Change is both the accounting industry’s constant and its biggest source of opportunities.
If you’re looking for proven tactics and perceptive advice about leading well amid change, the books and podcasts listed here will help.
They’re the works of the most inspiring business leaders, thinkers, and achievers we know.
1. Don’t Die with the Music in You (Wayne Bennett)
Read this for: Powerful lessons on balancing self-confidence with self-honesty from the legendary rugby league coach Wayne Bennett.
As a leader, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to talk to your team about their potential and the importance of disciplined preparation. Wayne’s book offers anecdotes and tips that you can apply when you’re getting ready for one of those talks.
Here’s a taste: “The thing about winning and losing is that you can win and give a mediocre effort and you can still lose after giving it everything you have. I know which effort I’d be more proud of.”
2. Everything Will Be OK: A Story of Hope, Love, and Perspective (Michael Crossland)
3. Forever Skills-The 12 Skills to Future-Proof Yourself, Your Team, and Your Kids (Dan Gregory and Kieran Flanagan)
4. Propelling Performance: Why Your Business is Stalling and What You Can Do About It (Rob Nankervis)
How you think, stay tenacious, and thrive
5. Relentless-How a Mother and Daughter Defied the Odds (Lisa Tamati)
Read this for: A wellspring you can draw from, when you face a challenge that requires reserves of courage, mental toughness, and self-belief.
Here’s a taste: “Later on, I would also come up with the crazy idea to run the length of New Zealand for charity. Again, Mum would be there by my side during hours of training. For the entire run, she drove the follow car, all 2,250 kilometers and 42 days of it. Can you imagine driving 9-10 kms. per hour, for 42 days, and then having an absolutely knackered daughter to deal with at night?”
6. SYSTEMology: Create Time, Reduce Errors, and Scale Your Profits with Proven Business Systems (David Jenyns)
Read this for: A practical and proven framework that will free you from the day-to-day grind of running a business, if that is what you need. This book will show you how to grow a business without having to be, as Michael E. Gerber wrote in the foreword, “responsible for every little wrinkle and widget, every single decision waiting desperately to be made”
Here’s a taste: “Opportunities rarely come at the end of a steady upwards curve. Success is lumpy and opportunity knocks when you’re least expecting it. Sure, you can lay the foundations, work hard, and prepare yourself. But your most significant opportunities won’t be willed into existence by simple visualisation or by following a special formula. They’re going to happen when they’re going to happen and the only thing – the ONLY thing – over which you have any control is whether you’re ready and available to seize them.”
7. The A to Z of Easy to Do (Peter Thurin)
Read this for: Ideas that have helped successful individuals and organisations make good decisions, get things done, and build momentum, without making excuses or falling into the procrastination trap.
Here’s a taste: “Oftentimes, what we are hoping to do or achieve seems so monumental and so far away that we can’t imagine how it might happen. We see it as an insurmountable goal and we give up before we even start. Outcomes and endpoints always look ‘hard to do’ at the beginning. It’s perfectly natural that we might be overwhelmed by that ‘hard to do.’”
Processes, performance, and pushing the limits
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Business Processes Simplified
- Listen for: Practical tips from industry leaders, as well as from author and founder David Jenyns’ experience, that have empowered businesses to create their must-have systems for growth.
- Here’s an excerpt: “When you identify those 10 to 15 systems that you’re going to start on first, which is part of a process we call the Critical Client Flow, you have an a-ha moment and immediately people go, ‘I can see the holes in my business. I can see why I’m having the problems I’m having’…All the problems in someone’s business can be related back to a system level.”
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Propelling Performance
- Listen for: Effective tactics for businesses, such as talking to your customers “in a more detailed and exploratory way.” Host Rob Nankervis interviews business leaders and draws out advice on strategy, what mistakes organisations must avoid to become more valuable, and “driving the belief system of your business.”
- Here’s an excerpt: (Guest Andrew Griffiths) “A failure to evolve in a rapidly changing world sums up the challenge for most businesses. And that’s why we’ve seen so many businesses fail. We blamed COVID-19 for it, but the reality is they had old models in a new world.”
- (Host Rob Nankervis) “Has your business been impacted by COVID itself or have the challenges within it simply been revealed? I think for most, if they’re truthful about it, it’s the latter.”
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Pushing the Limits
- Listen for: The latest research on high performance, health, and human potential. Endurance athlete and mental toughness coach Lisa Tamati interviews scientists, biohackers, and longevity experts, who share their experiences and advice to encourage “limit pushers from all walks of life.”
- Link: https://www.lisatamati.com/podcast/
- Here’s an excerpt: (Guest Dr. John Demartini) “How do we achieve the improbable? When the WHY is big enough, the HOWs take care of themselves. When you have a big enough reason for doing something, no matter how many obstacles you face, you get up again…You’ll see the challenges ON the way, not IN the way…There’s wisdom in not pursuing something that’s not truly and deeply meaningful to you.”
- (Host Lisa Tamati) “This involves looking at your values and how to sort out what you will pursue. This is where a lot of us can come unstuck because we have lots of things we want to do and we’re curious about lots of things. We have lots of passions. It’s sorting out the wheat from the chaff and distilling your vision so that you’re hyper focused and able to concentrate on the things you need to concentrate on.”
Relax, reflect, and recharge
If you’d like to meet these thought leaders, you’ll have the chance to do so at TOAcon.
For the first time this year, TOAcon will be open to accounting practices that have yet to become clients of TOA Global. It will take place on 1-3 November at the Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort on Australia’s Gold Coast.
As the accounting industry continues to evolve, leaders who explore transformative ideas unlock more growth for themselves and their practices. You’ll meet them as well at TOAcon, which brings together the best in the accounting industry, for an event like no other.
Explore TOAcon today.
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Business Processes Simplified
- Listen for: Practical tips from industry leaders, as well as from author and founder David Jenyns’ experience, that have empowered businesses to create their must-have systems for growth.
