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2015: Accountancy's comedy cavalcade

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29th Dec 2015
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This year has seen a surge in the lighter side of accountancy, with new contenders emerging to claim the uncharted territory where comedy and accountancy collide.

As reported October, a new generation has emerged to take up the mantel of alternative accountant-comedians Arnold Brown and laugh off the boring stereotype.

Tom Goodliffe left a career in accountancy to chase his stand-up dream. He explained that stand-up is a much more fun alternative, but did concede that accounting is still more lucrative. Pete Miller was another who swapped tax technicalities for the stand-up spotlight. Miller raised £4,375 in a sponsored stand-up challenge for the Big Difference company in Leicester.

Miller leaned on his tax background and as a source of mirth. “When I was an inspector many years ago with the Inland Revenue I had this wonderful letter. ‘Dear Mr. Miller, please stop asking me for tax. I live in Brighton. You work for the INLAND revenue’.”

Miller’s anecdotes reflect the way many finance professionals embrace gallows humour to get through the day. He recalled a long correspondence he had with a firm of accountants which culminated in what Miller calls the perfect letter for a tax inspector: ‘Dear Mr. Miller, we give up. Yours sincerely…”

The news reported on AccountingWEB gives accountants plenty of ammunition to indulge the blacker side of their sense of humour. For example David Gordon FCCA responded to HMRC’s claim that June’s government gateway malfunction was only for a few hours: “Of course it was only a few hours. Any of you who are also science fact and fiction fans know that the closer you get to a black hole the slower time runs.”

But what are we to make of this year’s comedy boom? It certainly livens up daily life on the site, but does the trend indicate that things are turning up and accountants are feeling relaxed enough to let off a little steam? Or are things out there are getting so bad that the only thing members can do is laugh?

Even more worrying, are these people giving up on accountancy because they see comedy as a more rewarding and stable career option?

The American tendency

Accountant-comedians are on the rise on the other side of the Atlantic, too.

During the past year, we had the opportunity to witness two of leading practitioners in this field: Greg Kyte and Geni Whitehouse.

Kyte is noteworthy for his CPE Comedy project and GoingConcern.com videos. Like one of AccountingWEB’s all-time comedy heroes, former IASB chairman and ICAS president, David Tweedie, Kyte gets his educational message across by softening up audiences with humour.

In the US these days, there is a lot of motivational talk about discovering your inner superpower - something that Kyte tackled in a presentation at Xerocon in Denver. “If you want a superpower and you’re an accountant, you always have one,” he told the audience. “The power of invisitiblity… Nobody sees you.”

But accountants also have an unparalleled ability to put up with change, he continued. “There have been more than 4,680 changes to US tax code in the last 11 years - more than a change a day to what we do every day. That’s just with tax. Forget audit and financial reporting.”

Accountants can deal with this scale of change “as long as someone is ramming it down your throat”, Kyte contended. “Were awesome at regulatory change, but with non-regulatory change, we suck.”

Non-regulatory change is all about self-imposed risk taking. “Accountants, identify and minimise risk. But risk is good. Profit comes from risk,” he argued.

“What if you said, ‘At our firm we take risks?’ Deal with it. Change is change. You have got a superpower at dealing with one type of change. You can take those same skills you have dealing with regulatory change and apply them to intentional risk taking. Your superpower will come with you.”

In Kyte’s view, which was heavily shaped by his decision to become a working stand-up comedian (and technical trainer), “If you take the risk and you fail miserably and you still want to do that thing again, you’ve just found your passion.”

Fan the flames of passion with humour

AccountingWEB also had the pleasure of seeing Geni Whitehouse at QB Connect in November. She openly acknowledged her affinity with Kyte, while appreciating the differences.

“Greg Kyte is hilarious.  He does accounting updates at comedy clubs. He’ll go in and read the FASB updates and make them funny. He will go further than me and is a little less politically correct. But he’s made a choice,” Whitehouse said.

Where Kyte talked about discovering your passion, Whitehouse lived up to her promise that even a nerd can be heard by quipping her way through a sequence of practical suggestions to raise your personal profile, drawing on lessons learned as a Girl Scout.

“It all starts from the heart. It only has to be a little flicker. Once you out work out what excites and motivates you, take that small flame and turn it into a camp fire. And that’s when the world will notice who you are.”

Whitehouse identifies herself as a Basset-hound loving Redneck from South Carolina and milks that image for all its worth. Understanding who you are and what excites you is the first step. Then if you want to raise your profile, the Whitehouse formula is based on creating content that reflects your passions and using every available platform to let people know who you are and what you think.

Early in her career, her rambunctious inner character was a source of stress: “I almost got fired at Deloitte.” But she eventually came to the realisation, “You don’t have to fake it to be who you are.”

She explains how putting on the act of a successful professional was limiting her effectiveness. “We had to dress for success from our first day at work - with one of those grey suits with those little ties that make it hard to breathe.”

“How effective do you think we can be? I can’t use Excel spreadsheets effectively if I’m thinking of that stuff.”

Like Kyte, Whitehouse’s passion drew her towards writing and performing. “It took making partner to convince me to leave, and that’s when it started working for me.”

Whitehouse uses the things she loves and hates proved as a rich source of material. “Whenever I hear the word ecosystem, I want to pull my hair out. Do not talk about the freaking ecosystem. Stop saying that stuff!”

And like all the best comedy, there was a serious point to what she said: “People in companies don’t want people speaking in jargon. They want people who understand their world.”

“What you should care about is finding a way to connect… It’s not about you. It’s about knowing what they want to hear and caring enough about your audience to do something to help them.”

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Head of woman
By Rebecca Cave
03rd Jan 2016 09:40

"What you should care about is finding a way to connect…"

How true!

All accountants should realise that their clients don't want to hear jargon - they want thier adviser to understand their world. This equally applies to people who write about business/ tax / accountancy.

 

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