Thinking Differently

When he served as governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller forged a reputation for looking at problems differently than the norm.

One time a staffer approached him and explained that the reason one of Rockefeller’s pet infrastructure projects could not be approved was a lack of funding.

“The problem is money,” the disappointed colleague told the governor.

“No,” said Rockefeller. “Money is the solution. The problem is where to get it.”

Theories on how to approach problems and business differently are about in as short a supply as January icicles in Minneapolis.

Or the roughly 10,000 opinions on how to improve your golf backswing.

But I digress.

About two years ago, I read one of the more interesting books on business leadership  titled “Start With Why,” written by an Englishman named Simon Sinek which posits the theory that great leaders and innovators come to work each day inspired and examines the reasons why they do what they do and not the what they do.

And to think differently.

Here’s an example using something most of us come into contact with every day – a computer.

“At Acme Computer Co. we make great computers, they’re beautifully designed, easy to use. Want to buy one?

Now compare that to a tagline used by Apple.

“Everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo. We think differently. The way we do that is by making our products beautifully designed and easy to use. And we also happen to make great computers.”

See the difference?

Now what if you employed Sinek’s theory at your CPA firm?

“At John Doe & Partners our experienced principals provide clients expert tax, accounting and consulting services.”

According to Sinek that’s the “what” not the “why.”

Now let’s tweak that a bit.

“At John Doe & Partners we share and understand our client’s values and needs as we work together to assist them in reaching their strategic goals.”

You often hear about the importance of distinguishing yourself from the competition, and with roughly 100,000 firms in the U.S, marketplace, that’s probably sage advice.

Change has never been a strong suit within the accounting community and admittedly it’s hard to break from a century or so of tradition.

But the reality is that’s it’s a far different marketplace than 30 years ago, or for that matter even a decade ago.

As many of you slowly come out of tax season hibernation now may be the time to think differently about your business going forward.

Or you can simply dust off last year’s model and cross your fingers that your competitors will do the same.