In this episode, Jennifer Wilson sits down with long-time friend and fellow leader, Jim Blake. Jim is the Chief Operating Officer of Mazars and has been a member of the firm’s Executive Board for 12 years. He has over 30 years of experience providing attest, tax and advisory services primarily to privately-owned businesses and private equity firms in the manufacturing and distribution sector. In his role as COO, Jim has works hard to practice vulnerability and transparency as a leader, sharing his goals, passions and struggles with others, so that they will share theirs with him. Listen in to learn how Jim began his vulnerability journey, why he feels this quality is important for leaders to possess, how this quality prepared and supported him as a leader during the pandemic, and his advice on how to encourage vulnerability in senior leaders. Hear his views on the importance of structure when integrating transparency into your role as a leader.

Inspired Ideas

Developing Vulnerability and Transparency in Leadership

Episode 9 of our Inspired Ideas Podcast series features a discussion between Jennifer Wilson, ConvergenceCoaching Partner and Co-Founder, and Amy Vetter. Amy is a CPA, Yogi, Technologist, Keynote Speaker and CEO of The B3 Method® Institute. In this episode, Jen and Amy explore the theme of generosity in leadership. Together they explore why generosity matters in leadership and what generous attributes look like in practice. They talk about what it means to be selfless and the importance of ditching a one-size-fits-all approach with your people; each of whom bring unique strengths, talents and challenges to the table. Jen and Amy talk about the unfortunate examples of selfish leadership, too. Listen in to join their chat about how transparency, vulnerability, gratitude, rapport-building, providing feedback, empowering your people and other key ideas lead to a culture of generosity.

Generous Leadership: Driving Trust and Empowering Growth

Episode 8 of our Inspired Ideas Podcast series features a discussion between Brianna Johnson, ConvergenceCoaching consultant, and Aaron Ackerman, Partner at HoganTaylor, and a graduate of our Transformational Leadership Program™ (TLP). In this episode, Brianna and Aaron explore the original goals and progression of what started as Aaron’s TLP project - weaving business development into his firm’s cultural fabric and helping all employees learn how they can play a part. They also discuss HoganTaylor’s consulting practice and how the firm is creating growth by providing value-added services for clients. Listen in for ideas about making the shift toward more advisory services and getting your people involved in the rainmaking game.

Evolving to An Advisory, Difference Making Culture

In this episode, Brianna interviews Alisha Jernack, Senior Manager at Mazars USA LLP and graduate of our Transformational Leadership Program™ (TLP)about her personal business development strategy. After TLP, Alisha completed our Rainmaker Development Program® (RDP) and has made business development a regular part of her daily work and professional goals. In this episode, she shares how her rainmaking efforts began and provides ideas for others hoping to get more involved in developing business for their firms. She also speaks to the importance of choosing strategic activities that align with your service line or industry focus. Tune into this discussion to discover how you can create your own personal marketing and business development strategy that leads to more revenue generation for your practice and firm. And, be sure to read the show notes for this one, where Alisha shares how she’s been developing her brand and increasing her visibility during the COVID-19 crisis.

Becoming a NextGen Rainmaker

In this episode, Renee interviews Justin Hayes, Director at KSM, about his firm’s remote audit approach. This session is a don’t-miss as your firm approaches your audits remotely during this crisis and after the crisis passes, too. KSM had been using remote audits primarily with out-of-town audit engagements at the time we talked and then COVID-19 happened. KSM’s experience with remote auditing made for a quick pivot to completely remote auditing during this crisis. Listen to some of Justin’s critical tips and tricks for running a successful remote audit, hear how his firm creates buy-in with their clients and how Justin has developed buy-in for remote service delivery from fellow audit leaders. After this crisis, there may be a strong pull to go back to the “old normal” in firms – but instead, we can continue to continue to conduct a higher percentage of each audit remotely.

Remote Audit Advice from An Early Adopter

In this special ConvergenceCoaching 20th Anniversary episode of our Inspired Ideas podcast, partner Tamera Loerzel sits down with co-founders Jennifer Wilson and Jim Metzler to discuss the origin of ConvergenceCoaching, LLC and tell some formation stories. Join us to learn more about what inspired the founders to set out on this journey, fun memories along the way, and how they handled their separation so they maintained a healthy relationship throughout each stage together. James C. Metzler CPA, CGMA is the founder of Metzler Advisory Group LLC, a consulting firm that serves the CPA profession. Previously, he was Vice President/Small Firm Interests for the AICPA and a member of its senior management team. After co-founding ConvergenceCoaching, LLC, Jim joined the AICPA in 2003. Jim also spent 32 years with Gaines Metzler Kriner and Company CPAs in Buffalo, NY. Jennifer Wilson is a co-founder and partner of ConvergenceCoaching, LLC, a national consulting firm dedicated to developing leaders and transforming teams through coaching, practice consulting, strategic planning and learning and development. Jennifer’s ultimate goal is to make a transformational difference in the lives of her clients and their businesses.

ConvergenceCoaching Celebrates 20 Years

In this Inspired Ideas episode, Tamera Loerzel and Renee Moelders deepen their conversation from the Flex and Remote Work episode and explore flexing further with remote work. Renee and Tamera dive deeper into the details of how to make virtual programs work in your firm and how doing so can make us better managers and collaborators – with our team and our clients. Flex is critical for resolving capacity and recruiting challenges. When we can make remote work part of our culture, we can remove geographic barriers and work across offices and with people wherever they live. This evolution creates endless possibilities in recruiting, retention and capacity. Join us to learn more about how remote work can create increased sustainability for your organization.

Making Remote Work

During our first Inspired Ideas podcast, Jennifer Wilson and Tamera Loerzel discussed The Change Imperative.  One of the client and talent-driven changes is the move to Anytime, Anywhere Work™ (ATAWW). In our fourth survey of the ATAWW work practices of nearly 200 accounting and consulting firms, 99% say that they have Anywhere work and 96% say they have Anytime work. However, when we delve deeper, we find opportunities where you could flex further in alternative time programs and expand remote and virtual place programs, too, making them more widely known and available to all team members. This podcast will provide new insights and actions to ensure flex is consistent and supported by leaders for all employees across the firm. And, for those of you that may just be exploring the idea of flex, you’ll leave with ideas and changes to explore this coming year.

Flex & Remote Work: The Train Has Left the Station!

The capacity challenge has been going on since the dawn of time in public accounting, but certainly more-so in the last couple of years. Firms feel understaffed during the high-volume periods. People feel flattened out upon finishing busy seasons, including partners. We feel firms need to stop talking about the capacity problem and start solving the capacity problem. If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at https://convergencecoaching.com/ep2

Solving the Capacity Challenge

The amount of change in our profession can be overwhelming at times but it definitely is the word of the hour. Everything feels like it's changing, and every one of us needs to change in a lot of different ways. Thus, we've named this first episode, The Change Imperative. Why is so much change happening? What's causing it? What are the areas of change we should be focused on? If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes, and more at https://convergencecoaching.com/ep1/ and follow at https://twitter.com/ConvergenceSays

The Change Imperative

Welcome to the ConvergenceCoaching Inspired Ideas Podcast. Join us as we explore great leadership and management ideas that apply within the accounting profession and in other aspects of life and business, too.

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Inspired Ideas

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