I agree (but is this new?)
When I was an undergraduate in the 1970s I was told that communication skills were among the most important skills of an accountant. The argument being that if you were fabulous at working things out but unable to communicate persuasively to your colleagues you were a waste of space!
David
What about training?
One skill I'd be keen to have more accountants learn, is in-depth knowledge of accounts and bookkeeping software packages.
My experience has been that if clients are well taught, they're usually more than happy to keep their own books and present you with a neat set of records, bank reconciled, VAT up to date.
But doing that is very scary for an inexperienced client. They need a nice friendly accountant to hold their hand and guide them through the process. And then they need support from both the software company and the accountant for on-going queries.
I think that we accountants could save ourselves, and our clients, so much time and aggro if we taught them to keep their records properly.
M
Much the same is true in practice as well as in business
I wrote a white paper over two years ago in which I explored the importance of personal development for ambitious accountants - as distinct from their technical development that seems to get far more attention. I also set out the options and the differences as between using third parties, internal and external mentors to develop or hone these crucial non-technical skills.
I suggested that there are a dozen key business skills although not everyone needs to be highly skilled across all 12. Individual firms will place different emphasis in different areas depending upon the aggregate skills set across the partnership and the style and approach of the firm.
The white paper is still freely available for download here
This was all at time when I was actively promoting myself as the Accountants' Business Coach. I have much less time for this now as I have transitioned to focus instead on the Tax Advice Network.
Who measures the skills gaps and ‘accounts’ for them to the busi
The funny thing is the same advice could be applied all around the boardroom table, as well as the workplace in general. HR, long seen as the fluffy, naturally good with people folk, have been increasingly told to ‘get real’, which in essence means encroaching on Account/finance territory. CTO’s, on the other hand, long seen as tolerable because they know their stuff (even and especially when no one else could fathom it), have begun to see themselves as communicators, even leaders – especially if it makes life easier. In a sense you could say: accountants need to be calculators who can talk; HR professionals talkers who can calculate; CTO’s geeks who can calculate and talk at the same time, although you could equally say this is where you’ll expect to find the CEO these days, who wears as many hats as they can fit on their heads.
In that sense, are we not seeing then a redefinition of boundaries and roles on a more fundamental level? Are we looking at and for a boardroom of CEO’s, each able, in as polite a way as possible, to manage; communicate; calculate; lead.
The question then is: who measures the skills gaps and ‘accounts’ for them to the business, HR or the Accountant?