingo or acronyms that the listener may not be familiar with. Your job is to understand their level of understanding and communicate appropriately. As an example of technical jargon in an auditor’s report on internal controls, you might use terms like “material weakness” or “significant deficiency.” Without proper translation to the client by the messenger (you), these problems, if not properly understood and acted upon, could lead to undetected problems later on. Material weakness in an IT system could lead to hackers accessing confidential information. A material weakness in financial reporting could lead to misstatement of the financial health of a company when attempting to secure financing. Misunderstanding has consequences. As Pullara stated, “… as CPAs we advise, and the client decides.” Ensure the client understands the issues and implications you are presenting. Communicating with those outside the accounting profession is not limited to CPA–client conversations. Bret Kastein, CPA, is president of Point Precision Inc., a family-owned contract manufacturer in Plover. The company is transitioning ownership and control to the second generation. Kastein noted, “With the ownership
transition, we have had many meetings with our accountants, attorneys and respective spouses. With these discussions, we had various levels of understanding, from little or none to fairly comprehensive.” Kastein said that even when you think you have explained something very simply, quite often it is still not understood. “It is difficult to not include professional jargon in the conversations,” he said. “But the key is to make sure you can bring the jargon to a personal level. I always try to bring in an example that they are familiar with. I was fortunate that I knew the level of comprehension of the successors so I could read my audience easily and clarify points that were confusing.”
Write for clarity
Good, clear, accurate writing is critical in communicating facts and ideas. Accounting professionals compose many types of communications, including proposals, financial reports, memos and strategic plans. There are several keys to great writing that accomplish the goal of the written piece. • Know and understand your audience and their level of understanding of your jargon. Write with that in mind.
• Clarify your goal or intent. Is it to inform, persuade, argue or recommend? • Be accurate. Fact-check the details. Make sure the math is correct. Punctuation and spelling are important and easy opportunities to lose credibility if improper.
Verbal presentation skills
In a Harvard Business Report article from 2018 titled “How to Stop Saying ‘Um,’ ‘Ah,’ and ‘You Know,’” author Noah Zandan discusses these “filler words.” These pauses in speech can influence how people perceive you and your message. Zandan writes, “When we find ourselves rattled while speaking — whether we’re nervous, distracted or at a loss for what comes next — it’s easy to lean on filler words. These may give us a moment to collect our thoughts before we press on, and in some cases, they may be useful indicators that the audience should pay special attention to what comes next. But when we start to overuse them, they become crutches — academics call them disfluencies — that diminish our credibility and distract from our message.” Zandan cites from a study published by Brigham Young University that we are conditioned to abhor the vacuum of a pause. The study recommends “embracing the pause” and shows research that great public speakers often pause for two to three seconds or even longer. It’s important to note that these filler words aren’t used just at the podium. Zandan’s discussion also applies to casual conversation, especially when you’re in the office.
Listen so you understand. Communicate so you are understood. Perfect these skills, and you will be on your way to a successful accounting career.
Neil Fauerbach, MBA, has 37 years’ experience in CPA firm marketing and business development, including a longtime post with Smith & Gesteland/BDO. He has been honored with CPA Marketing Report’s Accounting Marketer of the Year Award, inducted into the Association of Accounting Marketing (AAM) Hall of Fame and included in Accounting Today’s 100 Most Influential People in Accounting.
Interested?
Contact Marcia Tillett-Zinzow, editor, at mtzinzow@icloud.com. CPA2b Spring 2022 | wicpa.org 33
