Behind the numbers: listen up

I’ll give you a couple of examples, both sourced from last week’s ICAEW annual dinner.

We stoked no small amount of controversy last month with a poll that revealed 45% of accountants believe professional bodies are an irrelevance. I could write endless columns on the results (not least pointing out that the findings were almost exactly the same as when we ran a similar survey eight years ago) but I’ll concentrate on one aspect.

ICAEW president Richard Dyson devoted his speech to dismissing the results themselves as an irrelevance. I felt he was wrong, though, of course I would. Wrong because he seemed to be shooting the messenger because the findings made for uncomfortable viewing. His instinctive reaction, it seemed, was to question the validity of the poll, not the reasons why so many accountants have so little affinity to their professional body.

Later at the same event Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP made a wide-ranging and stimulating speech about business challenges. He boiled them down to two: China as an icon for Asia and the internet as an icon for technological change.

That short summary doesn’t do his speech justice – he also identified the growing power of retailers, the influence of CSR and the importance of taking your people with you in these uncertain times. It was, in short, important stuff.

Yet the audience appeared indifferent. Many were clearly fearful, some were no doubt dwelling on the irony of inviting a branding man along to an institute that had taken so much flak for a rebranding of its own. And at least one guest on my table had nodded off. There wasn’t a whole lot of listening – in its most accurate sense – going on.

I don’t mean to single out the institute for particular criticism here as these examples reminded me of many conversations I have had with partners, finance directors and regulators over the years. Conviction is always in much greater supply than consultation.

Seniority demands belief and accountants are paid handsomely to advise. However scratch beneath the surface of the writings of many management theorists (re-read Peter Drucker’s The Frontiers of Management if you’re in any doubt) and you’ll see listening is a skill that has to be nurtured like any other. I sometimes wonder whether accountants do it often enough.

Damian Wild is the managing editor of AccountancyAge