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A Conversation With Richard Kopelman, CEO of Aprio · The Failure Gap

• speaker-0 (00:00.13) Hello and welcome to the Failure Gap, where we talk with leaders about closing the space between agreement and alignment. We love talking with interesting people and today we're talking with Richard Kopelman. Richard is the CEO of Aprio Advisory Group LLC, a nationally recognized business advisory tax and accounting firm. A driven and inspirational leader, Richard has contributed to the firm's acceleration in the profession, supporting the careers of more than 2,100 professionals who serve clients in all 50 states. and more than 50 countries speaking over 60 languages. Richard, it's a big and diverse group of both clients and colleagues. And I'm looking forward to hearing about how you reflect on this idea of the space between agreement and alignment in an accounting firm. And welcome to the Failure Gap. speaker-1 (00:46.254) Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. speaker-0 (00:48.524) Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. But before we dive in, I want to just give our audience a flavor of your path to leadership. When you think about becoming the CEO of Aprio, I'm sure that your own journey has taken some twists and turns along the way. So maybe you can just set up for the audience a little bit about how you came to be the CEO. speaker-1 (01:09.71) So my journey started out joining Apriio 33 years ago. And I started as a generalist. spent 10 years, I would say, learning the craft, being an expert, following the book Outliers, getting those 10,000 hours in as quickly as possible, studying for the CPA exam, getting that knocked out in my first year at the firm. And I had the opportunity to then... start to specialize and we, an organization went through a change and I started specializing in I'll call it small to medium, lower middle market size manufacturing companies. And I got the opportunity to, to lead that practice. I did that for 10 years. I got to explore some other areas. what today is SOC one and SOC two. So those days, SAS 70, so security related work. I got into a little bit in the FinTech space. And joined a Vistage group, which is I call it the CEO self-help group. Joined one when I was about three years before I became CEO managing partner, exposed myself and got exposed to a lot of different programs to continue to develop my leadership capabilities within that industry segment that I was running. And I had the opportunity to build that from a million to $10 million. Or I should say, maybe I executed growing that. from a million to 10 million over that 10 year span. And our firm had grown to about 50 million in revenue, 250 people in one office. And the partner said, well, let's see what you can do with the firm. You've certainly shown you can grow things. And I got the opportunity to take the helm and I became a freshman in life again, as I like to say it. I've been a freshman in life four times at Apprio. in the last 33 years and started over not knowing what my job was or what it entailed and had the opportunity to then lead the firm over the last 13 plus years. And lots of twists and turns that I had to manage the gap during the last 13 years for sure. Glad to dig into any details you'd like to explore. speaker-0 (03:33.036) Yeah, well, I really appreciate that in your career, you talk about having like a broad mindset and being a generalist and looking across and getting all of those skills early and then specializing and going deep and getting really kind of operationally excellent, I'm sure in a particular area. And then again, expanding out and becoming more of a generalist and learning more about different parts of the business as you built the skills and the experiences to take over the helm. when you did. So thank you for sharing that. think a lot of times things look like they just happen very quickly or naturally. And I love your spirit of exploration as you've gone through your journey. And I think it's really nice for people to be able to hear that. So thank you. You know, one of the things that really strikes me about Aprio is you have grown a lot in the last, especially 10 years. It seems like there's been a lot of acquisition. There's been a lot of growth in different areas geographically as well as from a market perspective. And curious when you think about that kind of growth and leading that kind of growth, what have you observed as being some of the places where it's easy to look at an opportunity or a strategic investment and say that sounds like a really good idea, but across the leadership team it can be challenging to really get aligned to make it happen and make it happen well. speaker-1 (04:56.846) Well, you know, I always, I always say that everybody can find the reasons why not to do something. Especially I find that our profession, everybody seems to focus on the negative. They use words like issues. And we have a pretty pivotal leadership summit about, I think maybe eight or nine years ago. And we brought in somebody to talk about the growth mindset. And we said we could either be growth minded or we could be fixed minded. And fixed minded focuses on all the reasons why you shouldn't do it. can't be done. The growth mindset is a mindset of abundance and a mindset of creating the future. And we made a conscious decision as a leadership team and at that summit and throughout that year, and have continued to really execute that mindset over the last eight, 10 years. And as you pointed out, you know, longer than that, that we were going to focus on the mindset of abundance and, you know, keep, you know, keep positive and keep moving the ball forward. It's funny, sometimes we do things. For example, we acquired a law firm in 2025. We became a law firm in 20, early in 2025 or late 2024, and then we acquired one and renamed it Apria Legal last year. And some of the phone calls I got immediately afterwards, well, why would you do that? Aren't you worried about all the harm it's gonna somehow cause your organization? Which I think is the things that people imagine are gonna happen to them and make decisions based on the stuff only going on in their head and not actually the risks that are real. speaker-0 (06:50.006) You you brought up a couple of really important things there. One is, I think that you sound like, as you described your career, you have a natural affinity for a growth mindset, and that's so important for leaders. And then you made that a specific call to action for your team at what sounds like a really catalytic event almost a decade ago, and that you can still reflect on that and remember the energy of that and bring it forward and embedded in the culture. It feels like a really important piece of what's helped you and your team to continue to look for opportunities like an accounting firm acquiring a legal firm, which is unusual. I don't know very many accounting firms that have done that or would do that. And I really appreciate you rounding out that on the idea that people get in that fixed mindset because they're imagining things happening. They're not really, it hasn't happened yet or it hasn't ever happened. but they're limiting their opportunity set because they imagine that bad things will happen. And it sounds like your team and you have embraced the growth mindset of we're going to figure it out as we go forward. And you know what, if it turns out that being in the legal profession isn't the best thing, you'll figure that out too, right? So there's that optimism about, yeah, we can do hard things and we'll be able to find our way through. speaker-1 (08:12.204) Well, it wouldn't be the first time. It wouldn't be the first time something didn't work out. had to, we had to pivot and shake, but if you're not, you know, if you're batting a thousand, you're not taking enough, you're not taking enough, at bats, at enough chances. And, you know, if you take the right amount, you should make good decisions. You should be able to bat 500, which will definitely put you in the hall of fame. speaker-0 (08:35.521) Yeah, I think that's such a great analogy that I want to make sure people hear this point, right? Which is if everything always works out for you, you're not trying hard enough. Is that a good way to summarize it? speaker-1 (08:48.29) Well, trying hard enough, not taking enough chances. I think it's one of the things I talk about a lot is we as CPAs are trained to, you know, we could say quote unquote, get things right. And in business, there's no such thing. And so we have to take that CPA, that professional hat off and put the hat on of business owner. And then your decision points and the way you think about things should be very, different. You're thinking of them as an entrepreneur, as a founder, as an entrepreneur versus as the CPA, the technical CPA, right? No, for example, in a buddy of mine owns an engineering business and when they're building parking lots or parking garages, you can't get it wrong. Cause if you get it wrong, bad things happen. But again, you have to take... he has to take that hat off and put the business over his hat on. speaker-0 (09:52.086) I think that's incredibly difficult for people who are invested in a technical skill. It's one thing if you're more of a generalist business person, but when you are in accounting or engineering or some of the scientific pursuits, things like that, one of the places I have definitely seen people struggle, they agree they want to be in leadership roles, but they have trouble letting go of the technical expertise and growing into the business expertise. Sounds like something that you've navigated well for yourself. I'm curious when you look at people in the firm or in other firms as well who are trying to make that shift into more enterprise leadership, what do you think gets in the way there for people and how have you seen them to be successful? speaker-1 (10:43.17) You know, that's a really interesting question. You're, you're causing me to think a little bit about my own journey through that transformation. especially, you know, coming out of, you know, leading the manufacturing practice, being an audit partner at the time and transitioning over and transitioning quite quickly, into the CEO role. it is something we talk about a lot. I think again, people restrict themselves. I always say, I was interviewing someone today, I said, if someone needs a job description, they're in the wrong job. Cause a lot of times in, with that entrepreneurial hat on, that leadership hat on, everything is your job. And there's no such thing as a job description. Everything is, you know, everything's on the table, whatever has to be done. I learned from our founders. I remember walking. Probably 30 years ago, I was walking through the hallway and I happened to be behind one of our founders and there was a piece of paper on the floor, small piece of paper. He stopped, bent down, picked it up, threw it in the trash. And, you know, here's a 60 something year old founder who part of his job was, you know, quote unquote, being the janitor at that moment. Uh, cause we need to be in a clean, nice environment. Uh, so I think oftentimes people just restrict themselves. or they're looking for a job description. And again, we spend a lot of time talking about these things. We spend a lot of time talking about leadership and have a lot of programs around leadership, both internally and externally that our folks participate in. And then we spend a lot of time talking about the strategy of the business and the execution of that strategy with cross-functional teams that allow us to have the debates that you need to have and also just acknowledge that we don't have all the answers. speaker-0 (12:38.52) Yeah. speaker-0 (12:42.552) Yeah. speaker-1 (12:44.494) And that's uncomfortable for technical, because you're supposed to. And so to walk into the room and acknowledge that we don't have all the answers, we're going to figure it out together. We've now completed, as you pointed out, we've completed 50 mergers in the last 13 years, just around 25 in the last 18 months. And have brought on a large number of speaker-0 (12:47.103) It is. speaker-1 (13:14.082) lateral partners and scaled the team to now a little north of 3000 actually, off of half of that just two years ago. So you got to have these debates and feel comfortable that we don't have the answers. We have to go figure this out together and explore and take speaker-0 (13:35.63) I think that is such an important mindset shift and I want to make sure that our technical discipline people out there who are listening hear this, which is in your discipline, it may be very uncomfortable to say that you don't know something, but in business, you absolutely have to be comfortable saying that. Otherwise, you will be in a fixed mindset and you will limit the range of possibilities that you're able to look at from a business perspective. I think that is a huge mindset shift for a lot of people who agree that they want to be in leadership roles, but are struggling to get there. So I just love that you called that out so specifically. And I think that's going to be really helpful for people to hear. I have a question for you, Richard, because you talked about the strategy and that you talk a lot about the strategy. We work with a lot of senior leaders who tell us, I don't understand why people don't know the strategy. I told them at our town hall last month about it. Right? We get that. frustration from leaders. And so I'm curious in your mind, how often do you need to talk about the strategy to make sure that people really understand it and know how to use it to make decisions? speaker-1 (14:51.128) Well, one of my theories in life is that when you're tired of saying it and you said it a hundred times, everybody else is just beginning to hear it. So I think you have to talk about it a lot. And we do, we spend a lot of time talking about it through our town halls. We may not talk about the entire broad strategy and maybe if we talk about components of it. And when you're adding people at the pace we're adding, we have to... Continue to talk because everybody's entering the movie, if you would, at a different scene. And you got to make sure you back up and give them a summary of the first three chapters. speaker-0 (15:35.116) Yeah, I just, love that framing of if you're tired of talking about it, people are probably just getting caught up. I hope people hear that because I think you can't talk about it enough, probably. It needs to be really something that leaders are very fluent in. And that I have seen be a real mindset and group dynamic shift for enterprise level leaders to just embrace the responsibility to keep talking about it. Not let it drop off of your radar. Go ahead. speaker-1 (16:08.834) Yeah, talking about the strategy and then you also have to talk about how you're executing the strategy. And you have to execute. speaker-0 (16:17.634) Yeah. Yeah. And I think also how you stay true to it. I know as the CEO of Carrick and Scroop, I'm often talking with my colleagues about my decision making process through the lens of the strategy. So here's why we're going to do something or not going to do something, because that's what the strategy calls for. And how do we stay true to that or make adjustments where necessary? And that can be frustrating for enterprise level leaders too, who might have a mindset that I don't need to explain my decisions. It sounds like for you and your team, you're really committed to helping people understand how the strategy gets executed and how you put it into play. speaker-1 (16:57.198) I am, and there are times of course, as you probably know as well, where you do have to say, yes, I hear you, I understand, I've taken that into consideration, and this is the decision we're making or I'm making as the leader. And then let's all toe the line and agree that one thing we could always agree on, I think here at Aprio is at a leadership level is might not always agree 100 % of the... But when we leave the room or end when we leave the room, we are locked in arms and we are executing whenever that decision was. speaker-0 (17:34.572) I think that's really so commendable and also it's so tricky for leadership teams to be willing to go along with the decision and support it actively when they might not agree with it in its entirety. I think that is another place where people get stuck sometimes and they struggle, especially with big transformation efforts or acquisitions to really get aligned and make sure that as individual leaders, they're doing what they need to do because there might be some piece or that they don't agree with. And I would encourage people who might be listening and thinking for their own teams, how do I help people to move forward, deal with that as a leader, right? Make sure that people know they don't have to be 100 % in agreement, but they do have to be in alignment and they do need to move forward with the decision as it stands. speaker-1 (18:24.822) I think that's steeped in trust. speaker-0 (18:28.312) Tell me more about that. speaker-1 (18:29.294) If you have trust in the room, I think if you have trust in the room and the team has trust with one another and they built strong bonds, then you can have those debates, disagreements in the room. And I'll look at each other and say, well, we walk out, we are locked in arms. we're going to go execute this strategy or we're going to execute this plan or this part of the strategy, or the execution plan associated with it. But we're going to go and do this and. And, and there's going to be no back-channeling. think that is super dangerous in organizations. That's, that is what destroys both trust and execution and derails teams and derails, derails businesses all the time. speaker-0 (19:15.852) Yeah, the meeting after the meeting or the follow-up one-on-one kind of thing that I think it really does erode trust across the board and it slows transformations. We know that for sure. When you think about integrating a lot of lateral leaders through these acquisitions that you've been doing, I'm curious, that can be very challenging to get new leaders into that circle of trust and understanding how you lead together. to make sure that Apriio is delivering on the strategy that you're committed to. And so any thoughts for people who might be in an organization where there are a lot of acquisitions and are experiencing some of that cultural disruption and leadership disruption that can come from that? How do you, as the CEO, make sure that those new leaders coming in are getting a real sense of this growth mindset and the need to be in that committed and trusting relationship with their colleagues. speaker-1 (20:20.108) I was having this discussion with somebody earlier and they were asking me like, has, I was interviewing someone and they were asking me some questions and part of it was how are we making sure we're integrating, you know, the people really well for both &A and also the lateral partner hires that we've been making. And, you know, we talked about step one is you got to pick right. So who are you picking to be your partners? And. I'm seeing, obviously we're seeing a ton of &A activity in the marketplace and we're very true to who we are when we're meeting with firms. And we're not going to tell them something that is, you know, not quite reality. And then when they arrive, they go, wait a second, you showed us, you know, this other picture while you were courting us and now we got married and now it looks totally different. And I think there's some of that happening in the marketplace. So we're very careful to show people who we are to make sure that we're choosing well, but so are they. And I think people who don't feel like they're going to fit with Abreu's speed and culture are going to pull the rip cord on the way in and they'll never, they'll never join. Also, our models are very much based on driving growth and outcome. And so we're really careful about who we select. And then we've made plenty of mistakes along the way from an integration perspective. And I want to say we've always learned all the lessons, but the reality is, you know, new ones pop up all the time. And we have pivoted. We've got some really great people dedicated to the integration of our partners. And we have a partner success team that's solely focused on, you know, making sure people come in, they understand what we're doing, how we're executing it, and they can jump on the train and be part of the process immediately. And we had some, in fact, last year, I would say we had a couple of footfalls. And the partner, my partner Mike Callahan, Elite Partner Success, pivoted quickly and said, hey, I've redesigned how I'm gonna do this. And this is now our process. And I think this is gonna work. And we've already seen immediate, immediate positive outcomes from that shift. speaker-1 (22:44.77) So I think you got to recognize also when things are not working well, acknowledge it, say, okay, it doesn't work. Like let's go pivot and change. One of our fundamentals is blameless problem solving. And it really allows us to look at a problem and a set of pointing fingers and spend a lot of wasted time doing that. We just look at it go, it doesn't work. Let's change it. And that's it. Let's move on. speaker-0 (23:08.118) I really appreciate that cultural commitment to blameless problem solving. think that goes a long way in expediting problem solving because too often we see people spend a lot of time and energy trying to hide or trying to obfuscate a little bit around the reason that things didn't go well. And it sounds like you've embraced that culturally and been able to expedite solutions as a result, which is really wonderful. It definitely gets you over the failure gap. pretty quickly because everybody agrees we want to solve problems, but it can be very hard to align on how do we do that well without blaming people and without having it feel like a bit of a witch hunt for lack of a better word. I'm really interested in your point about making the right choices early on about who you bring into the partner ecosystem and also who you bring through the acquisition process because we've done a lot of work with companies in that space. And I'm thinking about in particular, client a few years ago who had done all the due diligence for a particular acquisition and said, hey, you know, Julie, can you and your team go over and take a look at them from a culture fit perspective, which we did. And I came back and I said, you know, the reality is I think this is going to be a real struggle. The culture fit is very difficult. They're very, you are a very different company from them. You need to know that going in. I get that your due diligence and then money all works, but this is my professional opinion. They went forward with that acquisition and it actually did not work at all, largely because of the culture problems that went unaddressed. And I think this is a piece of the &A process that many companies are in agreement. We think that it's a good idea to understand culture fit before we go through the process, but it's very difficult to be aligned on what are we gonna do if there's not a good culture fit? Are we going to say no? Are we going to surround them with support? in trying to do that cultural integration? Or are we just going to continue to move forward like we always have and see if we can muscle through it and make it work? And what I'm understanding from your description is you've actually created an entire process and a group that is focused on that implementation success. And I'm curious if you can just share a little bit more color about how that has developed or played out. speaker-0 (25:34.062) and maybe a particular success story that you've seen with it to help people really understand the need for that kind of support around an acquisition or bringing a partner online. speaker-1 (25:48.714) And not only do we support it post transaction, we also use a industrial psychologist to review. They've reviewed everybody at Aprio, all the partners at Aprio. We have the same Doug when, when firms are merging in or when we're making a lateral partner hire to make sure that it's going to be a good cultural fit. And what are the things that we can do to ensure that that person is Uber successful when they arrive here at Apriio? What are the things that we need to do and support and help or what do we need to execute in order to ensure they have the best experience here possible and get to hit their goals and objectives as quickly as possible? So you asked about, and how we got there was we have a partner that just over time who leads partner success. mentioned Mike earlier. He became known as the partner whisperer was kind of his nickname. If people in the firm didn't know that, I guess they'll know it after they, they listened to this podcast. So he's a little bit known as the partner whisperer and, he just has a deep care. Like we all do for our fellow partners. He's extraordinarily good at it. Loves spending time in that area. And is constantly thinking about how do we as an organization. make sure that each partner is very successful. A particular example, nothing's popping to mind right now, but maybe during the wind down, something will pop into my head about a particular, we have lots of people that are coming in and being very successful at Aprio. So I'll think about where that intersects. speaker-0 (27:37.802) Absolutely. Thank you for that. I think that idea that somebody really has ownership of the success of whatever kind of integration or acquisition it might be is really important. And too often, I think that the eye towards that is very operational. So it's about the numbers and the systems and the processes. But it feels like at Aprio, you've also embraced the need to attend to the culture and make sure that people understand what they're coming into, maybe what they are leaving behind and how they can be successful within the growth mindset that Aprio brings to both the industry and to your clients and your colleagues. speaker-1 (28:22.862) With aprio meaning head and heart, we got to really bring it to life. speaker-0 (28:32.91) Yeah, and it's a constant thing. speaker-1 (28:34.562) The other, well, one of the things we do, by the way, when we merge a firm in is we have what we call apria week. So we have this, this one week that happens, you know, somewhere in the first 15 days, typically of, of a, of a transaction where we have a pretty intense team of folks that from the firm that go on site with the firm that's merging in, not just welcome them, but help them through the technology changes, the hardware changes of getting a new laptop and really being on site to answer their questions and make that transition as simple and as easy as possible. Because as someone, Lexi Kessler, who is one of our partners and currently the chair of the ASCPA, said to me after her firm merged in at the beginning of 2023 in the mid-Atlantic region, in the greater DC area. She said, remember, we all started new jobs last week or last month, right? Everybody that's joining the firm, regardless of how they're coming in, they all start a new job the next day. They might be working with the same people. They're working with, well, they are working with the same people. They're working with the same clients. They're doing the same work. That is intact. They started a new job. took all of that and brought it to a new organization. It's a big, yeah, they're in a new container. is a big, you know, it's a big transition. speaker-0 (30:01.424) They're in a new container. speaker-0 (30:09.388) Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, just to think about it as a thought exercise, it's almost like transferring colleges where you might be in college for a couple of years and then you decide to transfer to a different campus or a different school altogether. you know, you've been in college, you know what to do, you know how to get to class and things like that, but you're doing it now in a very different environment and you have to figure out how do I fit in? How do I belong? Like I might even be pursuing the same major, but I have different professors and I have different. and your fellow students and I have to find my way around the campus and different buildings and different classroom setups and things like that. I think that can be really hard for, it can be harder for people than they might expect. speaker-1 (30:51.212) You sound like you're speaking for pers- speaker-0 (30:52.654) I did not actually transfer colleges, but I know many people who did and they do feel like it would be easy. But I've also I've I have walked the path of acquisitions both personally and with with clients many times over the years. And I think it's surprising to them because they think, it's the same clients, same job, but it's a different it's a different world that you're in. Yeah, yeah, I actually think it's a. think it's a really exciting time, but it's also a confronting time for people. I'm sure you see that with some of yours, by the way, too, that the confronting part of it is we were doing fine, so why do we have to go through this? speaker-1 (31:36.014) Right? Well, listen, the partners make the decision that they think it's in the best interest of their clients and their people. And now we've got to bring the people along as part of that journey, because they didn't opt in on their, you know, they didn't make the decision to go through the transaction. So I never forget that as part of the process that the partners made the decision, the owners made the decision. And now we as a team, as a new team, we have to bring those folks along. the clients, the people along in that, in that journey as well. And everybody's always listening to their own radio station. always say W I I F what's, what's in it for me. And we need to focus on, know, why is this good for you? What are you going to get out of this? How is this going to help your career? And, I always share that at least personally, I experienced working with our founders and They built a business that was always focused on growth and they were growth minded. They took calculated risks along the way and they created opportunities for me and other partners that worked with them. And it's our responsibility to do that for the next generation. Continue to pay it forward and create the environment where people can be successful. Everybody needs to meet the business halfway and go execute their plan, their personal plan to hit the pinnacles that they want to hit, whatever those are in their career. speaker-0 (33:17.186) You know, you've just brought us back to something earlier in the conversation about the distinction between a leader who is a technical expert and a leader who is really running the enterprise or that enterprise level leadership mindset, which is your responsibility isn't to know all of the technical answers to a particular discipline, but really to care for the organization as a whole and to create those opportunities for the next generation of leaders. And so for people out there who might be aspiring to make that switch, And one thing to really take away from this is that mindset shift is really important as you move forward in your leadership journey, you have to be able to let go of some of the technical details that you might be proud of being an expert in and instead have that more expansive view about how do you create opportunities for other people to become an expert in something that you were once an expert in, but aren't gonna be any longer. That's a hard, that's a hard. speaker-1 (34:17.005) think that's well said. And I think also you got to retain the ability and the skills to be able to do that deep dive when you have to. And sometimes I see leaders that are unwilling to or think it's really beneath them to take that deep dive. And I think it's really important to retain that skill set and frankly mindset that when needed, not... every day because that's, you you can't focus on leading the business if you're doing it every day. There are times though that come up where you have to do that deep dive and really get into the, really get into the nitty gritty in the details to either solve a problem or move, move, move the business forward. We're just gaining understanding that you need. I've been doing that actually recently around AI and data. I'm taking a much deeper dive so that I have a better understanding as we're leading the business forward with the changing environment that we have. speaker-0 (35:21.708) Yeah, I think that's a really great call out. see a lot of leaders today who agree that AI is important and they need to be doing something with it, but they're not really getting aligned as a leader in understanding how they can use AI for themselves and what do they need to know and understand about it and how can they leverage it so they can work well with their teams who are going really deep with it. And that gap right now is slowing down a lot of organizational transformation relative to AI. speaker-1 (35:50.478) Oh, interesting. Yeah, we're doing a lot in that space and a lot of education, a lot of training at the leadership level to ensure that we have an idea of what is even possible. speaker-0 (36:05.772) Yeah, yeah, and I think it's also about asking the question, not just what can AI do in the organization or for my people, but how can AI help me to be a better leader? And we don't see as many leaders asking that question. speaker-1 (36:22.51) I've been using it in that way and, T is using it, especially around, we were talking earlier about the communication of strategy and I've even, you know, we use it in some very interesting ways to aggregate data that is retained in our systems, in my own personal environment at Microsoft, you know, accessing that data and thinking about, okay, how do we use that data? in our communication strategies. speaker-0 (36:53.58) Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great example of how a leader can take ownership of learning and applying AI tools. You don't have to use it to do the things that your people are doing deep in the organization, but you can definitely leverage it to be more comprehensive in how you're leading the organization. the byproduct of that is you gain fluency in this incredible new technology that the rest of your organization is trying to wrap its arms around. speaker-1 (37:20.182) Yes, and I learned also along the way that you also have to be nice to the bot too. You don't want to be mean to the bots. you got to be really, you got to deliver kindness there. Well, it actually is interesting. Talking to a friend of mine and he said that he is learning to talk to Claude and give it very specific instructions. And he said that it's helping him communicate with his people better because he's learning to be a little bit more detailed in talking to and giving direction to Claude. And so it's caused him to get better at giving directions to the people that he works with. And I thought that was pretty interesting. And I sort of see that a little bit in how I'm going to with it as well. speaker-0 (38:08.972) Yeah, it's a great example of how AI can help a leader to be a better leader while also helping to do technical tasks. I love that. It's such a wonderful example. I'm actually giving a keynote next week around the intersection of AI and leadership. And one of the points I made is that prompt writing for 2026 is like typing in 1996. A lot of leaders had to learn how to type in order to use PCs. And these days, a lot of leaders are learning to be really great at writing prompts. that will help them to be better leaders. speaker-1 (38:41.39) That reminds me when I brought my then six-year-olds into the office and there were IBM Selectra typewriters to type labels sitting on someone's desk and I asked them what it was and they said, well, that's an old type computer. I've seen that in boogies before. speaker-0 (38:57.863) I saw it on people's desks. speaker-1 (39:03.15) Exactly. Well, the generation today was born with the iPhone. Yeah. And they're in their hands. speaker-0 (39:09.166) Amazing to think about. Well, listen, Richard, this has been really wonderful. I really appreciate your time. I want to just do a quick roundup of some of the things we've talked about. We started with the growth mindset and really staying in that space as a leadership team and as a leader for yourself, thinking about all of the possibilities that are out there that you can explore as an organization. And then we also talked about the need as a leader to continue to come back to the strategy to both... the discipline of it and the execution of it so that people are understanding it and seeing you put it into use so they can put it into use themselves and never get tired of talking about the strategy I think is where we landed on that. And then we also talked about the importance of optimism and knowing that you might go in a direction that you need to course correct for and that's okay. If you do that, then you keep moving forward. I really like your point around blameless problem solving and how we. get to a problem and we work our way through it and we carry on and keep moving forward. It's a really optimistic spirit. And I think a lot of these are great mindset shifts for people who are trying to figure out how do I get myself or my team from agreeing that something is a good idea to really getting aligned and delivering on it together. And we talked about acquisitions or bringing on new partners. You really shared this, I think, really important idea that you have to surround people. with an understanding of the culture so that they can also embrace that growth mindset and the trust that is required to both agree to something that you might not 100 % agree with, but you need to be fully aligned to so that you're delivering on it together as a team. And I think the trust component of that is a really important part and it's something that often goes unattended, especially in the acquisition process. So thank you for calling that out too. I'm curious for yourself if there are... Two or three just really important things that you want to make sure people walk away from this conversation thinking about when they are considering the failure gap and the space between agreeing to something and wanting to get aligned and actually take action and make it happen. Are there any key mindsets or group dynamics across a team or things that you think would be really important for people to take forward that are great lessons from what you're doing at Aprio? speaker-1 (41:26.988) Well, by the way, I thought you do a great job summing that up, so thank you. It's amazing actually how well you summed that up. Things that I think about all the time is one is you gotta take, we talked about this earlier, you gotta take chances. The other thing is we always, it's easy to come with an idea and say all the reasons why it's gonna be successful. And we should, of course, I who's gonna bring an idea and say, hey, I'm presenting this idea and I think it's gonna fail? We spend... a fair amount of time thinking about why could it fail so that we can design a plan and a strategy around how to avoid it from hitting those pitfalls, because there's pitfalls to everything. So I do think you have to leave space as a group to think about why something is going to fail and then build a plan and solution around and the execution around those failure points. That to me is the number one, I wouldn't say number one, maybe that's one A, one B is the people. It's easy to talk about, I'm gonna change this, I'm gonna change that, I'm gonna do this merger, I'm gonna bring this team in. the people part, we are in a people business. And so we have to be thinking about how we bring bringing people on the journey. How are we helping them transform? We're going through the biggest transformation probably in the history of the profession right now. And it's going to last for, I don't know, some predictions are 18 months, some are five years. Maybe it'll be 10. Who knows? I thought by now we'd have self-driving vehicles and my kids would never drive, but I was wrong. There are self-driving vehicles, but not all of them. So, you know, the world is... speaker-1 (43:19.8) You know, it's constantly evolving and changing and things, you know, there's never a straight line between A and B. It's a very windy road. And we need to plan for that and think about it and be prepared for it. speaker-0 (43:33.964) I think that if I were going to summarize that, would say to people, embrace the adventure. speaker-1 (43:41.484) Well said. speaker-0 (43:42.634) All right, well that is, think your call to action for people is if you want to move from agreement to alignment and get over the failure gap with things, embrace the adventure, be willing to have that growth mindset, bring some optimism and energy to it while also bringing the pragmatic view of what could possibly go wrong and how you can work through that so that you preempt some of those failure points that might be holding you back and kind of work through that in a really structured way. Thank you for those hot takes around what can people do. And the last question, Richard, that we always ask everybody, and it's a bit of a dream along with me question, if there was something that you could get your team or even your family or a community that you're a part of, if you want to get people aligned to something and get them kind of getting it done, is there anything that you have an ambition to get people aligned to and working on so that they can make it happen? speaker-1 (44:38.446) something that I want to get people aligned to it happen. I mean, right now about, I'll just take it from a business, from a business perspective. I want us to, I want everybody focused on and aligned on, you know, the taking amazing care of and creating an amazing experience for both our people and for our clients. As we go through this journey. this transformation over the next however many years. speaker-0 (45:11.618) Yeah, staying focused on that experience for people I think is a wonderful call to action for people to not just agree that it sounds good in theory, but get aligned and do the work to make sure that that amazing experience comes to life for everyone. Richard, I want to say thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I think people are going to take a lot away from it. I really appreciate your time. And I know that our listeners will as well. So thank you so much for being here. speaker-1 (45:38.946) Thank you, Julie, and always mind the gap. speaker-0 (45:42.764) Yeah, always mind the gap. At Karrikins Group, we like to say, if you want to go far, go together. If you want to go far fast, get aligned. And so we like for people to get aligned and do that work as a team. It sounds like your team is off to a great adventure with that. And I really appreciate you sharing some of the ways that you're cultivating that as a CEO. For all of our listeners, just remember, you can check out the show notes for links to all things Aprio and Richard. and also for more information on Karrikins Group. And we will see you next time on the Failure Gap.