Learning / Education | Management / Strategy

Sage Summit recap and resources

"L>C2 - In a world of rapid change and increasing complexity, the winners will be those who can keep their rate of learning greater than the rate if change and greater than their competition."

Here at BLI we are often asked to keynote and provide speakers at major conferences and events. Every time we get to attend these events we are helping to keep our L>C2 because of the people we get to meet and interact with and the content from the "show" itself.

This week started with a team of our BLI "top gun" instuctors speaking at the Sage Summit in Las Vegas and it was amazing! Over 5,000 people in attendance and a lineup of keynote speakers that was inspirational (Sage has posted these keynotes on-line here).

I had the privilege of joining our team and presented two sessions and was asked to provide copies of our presos and resources we mentioned, so here they are:

First was a session on Surviving the Shift Change in Accounting (see preso below and click to access and download).

The shift change involves five key areas that are shifting:

  1. Leadership
  2. Learning
  3. Technology
  4. Workplace
  5. Generations

The key to thriving in this period of massive change is to engage your team in co-creating the future state and to be strategic and systematic in your approach to talent development and learning (Our approach is a framework we call theBounce). More about co-creating the future state below.

Surviving the Shift Change in Accounting - #SageSummit from Tom Hood   The second session was Innovating Beyond Technology and I was honored to co-present with our good friend, Jennifer Warawa, Vice President and General Manager of Sage Accountant Solutions. Jennifer is also one of the "most powerful women" in the CPA Profession and one of the top one hundred most influential people according to Accounting Today Magazine. Our presentation is below. Jennifer kicked off the session talking about innovation in accounting firms "beyond technology". I loved her definitions of innovation (innovation is not invention and often is incremental changes). She invited the audience to re-imagine their practices and companies in light of the current possibilities available to us all. She ended with seven principles of small innovations (slide 37). I picked up the presentation circling back to the re-imagine idea and talked about a strategic thinking process we use to engage people in organizations to co-create a bold future vision that is based on hindsight, foresight, and insight. This process we call i2a: insight to action and is designed to inspire people around the "why" behind every organization. Jennifer referred to the Simon Sinek TED Talk, "Start with why". Our i2a:strategic planning framework was used to create a future vision for the entire US CPA Profession for the AICPA CPA Horizons 2025 Project and is the basis for the Sage Vision and Strategy Workshops that Sage had us create for them to help CPAs and accountants find and articulate their vision and an action plan for implementation. Innovating Beyond Technology #SageSummit from Tom Hood

Here are the resources participants requested from the presentation:

 

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Tom Hood