6 steps to leading through change

By the time you read this, you may have just wrapped up conference season, hopefully with the amazing learnings and connections at QuickBooks Connect (QBC). If not, be sure to sign up for the conference next year!

If you were at QBC, you heard about transformational innovation that could accelerate the growth of your practice and you want to play a part in driving your firm and practice forward. Maybe you have learned a new skill in a CPE class or webinar you would like to apply to your practice. You may be energized, excited, and if we're honest with ourselves, maybe even a little nervous. You know what you learned and heard is the right answer, but your firm or practice may be far away from the ideal state. Where do you start? How do you gain internal alignment? How do you execute? How do you maintain employee engagement through the change?

If you run into me at a conference, you'll hear me say, "Education without action is simply entertainment." My goal is to help you turn education into action that accelerates your strategic goals.

Let's work through a real-life example to help you understand how to apply change to your practice or give you the framework to apply the principles to the strategic goals you are tackling. You can take the same principles to impact any precipitating factor, whether it's a conference, merger, software change, etc.

Example: You are returning from QBC and learned about QuickBooks Ledger - the new accountant-only low-cost product that allows you to standardize your practices (CAS and Tax) in the cloud for some of your low-complexity clients. You leave energized because you know how fully embracing this before busy season would increase the efficiency your team and firm could experience, and help reduce the capacity constraints, you feel every busy season. But how can you handle the change management in such a short window?

Step 1: Define your ideal state. After seeing some amazing software and app releases, and meeting technology partners, you want to increase automation in the financial management systems impacting your CAS practice and help your tax peers. Who do you want to tackle? What services do you want to offer them? Curate what the ideal state looks like.

Step 2: Document the ROI. Take the time to get crystal clear on the "why," which will also be critically important in a future step. The why, or the ROI, will be key to gaining buy-in from key decision-makers. You can choose to make this step as big or as small as you need to drive results. For example, in my previous firm leader role, I could decide to tackle all desktop-based clients in the firm (a big step) or I could focus on the ones that impacted the practice I led (a small step).

Choosing the small approach may be the most believable; after all, your goal with this step is to gain buy-in. In my previous practice, I chose the small. I knew I needed to build trust, so my ROI couldn't be too big, even though CAS leaders knew the opportunity for firm-wide growth would be transformational to almost any firm. With 400 tax-only customers, my CAS practice had to pull the tax reports for all 400 to do their work. If I converted all of those customers to QuickBooks Online, whether on Ledger or something more advanced, I could have made reasonable estimates for improved tax efficiencies during tax prep, as well as documented potential growth associated with moving some of those tax customers to tax and outsourcing customers.

Let's do the math:

• 400 customers x ~3 hours = Creating 1,200 hours in your busiest time of year.
• 400 customers x 2,500/one-time conversion cost = $1 million, and if you use Intuit's QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online migration services, this could potentially be straight revenue for your firm.
• 400 customers x 1,000/mo of CAS services x 25% conversion rate = $1,2 million in revenue. 

You would need to modify your ROI calculations for your firm's realities, including average bill rates, client counts, complexities, and other items. Once you have the firm-level "why," break it down further to why each partner/shareholder should care. What's the impact and value to them personally, to their team, and to their customers? Don't rush past this step; while the money is nice, we also know that customer experience is paramount and the customer relationship with the tax partners is important.

Step 3: Create the workflow/customer experience. How do you want your tax peers to introduce you, how will you track, and how will you report the results? Cross-selling services in a firm is, of course, possible, but you want to ensure you have a defined process in place. You want to preemptively address any hiccups in the selling process. Otherwise, when someone encounters a challenge, they will revert to the "old way."

Step 4: Identify champions. I've heard this called "building a coalition." In his book "The Purple Cow," Seth Godin describes these people as "sneezers," those who infect others. That's a positive thing; these "sneezers" will be critically important to your change management success. They can gain buy-in when a part of the change process is confusing or the idea seems unattainable. Share your plans with these people, solicit feedback, and revise until they are comfortable. This group will serve as your teammates in driving transformational change.

Step 5: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. Not only is it important to communicate often; it's important to communicate the "why." I'm personally a fan of "The Golden Circle" by Simon Sinek. Articulate the why, how, and what. No matter how big or small the change is, I encourage you to start every meeting or communication with the why. You may feel you have said it 1,000 times, but you can't over-communicate the why.

At QBC, we had the privilege of hearing Adam Grant. He conducted an exercise where audience members clapped a song to see if their partner could guess the tune. Once we eliminated the common songs such as Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and We Will Rock You, only a few people were left. Adam clapped his song–the University of Michigan Fight Song–and no one guessed it. He reasoned that in his head, he heard the tune, but the audience/partner just heard him clap.

How do we help firm leaders "hear the tune" by just "clapping?" As you create your communication plan, consider the "who." Who should deliver the content so tax partners will be most receptive? One of the best change management exercises examples I've seen in a firm was when the leader opened the meeting sharing the "why," but then they turned over the entire agenda to the peers of audience members.

Let's go back to our example. I, as the CAS leader, would share the "why," but then turn it over to champions and partners I identified from tax so they could deliver the content to their peers. People are more likely to embrace change when they are encouraged by someone with whom they are close, or they respect and trust.

Step 6: Track progress and outcomes and communicate, communicate, communicate. - In step 2, you identified the ROI. In this step, we will track our progress against the ROI outcomes you identified. Potentially more important than tracking the ROI is communicating it to all of the people impacted or those you have yet to convince. You want to create a bit of FOMO. To capture the holdouts in your firm, you'll want to remind them of the "why" behind starting this initiative, share the outcomes you're tracking, some customer and firm-employee verbatims, and finally, tell them how they can join the fun!

At the end of the day, with even the best steps, you, as the leader, have to remain calm. Change is hard, and frankly, it's harder for some than others. As a firm leader, you are responsible for empathetically leading through the change. You or your team will encounter challenges during the change process, but the team will look to you. They will look for your resolve but also your empathy. People on your team will complain, sometimes to you, but many times to each other. Avoid the tendency to defend their complaints. Seek opportunities for feedback. Your team will be the best resource to provide valuable feedback to improve the customer and employee experience. 

Intuit spoke with accounting leaders about their experiences managing large-scale changes such as desktop to online migration. Out of these conversations, we created three downloadable, peer-led resources to help navigate change. 

Ashleigh's divergent career brings empathy for small and mid-size business owners from experience in family-owned franchises and international accounting firm audits to top 40 accounting firm consulting and accounting advisory. She strives to always keep people, processes, and technology as the critical components for success - visualizing the future can be different and creating a realistic plan to reach that future.