Episode 74:

Hello everyone and welcome to The Upstream Leader podcast. Today, our topic is going to be connection. And in an environment, a society, a profession where it seems like we’ve got all of the technology, but not a lot of true connection, I want to bring in an expert that is helping people get connected, not only where he’s at, but really around the world and building meaningful connection in a number of different ways.

And to do that, I’ve got Rob Brown with me today, and I don’t normally read a bio, Rob, but I just love your bio so much that I’m actually going to read. It’s a short one, but I’m going to read it. “Rob is a dynamic speaker and accomplished expert on reputation, employer brand, talent, career development, and executive presence. He hosts the Accounting Influencers Podcasts with an audience of 32,000 in more than 150 countries. He is based in Nottingham in the UK, which yes is the home of Robin Hood, and has interviewed over a thousand guests, moderated countless panels and shared hundreds of international business conferences. Rob wrote the bestselling book, Build Your Reputation and his TEDx talk, The Personal Brand of You has been viewed over 300,000 times on YouTube. He’s a stroke survivor, committed Christian and a black belt in kickboxing.” Here’s where it gets fun: “He plays chess and backgammon,” both great games, “loves orange chocolate and is allergic to grapefruit.” Rob, I gotta say, I don’t think you’re missing anything on the grapefruit. I’m glad to have you here on The Upstream Leader.

Jeremy, pleasure. And, lovely to be on the side of the microphone because you’ve graced us with your presence on a number of our international panels and shows. So, it’s nice to return the compliment.

Yeah, definitely. I’m glad to have you as the guest today and to be able to talk to you a little bit about connection, because that was actually how we originally were connected, was one of your virtual networking events that you host. But before we get there, I’m jumping ahead of myself. I’m going to start the podcast the way we do every podcast, and that is ask you, Rob, how did you become the leader that you are today?

What a great question to start. And It’s one that probably should be asked of my peers because we are leaders in the eyes of those that behold us generally. But let me guide you through a quick whistle stop tour of Rob Brown, former high school math teacher. So when you’re in a classroom, you’re a leader. I was trying to teach 16 year olds algebra last lesson on a Friday afternoon, and if you can corral that kind of audience, then you’re some kind of a leader. So that was fun, did a few years in Hong Kong and a few years here in the UK teaching. But then found that there was other things out there for me.

So I started my own training company and I fell into professional services insofar as the most technically gifted people in the world, bankers, accountants, lawyers, architects, surveyors, people like that. Technically brilliant, but socially inept, if I can be blunt. And I was teaching them how to sell themselves, how to grow their personal brand, how to build a reputation, how to stand out for what they do in the sea of sameness. So that was all going well, and I created some credibility there. And the zenith of that was writing this book, Build Your Reputation with Wiley. And that idea of how do you stand out in a crowd of people just like you saying the same things. And did the TED talk.

Then I had a stroke. which was unplanned, a brain hemorrhage, and I lost some vision. I’ve got epilepsy now, so I take medication for that and I cannot drive. But in all other respects, I’m still in the game. So that forced me to say no to a few things and recalibrate my life. And I took the decision to go all out for accountants. I had a big firm working with me at that time. I was doing some business development stuff for them, and they were very loyal. But I wasn’t particularly established and well known in accounting. So the next stage of my leadership journey was becoming well known in that niche.

So what I did was start a podcast to interview people. So I’ve essentially become the leader I am by talking to people that are leaders, people like you, on the cold face, the cutting edge, in the trenches. And I’ve become that reporter expert, that reporter leader who gains the consensus and asks everybody what’s going on. So as you’ve been on many of my international panels, I bring people together to talk about key topics. We’ve got one coming up on the future of accounting. We’ve got 80 people taking part in four person panels from all over the world talking about what’s coming up. I just did one on five questions. You were a part of that too. I asked 111 people the same five questions.

And you get such a range of opinions and nuances and perspectives. That makes you a leader. That makes you a thinker or a commentator, if you like. So I’ve developed expertise in that area of knowing what people are thinking and bringing them together and having that diversity of thought. It’s nice actually to be on this show, to talk about my own stuff, because I’m really interested in connection and talent and how people set themselves up in the world with career capital and things like that. So, yeah, that’s how I would say I’ve established my leadership credentials is by listening to other people talk about what really works.

Yeah. And it really is, you’ve become the leader you are through connection. You connected with people one on one through your podcast. You’ve connected, you know, one to many through the Accounting Influencer group. So it makes sense to me. That connection and learning and that desire for continuous improvement would be what led you to where you are.

So let’s talk a little bit about, I want to start with the Accounting Influencers groups that you do and how you build connection, because I will be quite candid—the very first time I saw the invitation, To a speed networking event. I’m not a networking event guy. I’m not the chamber mixer type of guy. Like, I’m not going to go out there and pass out business cards and all these things. But I was intrigued because the way you had it set up, I thought, there’s got to be something to this. I know the people that are going to this thing. There are a lot of people I don’t know, but there are a lot of people that I know. So I’ve got to, I’ve got to, I’ve got to experience it. And I’ve got to say, Rob, you know, It was spectacular. I mean, I made, in a very short time, a ton of great connections. What was the genesis for that? How did you determine that you could bring together an international audience and create meaningful connections five to ten minutes at a time? Because that’s remarkable. 

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. There’s a lot goes on behind the scenes to make it as smooth as you saw. However, you said it at the top of the show, we are more connected than ever before, but perhaps more isolated, more lonely, more bereft. And back before the pandemic, we would have to go to conferences and mixers and networking events and things like that and press the flesh and shake hands and look in the whites of people’s eyes and go to meetings. That’s how we did business. That was old school ways of doing it. But the pandemic showed us that we can develop relationships remotely, but still, how intimate are those connections? And the answer is not very.

I’m sure we’ll talk more about culture, but one of the big drives of getting people back into the office is how do we drive culture by having people remote? It’s very difficult because you can’t bind them and you don’t have those corridor moments and those water cooler gatherings and let’s make a cup of coffee in the kitchen here and talk about life. So the small time stuff isn’t happening.

What I conceived with the speed networking is. A, people want to meet other people. This is not a time to be isolated. B, people are curious. They want to look over the garden wall of their peers and see what’s growing in someone else’s garden, or look in the bait box and say, what are you using to catch those fish? Or, look in the medicine cabinet and say, what are you taking for this? So there’s that innate curiosity of what people are doing, particularly to deal with the tough situations we find ourselves in. And the third thing is people are time poor. So what can you do in a short amount of time to give people some meaningful connections? So we conceived these speed networking events, and you’re right, nobody loves networking. If you love walking into a room full of strangers, virtually, or on premises, you’re odd.

You’re probably not an accountant.

Yeah! And you and I deal with those accountants, bankers, lawyers, and they’re not built for things like that. And neither, you and me are not extroverts, Jeremy. We can stand on a stage and do it, and we can walk into a room and pull that off, but we’re situational extroverts.

Yes.

You’re probably like me in that to recharge your batteries, like many professional people, you’re quite happy in your own company. Watching a movie, playing a game of chess, bit of backgammon, reading a book, anything like that. That’s how you recharge. So, when you couple all those things together, people do want to meet others. People are curious about what’s going on and people are time poor. We now have the technology to do that. I don’t know how the pandemic would have gone down in 1980. Can you imagine?

Mmm. Yeah.

With pagers and fax machines and no mobile phones, no cell phones, it would have been tough. So we’ve got this situation where we say, 75 minutes, come and join the conversation. It’s a very friendly, non threatening invitation. And we say, look, it’s fast, it’s frenetic, you’re going to be in and out of breakout rooms. Zoom helps us do this. Other platforms are available. But we give people guided topics and questions to go at. So being in it, if you’re in a room, you might get five, seven minutes with three or four people and say, look, you just introduce each other. Share your LinkedIn profile. Say hi, tell people what you’re doing. And if you’ve got time, talk about why accountants are not as trusted today as they were 10 years ago. And we’ll throw something like that grenade into the room and let people have at it. And we’ve got about a thousand questions that we can throw into those.

But it is bringing people together. And the guards come down, you’re in your room right there. I’m in my room. It used to be on a conference call. You need a Hollywood style backdrop and the lighting had to be perfect. And you’d be there in your suit and tie. Nowadays, people don’t care, do they? There’s laundry in the background, there’s kids running around, there’s dogs yapping, there’s tradesmen knocking at the door. But the barriers have come down to talking like we are right now, across the Atlantic, in different parts of the world. And people do talk. So they’ve embraced it, which is wonderful. The brand is growing. We just ask people for a few dollars to join in, which we give to charity. But it is bringing people together and having the conversation, and who knows what comes from that.

So you mentioned that we would likely talk about culture, and I’m going to use this as the jumping off point for it. Because you’re right, people are saying culture in a hybrid environment, it’s so tough, it’s hard to create. We don’t have the water cooler moments. I’m not discounting that. In fact, I 100 percent agree. The impromptu meetings in the hallway don’t happen. However, what you just shared might be the secret formula that firms are looking for: a desire to connect a curiosity and a need for urgency because they’re time poor. That’s how you do that in those influencer round tables. Let me ask you this, Rob, is that what a firm needs to do to create culture in a hybrid environment? Do they need to focus in with those three things? The fact that people want to connect, they have a curiosity to learn about one another, but you’ve got to recognize their time poor? Do they, is that part of the secret sauce for creating culture in a hybrid or remote environment?

It must be, mustn’t it? I know you talk a lot about culture and organizational development, Jeremy, with your consulting. You’ve just had me articulate the three ingredients in the secret sauce. And when you ask firms, how do you bind people together in hybrid working environments? They will give you the tactical: we run these meet and greet type things, or we have a barbecue once a year, or we have these weekly catch up calls online or whatever it is. So they’ll have the mechanisms in place, but you’re right, they don’t get behind why those mechanisms work or don’t work.

I just went down a couple of things here. If you look at the world that we’re in right now, many firms are multi-site, multi-office, and those people have never met each other. So there’s that going on. The second thing is firms are multi-firmed. And what I mean by that is the private equity money, all the M&A, the consolidation, the acquisition, firms are being slammed together. So there’s not only different offices, but there’s different firms and different cultures. You look at the culture for Coca Cola, it’s different to the culture at Pepsi or Panda Pops or whatever it is. So you’re throwing these together and you’re saying, right, you guys get in that sandpit and play well together. Play nicely. But they don’t know what culture they’re stepping into and they don’t know what mores and what’s allowed and what isn’t and, how you get on and who you talk to and who you avoid and all of those things that the politics of it all.

So yeah, maybe the common threads are don’t get isolated, stay connected. Be curious and hungry, because that’s career development in its essence. “He’s wanting to know more and learn more.” Build your network. And I love that quote by Harvey Mackay, who wrote Swim With the Sharks. He said, dig your well before you’re thirsty. So that idea of lining your little black book, if you like, with people, even before you need them. Don’t be a stranger, don’t get isolated. And then that urgency of short, sharp, in, out. But it’s swift, it’s impactful, it’s meaningful, it’s structured, it’s perhaps guided. It’s not just going there and have a chat. And thankfully, people are more comfortable in front of a webcam and a microphone now than they ever were. Even accounting types. When you interview the partners, they’re a little bit awkward, but they know they’ve got to do it and they’ve become accustomed to it. So yeah. It’s all geared up for it. Let me just ask you real quick, what do you think of this movement trying to get people back to work under the auspices of generating culture and keeping people together?

I understand where it’s coming from. I genuinely do. I believe that it is a bit misguided in the fact that a lot of firms or a lot of leaders are saying, hey, we need to bring people together because culture is easier to create in person. If you’re looking to create a culture rather than just let a culture happen, it’s hard no matter where you do it, because it requires intentionality and it requires a lot of deliberate efforts and actions, much like how you set up, as you said, right? All the stuff behind the scenes for AIR to work requires a lot of planning and intentionality. If you’re trying to truly create culture, it’s going to be hard no matter where you’re at.

Yep.

And I grew up in one of the firms you talked about. Multi-office, multi-location, multi-state here in the US. I had team members everywhere. So I know for a fact it can work and that you don’t have to be in the same office to have a great culture. Is it easier to let culture happen? Yeah, it is because of the impromptu things, but just letting it happen doesn’t mean you’re creating what you want. And that’s what I believe is the big miss for a lot of folks that are saying, well, if we get everybody back in person, it’ll just happen. You can’t guarantee that what you want to happen will happen in person or remote.

No, that’s a really good point because pre-pandemic, we’ve seen really lousy cultures, haven’t we, and really good ones. I’m just thinking too of the drive back to the office, as you rightly said, is coming from leaders, but hey, aren’t they the ones with the shortest commutes because they can afford the bigger houses in the city next to the office, or are they the ones with a big corner office and the nice windows and not in the cubicles? So there’s every incentive for them to want to be back in the office.

Of course.

The productivity argument, what do you make of that? There’s this conflict in research, isn’t there, that you can be more or less productive away from or at the office?

I’ve never believed, and this goes back to the early 2000s, I’ve never believed productivity was location-specific. I started my career as an auditor, I dabbled, I was not an auditor, I dabbled very briefly, and then I was an investigator. I didn’t do anything, I did Very little work in the office because you can’t investigate a company in the early 2000s from your office. You had to be on site. I was productive there. I was productive in a hotel and an airplane. I’ve never believed that location determines productivity because I’ve seen far too many unproductive people sitting in the cubicle next to me.

Here are two things that the “get back to the office, let’s build a culture” has going for it. Jeremy, as I see it, you may add some more, but let’s ask ourselves, what can’t you get by working away from the office? One thing you cannot get is the mentoring, the coaching, the informal looking over the shoulder, the, hey, what are you doing there? How’s that going? How can I help you with that? You don’t get that if you’re working remotely. You are isolated. You don’t have those impromptu conversations. That’s really difficult. And you and I both know that the majority of the learning that happens, the career development, is in between the lines.

Yeah.

It’s in those impromptu conversations. So that’s one argument for getting people back. Connection, as you set the show up. The other argument for it is innovation. So where do ideas get sparked? It’s hard to spark it in a Zoom room because you can’t fully guarantee that everyone’s in the room. They might be on the screen, but their mind might be somewhere else, in their inbox or something, and you can’t know that. I’m sure you’re not doing your emails right now as we’re talking, but that’s the point.

So innovation, ideas, creativity. Crossing swords. The Bible in Proverbs says that iron sharpens iron. It’s that sharpening of one another’s minds and that diversity of thought, which in a structured online meeting with a set agenda, you don’t really have the space for, but in a corridor conversation or a coffee or a lunch, you would. So, the innovation argument and the mentoring/coaching argument, they’re the very building blocks of culture. So we can talk about those.

They are. My concern with that is, we’re making the arguments built on the assumption that people will take the time to do the things that you just talked about.

That’s fair.

And if they don’t take the time, it’s not going to matter who is where. Secondarily, you and I are completely on different sides of the Atlantic right now, right? You’re in the UK, I’m in the middle of the US. We could be very innovative if we had a specific purpose of meeting for innovation.

True.

And there are a lot of multinational companies that are very innovative. And the innovation doesn’t necessarily come because two people are in the same room. But it was more so that the company allowed for individuals to have time to be innovative. And I think, I believe again, it’s that difference between, are we assuming that it will happen just because we’re together, or are we going to be intentional about making sure that it happens when we’re together? And that intentionality is so important. I’m going to pose a question to you that’s tangential, but very related, if I may. Would the Accounting Influencer Roundtable Group that you run be as effective in your mind in person?

We do have an in person element to it. We have two levels. Our ad business level is an international group of people that meet monthly on Zoom once, for 90 minutes. And we talk about, we’re a group that sells to and through accountants, Jeremy. We serve the accounting profession. It’s not a group of accountants, it’s influencers of accountants, list holders of accountants. So we talk about what’s working? How are we opening doors for one another? How are we building strategic partnerships? How are we getting the attention in the year of accountants and CPAs?

So yeah, we have an in person group too, that meets in the United Kingdom here in the central part of England every three months. And we meet on a lunchtime on day one. We mastermind in the afternoon. We break bread and eat dinner together in the evening. We stay over, we have breakfast together. We mastermind again the next morning and we leave at lunchtime and we go back home. So there is that, and that’s the most intimate experience of AIR, as we call it, the Accounting Influences Roundtable. So there’s definitely something to be said for that intimacy and connection that you get face to face. With a hug, with a handshake, with a look in the eyes that you don’t get elsewhere.

Now, can you develop intimacy online? Yes, but as you rightly say, you’ve got to be so intentional with it. And what do you say to where culture comes from? That’s got to be modeled by the leadership, hasn’t it? That’s got to be made example of, that’s got to be shown to be happening at the senior levels of a firm to almost say, look, It’s good enough for you. It’s good enough for us. We’re doing it. You do it too. And this is the benefits of doing it. Otherwise, why would people?

There’s got to be a business case and it’s got to be modeled by leadership, like you said. My concern is that so many leaders are wanting to go back to the office because it’s the way it was before the pandemic. And it’s that desire for “normal” the way that normal used to exist. And as a result, the intentionality isn’t necessarily there. It’s more of an assumed it will happen if we do this. Think about your in person meeting that you just said. That group probably has a different level of connection than the group that meets online on a monthly basis.

It does.

But you’ve got to be very intentional with what you do that, those two days. If you just said, hey, we’re all going to get together in the center of England for two days, but we don’t really have a structure. We don’t have a plan for it. We’re not sure about meals. We’ll kind of figure it out when we get there.It wouldn’t be as effective. You still got to be very intentional. And the same thing for the online. Again, you have a clear purpose for that, and you can create that connection. That’s what I hope leaders will look at is, are we willing to be intentional with whatever approach that we take?

Well, let’s, I want to talk about leaders as a demographic, as a bucket of people, but just before I do: You can’t compare a two day face to face experience with a 90 minute Zoom call because all relationships are a factor of time spent in, on, with, around people. And even if you’re online, the longer you spend with people, the more you will get to know them. That generally is the case. But let’s talk leaders. If we think generationally, Jeremy, and you speak a lot about this. The generation coming through, Gen Ys, Gen Zs, whatever you want to call them, the alpha generation that are in school right now, they’re coming through, and they’re a different breed. And if we look at the leaders, they tend to be the baby boomers, the Gen Xs, the 45s to 65s. Most of the leaders now are within five years of retirement age. If not, they’re already there. So what do leaders have a vested interest in? The status quo, or the good old fashioned way it used to be, or the partnership model, or the equity based approach, or the traditional firm structures, or getting people in the office the way it was, the old school. So that’s where their mind is at.

And sure, we’re generalizing and we’re stereotyping, but there is a generation of people coming through that won’t tolerate that. They don’t want a job for life. They don’t, they won’t come to work and give of their best on the promise of a partnership in 10 to 15 years after being chained to a desk doing 60, 70 hours a week. They want meaningful work. They want it now. They want interesting, engaging work. You talk to them all the time and they tell you this. These emerging leaders, they want work on their terms. And they’re willing to compromise to do it insofar as to get work life balance. You can’t be doing a 90 minute commute every day. That doesn’t stack up.

So as these people come into the marketplace and move into leadership positions, and take the place of the current leaders we’ve got in place that are trying to preserve the status quo and get people back in, you’re going to have a great shift in what a modern firm looks like and the way that they work. And I’m sure in some of the progressive firms you deal with and you’re advising, you’re seeing that already.

Yeah, and the important part of that is approaching it through the lens of what’s best for the business. Not what’s my personal preference as a leader. And that’s what differentiates.

And even what’s best for the client.

Yeah, exactly. Business is, it’s got to be good for the people. It’s got to be good for the client. It’s got to make sense. It can’t just be a personal preference. And what’s interesting, Rob, is so many of the leaders that are nearing retirement, right? They’re getting close. They want to preserve the status quo. If you talk to them, there are quite a few of them that would say, if I had another 15 years, I totally want to make that change, but I’ve got three. Now I’ve got a few that are in that five year range that are like, I would rather have 15 years, but I don’t.

I’m on the clock!

But we’ve still got to make the change, right? I don’t want to do it. It’s I’m right at the, I really, it’s going to be painful, but it’s the right thing to do. And it does all go back to connection. At the end of the day, it’s how do you keep people connected to one another, to the firm, to its purpose, to its mission, to its values, to its clients. It’s all about creating that connection. It just takes effort. And I’m with you, right? I’m not trying to advocate for 90 minute Zoom calls instead of two day in-person. And I love in-person masterminds. I’m a huge fan of those. But I also know that you can build super meaningful relationships virtually. And in fact, I have a coach that I’ve worked with over the past 18 months that I met at one of your roundtables, one of the speed networking events. She’s based in the UK and we’ve worked together for the last 12 to 18 months. We’ve never met in person. In fact, we’ve only met over Zoom, but we’ve been intentional to create that meaningful connection. And at the end of the day, what leaders need to understand is there are so many ways to create connection, but every single one of them requires intentionality. And there’s a new way of connection that I want to dive into if I may, but go ahead.

Well, I was going to ask you when you help firms make those connections and you tell them about intentionality, they will naturally ask you, well, how do we do that? It goes beyond wanting to do it and being willing to do it and being motivated to do it. There are certain mechanisms or processes or structures that need to be in place, certain examples that need to be set. So how do you even start them down that road, Jeremy?

It’s different in every firm, and a lot of it is based on the culture that they already have. I had somebody recently ask me, do I think there will be a place for in person, fully in person firms in the future? And I do. I think that there will be certain individuals that want to be at a firm that is fully in person. I think there will be some that will be fully remote. It’s a bell curve, right? And they’re going to be the extremes. Most are going to be hybrid. Some iteration of multi office or, you know, multi location, agnostic. But you’ve got to figure out what is your firm’s culture and what does it take to maintain that? What are the connections that are required? To keep that in place, or if you want a better culture, what do you need to be doing to create the culture that you want?

Because the culture, it’s the behaviors. It’s the behaviors that people exhibit, even when nobody’s looking. It’s just simply the way that you act. And I haven’t found an off the shelf solution. I would love to create the off the shelf solution, Rob, right? That would work for every single firm in the world, and this is the perfect way to do it. But every firm is as unique as its people and its leaders, and there’s not one way that will work for everybody.

Well, can I give you an example of a way that has worked, that I’ve seen in a firm?

Sure, I’d love to, yeah.

If I can name check a firm, this is a CPA firm called BRC, Bernard Robinson & Company, based in North Carolina, 200 person firm, 11 offices. A lot of those people have never seen each other. I’ve worked with them for a year and my role in that firm, although I’ve only ever met the managing partner, because my daughter is studying in North Carolina, so we went over there and I interviewed Lori Kelly for our podcast, but they have an amazing culture that puts profitability as one of the values, but not the only one. And they put flexibility and work life balance really high on the agenda. And they brand that firm as a forever firm, and they have people there that have been there for years and never left.

And I interview them. I interview the staff and partners at all level, entry level and senior level, and they do attract a lot of good talent at all levels, particularly those lateral strategic hires. People that get to 40s and 50s and say, what am I doing here? Is this really the firm I want to be in? And I interview the people just as you and I are online right now and say, what’s it like working there? Oh, it’s great. Why is it great? Well, it’s a wonderful culture. Well, what makes the culture great? And that really makes them think, because they take it for granted. They’re drinking the Kool Aid, they’re in the soup, and they don’t realize that it’s different at all the other firms out there. They think it’s normal. But we then get telling stories about, well, I can pick up my kids from school if I want to, or I can look after my elderly parents if I need to. And if I need to drop something in busy season, I know my colleagues will pick it up because I do the same for them.

So you start to get into all of these and you think, where is this coming from? And you know what? It’s been in the firm for years. And it definitely comes top down, and all the senior partners do it. They don’t expect you to be answering emails at 12 midnight, and they don’t expect you to be coming in at 8 o’clock in the morning, but if you do come in at 8, they won’t mind if you leave at 3, so long as the job gets done, the clients are happy, and it’s not all about profitability and billable hours. Now you and I could go into the chargeable hour and talk a lot about that, but they have set this culture top down and it’s been going for such a long time that as soon as somebody steps into that culture with a little bit of suspicion, is this really too good to be true? Is this really what it’s like? They promised me it from the outside. They’ve hired me in, but I still don’t believe it. But within a few days, they know that it’s for real.

And it’s only by getting them talking about it and being ambassadors of their own employer brand, that they can imbue that culture throughout the firm, almost to the point where they’ve got a library of these videos now, where somebody gets hired, they play them these videos and say, hey, when you step into our culture, here’s our own people telling you what it’s like. Here’s our own people telling you how they managed Their teams and what it’s like working for them. Here’s our own people saying, if you do need to have a life, here’s how you do it. Or if you need to push on and get on the fast track, here’s how you do that as well. And when it comes from your own people at all levels, not just a website with a brand statement and a set of promises, because all firms have that. Muhammad Ali, the boxer, used to say, it ain’t bragging if you’ve done it. And this firm has their own people, not always comfortable, like we said earlier, getting in front of a camera, being interviewed by somebody, but they will come on camera and say, this is a great place to work because, and it’s fun working here because, and I’ve stayed here because, and I’ve resisted the temptation and the lure of headhunters and recruitment firms to go somewhere else because. And it’s everything that comes after the because that defines the culture.

Yeah, and those videos, going back to our theme of connection, it sounds like they’re using those, and correct me if I’m wrong, they’re using those videos to create asynchronous connection with new hires? It sounds like it’s one of the ways that they’re using those is, hey, you’re new, right? You’re welcome, onboarding. Is that to create asynchronous connection? Connection in an asynchronous way, which is kind of a new approach that a lot of firms aren’t thinking about, right? We’ve talked about connection has to be in person or together virtually live. Now you’re shifting to asynchronous. Is that fair?

Well, asynchronous is the new way forward. It’s got to be, hasn’t it? If we’re working hybrid and you’re working on your timeline and your schedule, that definitely won’t be mine because there’s no such thing as a nine to five now. You start early, finish early, and I start late and finish late, and I like weekends and you don’t, and it’s all different. So getting two people in the same room at the same time with the same energy and the same headspace is so difficult these days. So to your point, yes, it’s welcome to the firm, in an asynchronous way that they can pick up and immediately be imbued with a culture. But it’s also for the people that have been there some time, but still never met each other. But then they turn up for the annual barbecue or whatever it is. The one day get together, bring your families and they can then say, hey, Jeremy, I already know you. I know we’ve never met, but I already know you because we’ve had some chats. So there’s that familiarity, the barriers are down because they feel like that’s the guy that does the CrossFit on the weekend, and he’s the guy that does the cycling and she’s the woman that has her three dogs and four cats and whatever it is. And you build trust and glue like that when you can talk for 5, 10 minutes to somebody about nothing to do with work.

That’s interesting, Rob. That’s, in thinking about connection and thinking about culture and everything about that, the discussion has always been, to this point at least, live or virtual, right? In person or virtual. You’re introducing asynchronous. Which is saying that there’s actually a third possibility as to how you can do this. You can connect in person, you can connect online, or you can connect when they’re able to connect. And that sounds really powerful.

I guess I am. Well, think about where we see this. I’m married, but if I wasn’t, would I go on a dating app? But a dating app is asynchronous connecting. You are looking at somebody in your time when it’s convenient for you, and it’s a video of them, or it’s a picture of them, and a bio of them. And so you only come together if you fix up that first date, and you both swipe the right way, and something happens. But yes, my schedule is not yours. My priorities are not yours, but somewhere along the line, we’ve got to come together. So if I can come together armed and dangerous, for want of a better phrase, and I know a little bit about you so that by the time I shake your hand or give you a hug or look you in the eye and introduce you to my family or whatever that looks like, if I feel I know some of you, and I’ve invested a little bit in getting to know you, that needn’t happen synchronously. It can happen on my time and on your time, but we come to, it’s intention. You said it. I want to know more about the people in the firm. I want to know more about my colleagues. I don’t want to go to that annual firm get together with 200 people and just know the people in my office that I meet with every week.

Yeah, and how much more powerful is that bio?

You’ve got to invest some time in people.

Rather than just reading something on a paper, right, on the website, they went to this college, they did this thing, what have you, five minute video, what they love about the firm, or even let’s take this another step, just almost like an introductory video when they join the firm. Hey, everybody’s going to share a little bit. And there’s going to be this place, this repository online in the intranet of the firm that if I’ve got a meeting with Rob next week and we’ve never met, I can at least go see Rob on video just describing a little bit about Rob so that when we get there, I’ve already got a little bit of connection because I have something to talk about. And I’m wondering if that’s part of the next step.

Well, here’s another dimension to it, Jeremy. We know about the talent shortage these days, the pipeline, less and less people are coming into accounting. I interview the leaders and the managers to create little video snippets that they put on their website to attract talent. Says, hey, yeah, my name’s Julie. I’m a managing partner at this firm, BRC, and working for me looks like this. Now they don’t say it like that, but I say, hi, I’m here with Julie. She’s a partner at BRC. And, Julie, what kind of a boss would you say you are? Well, I guess I’m this kind of person. And who’s influenced you in your journey to be a leader? What shaped you? Who has shaped you? And they talk a bit about that. And then I say, well, what’s it like working for you? So this manager, this boss who will maybe be In the interview room hiring, recruiting you, if you apply for a job, you immediately get a sense of what it’s like working for that person. It’s not, we’re a great place to work, we develop our people, we invest in you, we put our people, all the trite things that you hear. It’s real people saying, hey, now just come and work for me, come and work for me and my team here in this office. We’re dealing with this sector, this niche. We do this kind of work. This is what it’s like working for me. This is what I’m like as a boss.

And I’ll ask tough questions like, how do you deliver bad news to somebody that’s perhaps dropped the ball or not come through on something or failed to deliver on a promise or let a client down? So they talk me through that. How do you deal with people that are smarter than you, who want to get past your job to the job above it? How do you deal with those? Some people are threatened by that. So they give me those answers. So not only do you see people as peers, with the video stuff and the sharing the story stuff, but you see them as bosses and employers and okay, now I get a sense for what stepping into that culture is going to be like, because you know, more than anyone, people don’t leave a bad company or a bad job so much as they do a bad boss.

Well, and going back to the idea of creating connection and online. Right there in the hiring process you almost, “weed out” is the wrong term perhaps, but…

Filter.

Filter. Yeah. Filter sounds much more politically correct. We’ll go with filter and qualify, but somebody is going to look at that video, and there’s really like, I can’t work with somebody that does that. Like that style is not going to work for me. So I’m not going to even keep going in the interview. And some people may hear that and be like, oh, but that seems really, look, they just saved you months of you having to figure out that they’re not the right fit. If they already know they’re not the right fit, even in a tight labor market, you’re better off finding that out earlier rather than later. And just having that perpetual challenge of it’s never. So I love this fact that you’re helping people not only connect as developed professionals in the, influencer, the Accounting Influencer round table group, right? Those are seasoned professionals. You’ve now really gone full circle back to the beginning in a way, where you’re helping people that are about to join the profession connect with leaders and firms in a new way that allows them to understand whether or not it’s a good connection from the beginning. And I think that proves again, you don’t have to only be in person to start building connection.

Yeah.

Right? Because you’re doing that through video across the Atlantic. Yes, there’s way more value in person, but it’s not either or is what I’m kind of coming down through this conversation. Connection is not in person or remote. It is both. It’s hybrid.

Well, just to finish off that point, what happens when I interview people at BRC, the leaders, is they are actually all on the same page. They’re of one accord. So you wouldn’t actually look at them and say, I don’t want to work for you, but I want to work for you because when you ask them the questions, the same answers come out. How do you have a tough conversation?

Sure. You may know, I don’t want to be at the company.

Yeah.

Because I don’t like that style of leadership.

Yeah, sure. But they are of similar styles in the leadership because that’s how they’ve been led at that firm. And they’ve probably been there a long time. But let’s talk about video for a moment. We know that video is the channel of choice for the younger generation. And you and me are probably on TikTok and Insta and YouTube and everything else. We’re of an age too. So firms get video wrong, Jeremy. We know it’s a great conduit for connection and familiarity, as we’ve proved right here. However, the way to get video wrong is to ask your people to turn on their webcams and talk about how great the firm is. That’s the first way to get it wrong, because they will freeze. And what do they say? Oh, they’ll write out a script and it will be very script delivered like a robot. The second way to get video wrong is, let’s bring in a film crew. Let’s make it Hollywood, makeup, lights, camera, action, script, let’s get images of our people laughing happily in the cubicles and the offices and walking the corridors and doing great work. But equally, that’s very contrived. It’s all too Hollywood.

So what we found is the most authentic way to tell a story about how well connected people are is to jump on a chat like you and I are right now. I know it’s a podcast, but we’re doing video as well. And we’re having that conversation and that fireside chat and the barriers do come down because it’s a different style of video. You’re just asking them questions and most people are quite happy to answer, not too probing a question, but how did you get started? One of the questions I love asking is, Jeremy, what were you like at 16? Did you want to be an accountant? And what were you, we’re all about the numbers. What was your first job?

Yeah.

And I can see your face lighting up with that question. What was your first job? Anyway, tell us, tell the audience.

Let’s see, would have been working in the office of my grandpa’s construction company, probably. Doing as you might guess the accounting.

But that’s a, you’ve got a smile on your face as you tell a story, you’ve got some memories. So yeah. Taking people back to where it all began as a CPA, as an accountant, that’s a great way to loosen tongues. And that story, how did you get started? You asked me at the beginning, how did you become the leader that you are? And everyone’s got a story to tell, and it’s a meandering tale of ups and downs and sideways glances and wrong moves and great triumphs and luck and everything else. And it’s colorful, but it’s people. And people are complex, emotional creatures. And if we are not intentional with them, then you just go through the motions. Don’t you? And I guess that’s where we’re coming to, isn’t it, here?

Yeah, it really is. And Rob, that is probably the best way to summarize our conversation here today is we’re complex, emotional creatures, and we’ve got to be intentional to create that connection. And there are so many ways to do it. We’ve explored a number of those ways throughout the discussion today, and all of them require purpose. You had to know why you were doing it and be intentional with that.

Can I just add one more thing, Jeremy, just to finish this off?

Please, Rob, please do.

There’s a missing element that we haven’t really covered here that I’ve learned along the way, particularly after having my stroke. It’s that there’s a certain amount of grace involved in intentionality. And what I mean by that is you’re not revealing everything to me or people that you talk to, but everybody’s contending with something. Everybody’s got something going on. Everybody’s got some issues. Nobody’s got a perfect life. Very few people have perfect health or perfect family or everything else. We’ve all got something going on. So by grace, I mean, yielding, being a little bit softer, cutting people some slack, because we don’t know what’s going on behind the eyes. We don’t know what’s going on when the camera turns off and you’ve got to get back to what you were doing. We don’t know what people’s inboxes are like, their voicemails, their family situation, their home situation. So in intentionally building connection with people, we must add the caveat to show some grace, some understanding, some empathy, to not be judgmental and ultimately to be really grateful for what you have got. Because, don’t they say that your worst day at work is someone else’s dream job? And comparisons don’t help us. So let’s be gracious and intentional. Let’s cut people some slack. Let’s make allowances. And if people want to offload and open up a little bit, great. We don’t judge that because nobody’s got life sorted and God promises a great tomorrow to nobody.

So I’d add that in as well, that in an online world, we’ve all got stuff going on behind the camera and show a little bit of allowance for that and you will build much better, more intimate relationships because people will afford you the same.

Yeah. And I’ll, expand that to the in-person as well. You never know when somebody walks out their door and gets in their car and drives home. We have no idea. And it really is that. Humanize people, right? We’re all human beings. Yes, we may have different titles. We may have different roles. We may all portray that everything’s working well, but we never really know what’s going on behind the scenes.

Particularly the most successful people you would look at and think, wow, they’ve really got it together. Yeah, you take celebrities. We think they’ve got such a wonderful life, but there are a litany of addictions and broken relationships and failed marriages and everything else. So we’re holding them up as the extreme, but a lot of the leaders that we see, they really bring it home for the staff and bring it together and look terrific and really play the part. But they’re going back to some tough situations and it’s not all that it seems. So, which is part of the art of being a leader. I know you talk to a lot of leaders and this acting the part and set in the example, but some of them in tough circumstances. So kudos to them for that.

Definitely. And for some of them, understanding when it’s okay to peel back the veneer a little bit and share, because that creates…

Be vulnerable. Very good point.

…creates all of that really meaningful connection. Well, Rob, I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. We could probably talk for hours on end—however, we probably do need to wrap things up. Before we do though. Where can folks find you if they want to learn more about you, your work, your podcast, or the Accounting Influencers Roundtable community?

Thank you, Jeremy. LinkedIn is the place where I live the most. Searching for Rob Brown on LinkedIn is pretty easy. And AccountingInfluencers.com is where people can have a look at the speed networking events that we run and they’re for accountants and coaches, consultants, trainers, CPAs, bookkeepers, leaders, people lower down the food chain, but we say, come to the conversation and talk about accounting and have that peer over the garden wall. So that’s AccountingInfluencers.com. And you are very welcome to join us for those. But yeah, it’s been a really fun conversation and what a wonderful theme is connection, because if there’s something we need in the world right now, to bring everything together and overcome a lot of the challenges that we’re facing, it’s got to be that consensus, that harmony that comes from connection. So I’ve loved it.

Yeah, definitely a very powerful tool that we can all utilize and arguably utilize a lot more of. Well, Rob, thank you so much for joining me on The Upstream Leader Podcast. I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Pleasure to be online. Thank you, Jeremy.