Curiosity as the Guide to Your Career

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Visit UpstreamAcademy.com to learn more and register. That's UpstreamAcademy.com. Maximize your accounting career by becoming high yield and low maintenance with The Upstream Leader Podcast, your passport to improved knowledge, skills, and career potential. Stay tuned for insights, expertise, and thought provoking discussion. And now here's your host, Jeremy Clopton. Jeremy Clopton: Hello everyone and welcome to The Upstream Leader. My name's Jeremy Clopton. Glad to have you with us for today's episode. We're going to talk to another individual that has what I'm gonna consider to be a little bit of a unique journey to public accounting, as you all know. I really believe that people will be our differentiator and competitive advantage, and they're the thing that will always set us apart in our profession, no matter how much technology we have. And that means we probably need some folks that are not accountants to really help us become great advisors. So for that conversation today, I have with me John Taylor, a consulting specialist at Elliott, Robinson & Company. John, great to have you. John Taylor: Thanks for having me. Jeremy Clopton: So we're gonna jump into this. And I've known John since I was in college. Uh, he was a professor at the university, uh, that I was at, and also one of our, uh, students in free enterprise fellows that was leading the organization. I don't know John, that I ever expected our paths to cross in public accounting because at the time you were a professor of German John Taylor: Yes. Jeremy Clopton: At the university. So before we get into the journey from. German professor to public accounting. I'd love to know how did you become the leader that you are today? John Taylor: Well, since I was a college professor, I think I would start by even just like, I probably beg that question. I'm not sure that I would necessarily characterize myself as a leader. What I have tried to do, I guess through my career, is lead by some kind of example. That has usually taken the form of trying to see what was missing and what I was doing, and then trying to do what I needed to do in order to. Fill that gap. So, you know, as you said, you know, I started in a very different field from the one that I'm in today, and a lot of times the move from one thing to the next was a little bit about moving towards new opportunity just for the sake of seeing what that new opportunity might bring, but to another extent, it was always about kind of like just seeing what was out there, seeing what there was to learn. Even if it wasn't necessarily a gap that I identified up to that point kind of seeing and then opportunity to do something different. Also, the opportunity to like just fill a knowledge gap. So, you know, fundamentally I'm a teacher. Fundamentally, I like to learn. I like to spend time kind of learning a lot of different things. Sometimes it dries my wife a little bonkers. But you know, where I think I lead to the extent that I do anything like that at all is in that area. I'm not a big kind of out there and in front of the group kind of leader. I'm not the kind of person who likes to spend a lot of time, you know, coming up with big, broad leadership theories or even trying to live by them. I kind of just like to like, on a day-to-day basis, make incremental progress towards, you know, a more kind of holistically fulfilling career by either identifying gaps or having gaps identified for me, and then doing what I can to, to fill those in the hopes that other people who may, you know, be kind of looking for something that they want to do might find at least some method behind that. Or for people who. Find themselves really specialized in what they do and maybe a little constrained by it. The opportunity to, you know, not just. Maybe do just exactly the same thing for your entire career, um, and to, you know, time to time maybe take a risk. Jeremy Clopton: Yeah. John Taylor: Just to see what's out there. Jeremy Clopton: Well, I would definitely say that curiosity of what's out there, that desire to learn is I think back through what I know of where you've been. Of course, I don't always know the why behind it, but that curiosity makes a lot of sense. If I recall correctly, you made the jump from German. To the realm of entrepreneurialism. If I recall correctly, it, it was somewhat based on a trip to Germany by the students in free enterprise team at at the university. Is that correct? If I recall, you went with us and that was kind of the first. Introduction that I had to you, is that, did that spark the curiosity a little bit more or was the curiosity into the business and entrepreneurial realm already sparked it? John Taylor: It wasn't sparked at all. You know, my brother was the accounting major. Um, I had always kind of steered clear of that area. So the idea that I might wanna like get into business had never really played much of a role. The way it started is exactly as you're describing it, the students of free enterprise team at Dreary had won, uh, the national championship that year. Uh, they had the opportunity to go to Germany in the fall and. One of the advisors, Robert Wyatt, needed to have somebody, or at least he felt he needed to have somebody who was there with the team who spoke German in case something came up, didn't even have any particular concerns, I don't think. I think he just felt that it would be good to have somebody who spoke German. Jeremy Clopton: Sure. John Taylor: So I went with them. I had a chance to spend some time with the team. Spend some time with the two advisors, Robert and Charles Taylor, and when we got back, you know, I kind of figured that was about it. I told Robert, lemme know if there's anything else I can do. He kind of. Smiled and said, yep, we'll let you know. And about two weeks later he was emailing, giving me a call, asking me to come over and said, you know that everybody on the team really seemed to like you. That's 80% of what faculty advisors do. It's not for their subject matter knowledge or anything like that. It's for their ability to interact with the students and. You know, we kind of talked among ourselves about how unusual it might be to have a German professor be a faculty advisor for the team, but you know, if you're interested, we're interested and kind of sent the invite. And so I joined the team and from there, that's kind of how things started moving forward from there. So I was enjoying teaching German. Um, there was a part of me that was beginning to realize. Doing that year after year was going to be like, that was going to look a certain way. Jeremy Clopton: Mm-hmm. John Taylor: It wasn't an unattractive career. Um, but it also wasn't, you know, one that had a lot of scope to it. Jeremy Clopton: Sure. John Taylor: So over time, you know, the opportunity presented itself to work a little bit more in a formal kind of professional capacity over at the business school. Took that worked a little bit as the MBA director. Spent some time as the director of the entrepreneurship center, got my MBA, then kind of moved over formally to the business school as a, uh, I don't wanna say a business school professor so much as somebody who was at that point able to teach a couple of management courses. Course in entrepreneurship. Jeremy Clopton: Yeah. John Taylor: Then kind of formally moved from German to the business school, and that's kind of how things began to take shape in the field of business. Jeremy Clopton: Well, and I mean, as you said, it sounds like your love of learning and your natural curiosity to see what else is out there, what other opportunities. Just played such a key role in making that a possibility. And I love that because so often in public accounting we talk so much about you need to become an expert. You need to become a specialist. And I know there's a lot of individuals that have a fear of that, that they're almost gonna be pigeonholed into a, I can only do this one thing. And I remember in my career when I got into data analytics, my managing partner saying, are you sure? You want to be the tech guy. Now, this was of course before technology was what it is today. So there was still a question of will analytics and technology and all of that actually be a thing you can base a career on several years later? Obviously we look back and would laugh at something like that, but at the time you don't know. John Taylor: Mm-hmm. Jeremy Clopton: But it was that willingness to become an expert, but also have curiosity. That led me to where I am. It sounds like you had a similar path was it was, I'm gonna become an expert. I mean, you don't get a PhD in German linguistics without desiring to become an expert in a given area. But then you had the curiosity to say, yeah, but there's a lot of other things out here that could be really amazing to do. John Taylor: Mm-hmm. Jeremy Clopton: And then you talked about finding something that was fulfilling and holistic. I can't help but think about your next step in your journey, which was, if I recall correctly, you became after the entrepreneurship center at Drury, you were the COO of Askinosie Chocolate. John Taylor: Mm-hmm. Jeremy Clopton: Which is a chocolate company. Run by a former defense attorney, a criminal defense attorney at that, who also was looking for something more fulfilling and a bit more holistic than just what he was an expert in. I'd love to know how that experience over the eight or so years that you were there. How that shaped you into, you know, how you think about business, how you lead, how you kept that curiosity, because I would imagine that was a big jump as well from leading a, an entrepreneurship center at a university to being the chief operating officer for a chocolate company. John Taylor: That was probably the biggest jump. I was 42 at the time, and Sean had reached out to me to see if I wanted to be the next COO. My wife and I talked about it a good deal and ultimately decided that, you know, when you're 42 years old, you're still young enough to make a huge career error and probably still recover, but hopefully old enough that you've got the experience, at least to get off to a good start at it. Mm. And not to think that you know everything that there is to know about a job like that. The idea behind it, if I were to be brutally honest with myself about it, was that I had come to recognize a degree of imposter syndrome as a business school faculty. Um mm-hmm. But I don't know that other business school faculty feel as strongly as I felt. When you're a German professor, it's kind of easy, you know, like, you know, you're an imposter. Like there's no, there's no doubt about it. You know, like if you're an American who's learned German and goes to Germany, you know that you're an imposter and it's okay. People are willing to work with you and it's, it's fine. Like the stakes aren't particularly high. Jeremy Clopton: Sure. John Taylor: When you're a business school professor who has nothing more than an MBA and a couple of part-time jobs back in high school and college to work with. The idea that you're now in a position to talk about a lot of stuff that you're also teaching to an extent is kind of silly. And so the opportunity to kind of get away from higher ed and to just like step out of it all, step away from the theory and the textbook and the, you know, kind of here's how you do these things and into the world where, okay, well, if you think that's how you do it, then go on out there and do it. See if you can pull it off. See if you can take the management theory, see if you can take the accounting, see if you can take everything that you've learned. That's all kind of theoretically sound in the confines of a classroom and do it, see if you can actually do it. Jeremy Clopton: Mm-hmm. John Taylor: Um, it's a little like reading 20 books on parenting and then Okay. Now do it like see if you can actually pull that off. And that's what that was primarily for me at least, all about. You know, there was also, you know, a chance to work for a cool company that does some cool stuff around the world and have the opportunity to meet different kinds of people. It was all about that as well. But primarily it was about finding some degree of balance between. What I knew at a purely academic level and what I felt would be good to know on the ground in pure day-to-day practice. Jeremy Clopton: Mm-hmm. So you essentially said, I'm feeling imposter syndrome. Let's just go do it. So that feeling goes away John Taylor: either. So the feeling goes away, or so that I know that it was an imposter syndrome. Like in other words, maybe I'd come back to all this, teaching it in exactly the same way and maybe, you know, it suddenly makes all sense, the sense in the world. And the practical experience is one that matches perfectly up to everything that I've read. And now I'm not an imposter. Yeah, I can say that what you're gonna read in this textbook is actually true, or what you're gonna read in this textbook is actually you're gonna live it yourself, so you better read carefully. Jeremy Clopton: Yeah. John Taylor: You know, just confirmation or you know, some chance to see whether there are some ways that people do things out there that. Are different and maybe not altogether for bad reason. Jeremy Clopton: Sure. And you had, I would expect, I mean, at least the founder of Askenosie Chocolate had what I would consider to be a similar, perhaps a similar journey to that industry that you did in the fact that the background had nothing to do. With manufacturing or food or retail or anything like that. How did that help you either learn more or did you find that there was just everyone there was more curious about how to approach things? Was it as textbook as you expected, or did the fact that multiple people that came into that organization with such varied backgrounds, did that actually provide more of a learning lab? Through the business? John Taylor: That's a good question. I think everybody who ended up coming to the company. Whether they were coming in from a part-time job and just looking to work at the factory, or coming from some degree program around town and having more of an office job or working with Sean, you can't just drop what you've done in the past and kind of just start absorbing the way things are done as if the past never happened. So Sean was a lawyer. It would be fair to say that once you've been a lawyer, it's a little hard to kind of stop being a lawyer. I was an academic. It would be fair to say that once you kind of thought about things and the way that an academic thinks, it's hard to stop thinking like an academic. That was the case for all, you know, for all of us as we, as we came in. We brought a lot of those different backgrounds to bear in what we did, and I think we learned a lot about one another's fields, one another's backgrounds in kind of working through different issues. What I learned in the process, especially in working with Sean, is kind of the importance of. I don't wanna say having a lawyer's mindset because that's not really what he was about. He wasn't about, you know, he wanted to quit law. He didn't wanna be a lawyer anymore, so he didn't like Jeremy Clopton: Right. John Taylor: Open a chocolate company. So he, the general counsel for a chocolate company. But you know, it's hard to describe it exactly and there's a short time like this, but there's a way of thinking kind of legally that also kind of intersects well with thinking strategically about things. Jeremy Clopton: Hmm. John Taylor: It gave me a way of thinking about. A business as an entity exists in an environment in which it's competing against other companies that do the same thing. It's trying to establish itself in a market it's working with and. Sometimes dealing with regulatory agencies or you know, different levels of government. So in other words, what the company is trying to accomplish, it's not trying to accomplish in a vacuum. It is constantly having to, you know, manage its resources in a way that allows it to create a good product as efficiently as possible while meeting all regulatory legal requirements and from time to time also defending itself from. You know, outside forces that aren't necessarily trying to like destroy it. But who also have their own priorities and their own reasons for being that don't all the time support what you're trying to do. I'm just trying to manage that entire company, which has its own internal dynamics at the same time that you're trying to manage the company as its own unit, its own entity in an external environment that has its own set of dynamics as well. So part of, part of my job, not entirely my, my job was more to kind of focus on the internal dynamics. A lot of times the external world also kind of came knocking and I found myself working with Sean and, uh, Lauren, his daughter who, uh, chief of marketing, you know, to also kind of manage like, okay, while we're dealing with this internal, you know, set of issues, how are we also going to kind of manage what the external world is, you know, kind of bearing down on us with here in a way that keeps the company first and foremost intact. And then secondly, successful in terms of how it's perceived by the people who buy the chocolate as well as perceived evaluated, eventually judged, I guess to an extent by entities that, you know, have their, have a job to. Evaluate the company. Jeremy Clopton: Yeah. Very interesting. So blending the academic, the legal, just the various perspectives and mindsets. John Taylor: Yeah. Jeremy Clopton: Uh, sounds like a fascinating place to be able to learn and, and challenge yourself and someone like you who, who loves to learn, who's naturally curious. I'm sure that your curiosity was constantly peaked there. So we've made the journey from German professor, SIFE advisor, leading the entrepreneurship center at the university, COO of a global chocolate company, and then your curiosity says, let's give public accounting a shot. Help me with the transition there. What, what were you looking to fill? What was the curiosity? What led you to our wonderful profession? John Taylor: So if you take all of the, um, you know, all the internal and external forces and kind of limit the scope of all of that, just to like accounting, forget all the food safety stuff and everything else for a second, just the accounting. One thing that I incredibly enjoyed about the job was seeing how this is gonna sound kind of pedestrian, how the internal bookkeeping of a company is made to intersect with public accounting. Jeremy Clopton: Hmm. John Taylor: So how the internal world of, you've got a company, it's got its systems. It relies on outside vendors for its sales, for its marketing, for its accounting, for its bookkeeping, for all of that. And that has to be built and designed to be some combination of as efficient, but also as accurate as it can be. Jeremy Clopton: Mm-hmm. John Taylor: So, in other words, it's trying to strike a balance here. We're not gonna be able to do things just exactly according to Gap every single time, and sometimes it's gonna be because the system doesn't allow us to do it that way. Kind of working in that field and then, you know, once a year, or not just once a year, but then like interacting with the accountant. Especially when it came to, you know, when around tax season and kind of getting a lot of questions, fielding a lot of inquiries about like, you know, what did you do here? What were you doing there? There's always questions about fixed assets at the end of the year and so on. Over time, there was kind of a, a kind of notion, I guess, began to bubble up every now and then that I would guess that I'm probably not the only person who is contending, I guess, I don't wanna say fighting this battle, but contending with this reality that there's this kind of big, wide world of accountancy out there that is being taught. Probably pretty similarly to the way that I would teach it when I was back at brewery. And then there are all these other smaller worlds called companies out there who are kind of doing their best to manage their finances and manage their bookkeeping and accounting in a way that works for them as best as they can do it, given the resources that they have. I sometimes, you know, kind of struggled a little bit with some of the ways that we were managing our bookkeeping. Internally. And then sometimes there were ways that I, you know, would sometimes get a little frustrated with, you know, the way that that would've to get put on the books for accounting reasons, you know, as a at, at the level of gap. Jeremy Clopton: Sure. John Taylor: And over time I thought, you know, I wonder if other people are also kind of feeling that tension, you know, trying to strike the best balance between the efficiency of getting it done, you know, as quickly as possible versus the accuracy that gap requires. So when this job presented itself. It wasn't presented to me as you know, you're going to go back to the world quasi academia and be there to support people in their accounting needs and also from time to time, maybe like wide a finger or two about how they're doing their stuff. But it also wasn't presented as, don't worry, you don't have to follow a gap. You don't have to worry about any of that. You can just kind of help them get the stuff done. It was, I read positions like this as well. You probably have the academic background for it, but it's also good that you have the practical, uh, experience to bring to bear because this job is gonna require you to first and foremost, have an understanding and some level of empathy for. People who are trying to run a business and they're trying to do the best that they can and they may not be doing it just exactly. So they may not be doing it exactly in conformance with gap. And sometimes it's because they're being a little lazy, but sometimes it's because their system doesn't allow them to. Jeremy Clopton: Sure. John Taylor: And sometimes they wanna know how to do it better, which may not necessarily even mean doing it closer to Gap. It may just mean that they just know that they're kind of doing it an old way or it's taking it too long. And the job here is to kind of do a lot of stuff that. Sums up and ends up being kind of the product of everything that I've done up to this point in my life. So, you know, you're gonna be a little bit of a teacher, you're gonna have a little bit of the background. You're gonna need to use some of your background when you are a professor, but you're also going to need to have the ability to work with people. Probably more or less in the same way that you work with people when you are in private industry. Jeremy Clopton: Very interesting. John Taylor: It, it's gonna be good to be able to approach a client who's looking for consulting help and not bookkeeping assistance. Jeremy Clopton: Yeah. John Taylor: But first and foremost, not get in there and get real critical to start with. Like, okay, well how are you doing what you're doing? You know, I'm going to assume that you've been trying your best. So how are you trying your best? Let's start there. And it'll kind of work from there to see if there's anything that we can do to get it more along the lines of what you're looking for. Jeremy Clopton: Yeah, and I would imagine that your background also makes it a lot easier to empathize when you're working with the clients that, Hey, I get it. I've been there, I've done that. I've seen that. I've lived it. John Taylor: Right. Jeremy Clopton: There is a path forward. We can talk to you about that and you don't. What I love about it is you don't have to be an accountant to care about your clients. You don't have to be the world's best tax accountant. You don't have to be the best auditor. I mean, you don't have to be an accountant, right? That's not one of the degrees that you have. You have several. That's not one of them, but. What you do have is you have a desire to learn, a desire to teach, a desire to be compassionate in the background that allows you to show up for people. To me, that's one of the things that makes our profession so great is you don't have to just be a great accountant to be outstanding in this profession. John Taylor: Mm-hmm. Jeremy Clopton: Arguably, you, you really need to care about wanting to help people become better at what they do. It just so happens that that's accounting and business. John Taylor: Yeah. One thing that I've learned since I've gotten here is the extent to which somebody who does tax is doing tax for somebody. For a range of reasons, either, you know, and it usually starts with like, I just really like tax. Jeremy Clopton: Mm-hmm. John Taylor: But there is usually some reason that basically amounts to, I'm trying to help this person kind of lurking in the background. Jeremy Clopton: Yeah. John Taylor: Either because they are not taking advantage of, you know, a deduction that they have every right to take, or, you know, because they're. Potentially putting themselves in hot water and they wanna get 'em outta the hot water before things get too hot. Even on the audit side, like my brother has been an auditor his entire life, and the one thing he never told me was that auditors kind of love it when they're doing an audit and the client treats it less as like the big annual test that they're taking. And can I pass and can I provide the documentation that I need or else am I gonna fail this audit? And more as something that legally, it's not a consulting engagement, but to the extent that things are found that the auditor can point to. And say like, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you exactly how to do it Jeremy Clopton: right. John Taylor: And I know this is potentially gonna come off as like you're doing it wrong, but here's some areas in which you could, you know, substantially improve. And if you do, it's not just that you get a better score in the test next year, it's that you're probably feeling a little bit better about your account before we even show up next year. And you know, so I, I have not met an auditor here who enjoys going out and just telling people how they're doing all their stuff wrong. Jeremy Clopton: Right. John Taylor: The auditors I know here are the ones who sincerely like to identify areas where the companies and the clients that they're working with could do things better. Jeremy Clopton: Yeah. And you don't have to have a degree to care. You just, you genuinely have to want to help people and that's where I believe and why I wanted to explore your journey on the show here is you can have a wide variety of background. And you can still have a great career in this profession because if you can come in with curiosity, a desire to learn, some experience to build it on, and an outside perspective that challenges people to help them get better, there is so much opportunity in this profession for that. Over our last few minutes here, I have one more question. So let's fast forward 15 or 20 years. What has your curiosity then, how will you know you were successful as you go through the next 15 to 20 years of your career in following your curiosity and becoming the individual you wanna become? John Taylor: That's a good question. I suspect it ends up going a little bit like this. I know that there are a lot of things that I still don't know. Like I've got two kids right now who are in or getting ready to start college and they're majoring in areas that I'll never have anything close to the level of knowledge that they have in. But I think knowing that I've gotten to the point where I know that there's a lot that I still don't know, but that's okay because where I've landed has been part of a process that never felt too static would be enough to represent some level of success in a career. You know, I don't have, I've, I've never really been one to have like a big master plan about things. So I'm not the kind of person who, like when I was 18 to 22, who gave a lot of thought about like exactly what is like the set of goals, what are the markers and what's the, you know, kind of the master plan for the career. It was built more around, you know. I'm gonna do, I enjoy doing, you know, if there's an opportunity that presents itself to kind of expand some horizons or learn some new things or expand the scope of what I do that makes sense and wouldn't ruin the career or ruin my livelihood, then I'm probably gonna take it. As long as I never pass on that kind of an opportunity, then I think that would be the mark of success because it's less about getting to a specific point in the career than it is about knowing that the point that you've got to was reached and being kind of consistent and holding true to the same process throughout. Jeremy Clopton: Very good. John Taylor: Which may mean that this job is the one that takes me all the way through to retirement, and that's not something that's too hard to imagine. Jeremy Clopton: Sure. John Taylor: Because what I'm, what I'm learning here is that in a consultancy role, there's a lot about accounting left to learn. Jeremy Clopton: Mm-hmm. John Taylor: And there's also a lot about how business is done on the ground to learn. Something kind of intriguing about that. Jeremy Clopton: Very good, John, I really appreciate that. As our listeners are thinking about your journey and maybe exploring theirs, any resources, books, podcasts, TED talks, anything that comes to mind that you think, you know what? This is something everyone should read regardless of what they're doing in life. John Taylor: The one book. That helps me to process, process that I was just describing, you know, like, should I take this next step? Should I be considering a move? Should I be kind of thinking through not just how to do management, but also how to manage your, your personal affairs, your career? Jeremy Clopton: Mm-hmm. John Taylor: As you move forward. There is a book whose author, I can't remember, unfortunately. But it had to do with thinking hats, the five thinking hats. It's a way to kind of force your mind into, you know, a mode in which it. Kind of disciplines itself to ask, you know, what's the best thing that could happen here? What's the worst thing that could happen here? What are the facts on the ground? What's my gut telling me? And so on. Got it. And it, it kind of allows you to process, you know, decision making when you don't have a specified goal in mind for, you know, what you wanna do and how you want to get there. That I have found useful. I think everybody has kind of a default way of thinking about things. Either kind of think outta their gut or they are kind of an optimist about things, or they tend to be too pessimistic about things and you're making managerial decisions or you're making life decisions. It's good to kind of force your self out of like your default way of thinking about the decision. And to, um, be a little bit more balanced about that. So, you know, to avoid the, the mistake of the optimist or the mistake of the pessimist. Jeremy Clopton: Yeah. I think I have found that maybe six thinking hats by Edward de Bono. John Taylor: Yes. Jeremy Clopton: De bono. Maybe John Taylor: that's it. As I recall hat number six isn't necessarily a way of thinking. It's kind of like the way of thinking about the five hats. Jeremy Clopton: Okay. Very good. So I will, we'll put a link to that in the show notes and, uh, if folks are just interested in learning more about talking with somebody as interesting as yourself, how can they get a hold of you? John Taylor: I'm here at Elliott, Robinson at j taylor at er CPA dot com. Jeremy Clopton: Awesome. John, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. I really appreciate the conversation and, uh, look forward to talking again soon. John Taylor: You too, Jeremy. Thanks for having me. Voiceover: Joining us on The Upstream Leader Podcast, we hope today's episode has enriched your understanding of what it takes to become a high performing leader in the accounting profession. If you'd like to hear more episodes, subscribe on your favorite podcasting app, and visit our website where you'll find full show notes and more TheUpstreamLeader.com. John Taylor: ProfessionalProductions.net.