11 Dec 09 Dropping Pianos on Accountants

‘Accountancy Recruitment’ is a two word title, both words being metaphors for ‘sedative’. Have you ever seen a job ad for an accountant that read “…exciting opportunity for the right accountant”? It is somehow not believable, an oxymoron. My first thought is that the ‘right accountant’ would have to have so little electrical activity in the brain that magnolia paint would be an exciting opportunity.

But then every now and again you come across an article such as Chris Cutting’s what happens when you drop a piano on an accountant. The point he makes is that in a given set of circumstances there will be many who will follow the same set of ‘rules’. The things you always do, the sum total of experience and education. For most, the temptation is, when something goes wrong, to tighten your resolve and do more of the same things as properly as you know how. The result is that you end up doing it wrong again, only this time thoroughly.

Those who know me, will know that one of my favourite phrases is “If you keep doing what you do, you’ll keep getting what you get”. For marketeers and designers, this is a self-evident truth. People will call us in to make a difference and then systematically try to force us to spontaneously provide exactly what they had that they decided needed changing. I once worked at BP and we had a load of consultants swanning about the place. If you went to fetch a coffee, they would declare your seat a ‘Hot desk’, sit there and not leave it until the end of the contract. But one such consultant from Andersens imparted the following wisdom upon me. “If it ain’t broke …break it”. It basically means that you can keep doing something for years and watch it work. Then one day it won’t work, the world changed while you weren’t looking. But because you have always done things the same way, it leaves you bereft of alternatives.

The points he, and Chris Cutting make is a good one. His is remedial, suggesting that you need to periodically tear down systems and proceedures and rebuild them. Chris’s, on the other hand, is preventative. He says that you need to find the sort of person who will have it within them to look up from time to time, spot the problem and break the inertia to avoid the problem.

For the right accountant, that is an exciting opportunity, and I imagine that finding the right accountant is not always the easiest thing to do.

The only thing I would add, is that if anyone does manage to drop a piano on an accountant, can they film it and get it on YouTube – there are lots of good SEO, Social Media and Marketing reasons why you should.