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Special Episode: Resilience in the Accountancy Profession: Insights and Strategies with Dee France, Brad Hook and Declan Scott · Difference Makers Podcast

• 0:10
  Dee France: Hello everyone and welcome to Difference Makers Discuss Live.
• 0:13
  Dee France: I am your host for today's episode.
• 0:15
  Dee France: My name is Dee France, I'm the Wellbeing and Support Lead for Chartered Accountants Ireland and I chair the Chartered Accountants Worldwide Wellbeing Task Force.
• 0:24
  Dee France: I am delighted to announce the launch of a new groundbreaking global report on resilience and well-being of the chartered accountancy profession.
• 0:33
  Dee France: This inaugural study, developed in collaboration with the Resilience Institute, is based on insights from nearly 700 chartered accountants worldwide.
• 0:42
  Dee France: It offers an in-depth exploration of the profession's strengths, challenges and opportunities for growth.
• 0:50
  Dee France: Today, we'll explore some of the report's key findings, such as the remarkable levels of curiosity, altruism and adaptability that Chartered Accountants bring to their roles, traits that make them invaluable to businesses globally.
• 1:05
  Dee France: However, the report highlights significant challenges, including the effects of multitasking, worry and sleep deprivation.
• 1:13
  Dee France: Thankfully, the report also provides plenty of practical recommendations to build resilience, such as monotasking techniques, cognitive behavioural strategies and structured resilience training.
• 1:25
  Dee France: We are thrilled to have with us Brad Hook, author, partner and head of Resilience Lab, and Declan Scott, chartered Accountant and Senior Consultant for the Resilience Institute, who bring invaluable insights and expertise to this conversation.
• 1:41
  Dee France: Together, we'll discuss how these findings can shape the future of chartered accountancy and empower professionals to thrive in their roles while maintaining their well-being.
• 1:53
  Dee France: Brad and Declan, you're very welcome.
• 1:55
  Dee France: So look as we get into the main sort of meat of the conversation we're going to.
• 2:00
  Dee France: Just just before we do that, we're just going to have a quick chat about the survey itself.
• 2:04
  Dee France: So, brad, maybe you might just take us through the kind of the nuts and the bolts what actually stood behind the survey and what actually the respondents saw.
• 2:11
  Dee France: So it might be quite interesting, just to give it a bit of context.
• 2:15
  Declan Scott: Yeah, so the resilience assessment is a tool that has been developed over around 18 years.
• 2:22
  Declan Scott: It originated with our founder in his executive clinic.
• 2:27
  Declan Scott: It was a way of understanding humans' strengths and risks.
• 2:30
  Declan Scott: It evolved over the years into the Resilience Diagnostic, which is a tool that we've rolled out at scale across thousands of organizations worldwide, hundreds of thousands of participants.
• 2:43
  Declan Scott: It's in its fifth version right now.
• 2:46
  Declan Scott: We're rigorous about having the tool assessed and made valid and reliable through psychometric testing, and what we did is we released it to almost 700 chartered accountants worldwide.
• 3:01
  Declan Scott: And what it does is it provides each individual with a snapshot of their personal strengths and risks across 50 factors that underpin human resilience, and this includes physical, emotional, mental and social fitness All of these skills that enable us to flourish as humans in our busy, busy modern environment.
• 3:23
  Declan Scott: So each person is presented with a statement and they answer that statement on a Likert scale.
• 3:29
  Declan Scott: And then what we do is we produce group reports and we do this for the organizations that we work with to show what are the trends across different teams, across different locations, across different sectors and even across the globe, as we've done in this particular instance.
• 3:46
  Dee France: Great.
• 3:46
  Dee France: So I think that's great, as I say, to have a bit of context.
• 3:50
  Dee France: So I think we'll start with the good news the strengths of the profession.
• 3:54
  Dee France: The report highlights curiosity, altruism and creativity as key strengths of the charge of chartered accountants.
• 4:00
  Dee France: How do these traits contribute to resilience and professional success?
• 4:05
  Dee France: And Declan, I might go to you for that on e
• 4:12
  Declan Scott: Y eah well being a member myself Dee, it brings me back.
• 4:14
  Declan Scott: I'm actually a 30 years a member this year, so that dates me and it's been.
• 4:19
  Declan Scott: It's been such a wonderful foundation for for the work've done.
• 4:24
  Declan Scott: And when I reflect back on this, on the survey results, and think some of the things that I learned coming through the profession whether it's just getting through my exams and that was a big challenge at the time and then coming through articles and working in a professional firm and being able to use those skills that were really the curiosity, altruism and creativity have carried me through 30 years now across five different countries and many different jobs and own businesses.
• 4:55
  Declan Scott: And and you know it's it's no surprise to me People often think, oh, accountant's creative.
• 5:02
  Declan Scott: Well, it is actually one of the most creative professions and in fact, that's why I got into it.
• 5:08
  Declan Scott: I used to be a tax advisor, so I loved actually working out how to get around the system.
• 5:13
  Declan Scott: I think it was my growing up on the border with Northern Ireland.
• 5:17
  Declan Scott: It was my resilience that started there.
• 5:27
  Declan Scott: That made me curious of how do I do this and do it better and help others doing it.
• 5:29
  Declan Scott: So being curious, being creative and altruistic for those that don't use that term altruistic.
• 5:32
  Declan Scott: I think what sums it up is we are we're a caring profession.
• 5:38
  Declan Scott: A lot of our business relies on trust, a lot relies on trust building and we become trusted partners with clients so we literally get inside their business.
• 5:50
  Declan Scott: We were there for the long term.
• 5:52
  Declan Scott: So that's an important skill that we, that we have cultivated, if for want of a better word over our career if you're not able to do that, then you're not going to have much longevity in the profession when you're supporting others.
• 6:05
  Declan Scott: So I think that's that's a cornerstone of it.
• 6:08
  Declan Scott: The curiosity and it was interesting.
• 6:10
  Declan Scott: Harvard did a study where curiosity in itself leads to 34 increase, I think, in problem solving ability, which is fascinating.
• 6:20
  Declan Scott: You know, bringing that open mindset to problem solving to.
• 6:23
  Declan Scott: You know thinking about innovative solutions, how to be agile and look forward for businesses, for clients, into the future.
• 6:32
  Declan Scott: You know you have to stay curious, stay open, have a learning mindset and and bring creativity into it.
• 6:41
  Declan Scott: Again, it's been publicized in many different places, from gallop to others, that when you have this powerful triad of curiosity, creativity and altruism, you know people are in it for the long haul.
• 6:53
  Declan Scott: It's, it's a meaning, it's a mobilizing meaning, because you're, you're helping others.
• 6:57
  Declan Scott: You're helping others in their business.
• 6:59
  Declan Scott: You know they're.
• 7:00
  Declan Scott: They're going through tough times.
• 7:01
  Declan Scott: They're very demanding, of course, and you we've learned to rise to that challenge through resilience.
• 7:09
  Declan Scott: Through being resilient Maybe to our own detriment we will put the wellbeing of others before ourselves, and that's something that this report highlights very strongly.
• 7:20
  Declan Scott: Look, that is a quality that we can build on, we can rely on.
• 7:24
  Declan Scott: We've got a lot of great skills, particularly in that mental and emotional awareness, but now it's like we still have to take care of ourselves too, because you can't just be complacent about that, and I think there's there's a lot in this study that is bringing forth the need for that self-care, and one accountant that I trained with he used to talk about Swiss cheese.
• 7:49
  Declan Scott: When you cut through Swiss cheese, you see all the holes.
• 7:52
  Declan Scott: We're really great at some things, and then we'd be with these huge gaps, and I think the report is really highlighting some of those gaps that we need to fill in.
• 8:06
  Dee France: That's actually a fascination, I to say.
• 8:07
  Dee France: Um declan, I think a lot of people will be surprised at their creativity element and how strong and the score was on that particular area.
• 8:13
  Dee France: So very, very interesting insights there.
• 8:14
  Dee France: So I think it's obviously important to look at the challenges within the profession and the challenges that came up in in the study itself.
• 8:21
  Dee France: Multitasking, hyper vigilance and poor sleep quality were defined as challenges.
• 8:27
  Dee France: So maybe, brad, you could just share a couple of examples of how these would actually impact the day-to-day performance and well-being of the accountants that are out there and listening today.
• 8:39
  Brad Hook: Absolutely so.
• 8:40
  Brad Hook: I come from a family of accountants and I've seen this firsthand.
• 8:44
  Brad Hook: I'm still surprised when job ads say multitasking is required.
• 8:50
  Brad Hook: The research shows quite clearly that multitasking, for example, it rapidly drains our cognitive resources.
• 8:58
  Brad Hook: It gives the illusion of productivity, but if you find yourself at the end of the day feeling completely exhausted, it's a real call to action to ask yourself was I multitasking?
• 9:10
  Brad Hook: Some research suggests that if I'm working on five tasks simultaneously, five threads simultaneously, I lose about 80% of my time to what's called context switching.
• 9:20
  Brad Hook: We're not actually running the tasks simultaneously, we're jumping from one to the other, to the other.
• 9:27
  Brad Hook: A far more effective habit is monotasking, which is just focusing on one thing through to completion, potentially stepping back, taking a short break it can be a micro break of 10 seconds or one minute, if you can afford that and just recalibrating and then stepping into the next task.
• 9:48
  Brad Hook: These types of rhythms of resilience can make a huge difference.
• 9:53
  Brad Hook: Hypervigilance is the state of being constantly switched on, and it's a real challenge, especially in those last few hours before bed.
• 10:03
  Brad Hook: Have you ever found yourself going to bed and then checking the phone one more time just to see if anything interesting came through?
• 10:09
  Brad Hook: I often say in my workshops.
• 10:11
  Brad Hook: I don't think anyone has received an email in the last half hour before bed that actually helped them to sleep better.
• 10:18
  Brad Hook: Yet we practice these habits, and most of these are habits.
• 10:23
  Brad Hook: Multitasking is a habit.
• 10:24
  Brad Hook: Whatever we practice, we get good at.
• 10:25
  Brad Hook: Hyper vigilance is a habit.
• 10:28
  Brad Hook: If I'm constantly on high alert without creating space to down, regulate the nervous system response, calm, ease my way towards evening, I'm going to be in that highly alert state and it can lead to mental and emotional exhaustion.
• 10:42
  Brad Hook: It's like keeping the foot on the accelerator without ever taking a break.
• 10:46
  Brad Hook: It wears down the engine.
• 10:48
  Brad Hook: And sleep well.
• 10:50
  Brad Hook: Sleep is the cornerstone of resilience.
• 10:51
  Brad Hook: It's during sleep that our brains process information.
• 10:55
  Brad Hook: That's when memory consolidation occurs and we restore our energy.
• 10:59
  Brad Hook: And in fact, in deep sleep cycles there's an effect where the brain actually flushes out plaques and toxins.
• 11:06
  Brad Hook: And if we're not getting enough sleep, then that's not happening.
• 11:10
  Brad Hook: So we're undermining our ability to think, we're not regulating our emotions and performing at our best.
• 11:17
  Brad Hook: So who would have thought that one day, a foundational aspect of high performance at work would be getting good sleep?
• 11:23
  Brad Hook: But the research is clear we're not.
• 11:25
  Brad Hook: There was a study at the start of the 20th century that showed, on average, adults were sleeping for 7.9 hours per night.
• 11:33
  Brad Hook: Last year's Gallup research shows that we're sleeping for around 6.3 hours per night, and this is really taking its toll.
• 11:41
  Brad Hook: So getting a good night's sleep sounds easier than it perhaps is in practice.
• 11:47
  Brad Hook: But there are many, many things that we can do, and a good place to start is just creating a cool-down routine so that we're not jumping straight from a laptop with blue light, which actually reduces our melatonin, the sleep chemical.
• 12:00
  Brad Hook: It's to create a little bit of a routine whereby we can unwind in the evening and and start to ease our way towards sleep, really protecting that seven or so hours as much as we can without putting extra pressure on yourself, and there's lots of tools in the resilience program that we'll be happy to share about that.
• 12:18
  Brad Hook: But those three are real concerns for accountants and that's what we saw from from the data.
• 12:24
  Brad Hook: It's multit, doing lots of things at once, hypervigilance, always being on high alert and not securing enough sleep.
• 12:33
  Dee France: Yeah, that's so interesting.
• 12:34
  Dee France: So you mentioned the practical strategies there, just one of them being the monotasking.
• 12:39
  Dee France: So one of the recommendations, of course, in the report is monotasking to combat the cognitive overload.
• 12:47
  Dee France: So can you explain why this is effective and how chartered accountants can adopt this practice?
• 12:52
  Dee France: And, Declan, I might ask you for that one.
• 12:55
  Declan Scott: I'm reflecting back on my own bad habits of the past here, and it was.
• 13:00
  Declan Scott: You know, it was not even something that was brought to my awareness.
• 13:03
  Declan Scott: It was not even something that was brought to my awareness.
• 13:05
  Declan Scott: You were constantly available and that was almost like the person that could say yes and deliver, was constantly busy, and busy people achieve more, and we think we have this perception and it's a confusion of busyness with results.
• 13:25
  Declan Scott: And I think, if we look at our day and and stephen covey and the very famous author professor talked about this, and what is?
• 13:34
  Declan Scott: We confuse that urgency with what's important, and lots of things pop up all the time.
• 13:38
  Declan Scott: You know, when you're caring for somebody's business as as many of our members are in business themselves as well as as caring and being the guardian of the financials in some ways, they're, you know they're, they're so tuned into the business, they take such responsibility for the business and and so they're constantly on call, they're constantly available and you know we might think about our own business.
• 14:06
  Declan Scott: You know, 80% of the day when you've got 10 or maybe 20 clients and they are all pulling at you and their work their business is the most important thing.
• 14:19
  Declan Scott: It can be very, very difficult, you know, we we can suffer from being being pleasers and and we will jump from one to the other, and so by the end of the day, we are in that position where we're mentally fatigued.
• 14:32
  Declan Scott: Mental fatigue drains us so much more, even than physical fatigue.
• 14:37
  Declan Scott: You know, physical fatigue will help us sleep, mental fatigue will keep us awake.
• 14:42
  Declan Scott: And then we're worrying about the things we miss, even if it's not that important.
• 14:48
  Declan Scott: There's the fear of what I might have missed and what I should have done, and so this constant reflecting, reviewing can go late into the night, and I can recall in my own professional days working in public practice, it was working late at night was the only time I got some quiet time to really do focused work, and many, many of my colleagues and friends that are still in the profession would say that I'm so overwhelmed with meetings and busyness during the day, I have to do the work at night that I need to concentrate on, and you know that that has.
• 15:25
  Declan Scott: You know, just that's a.
• 15:26
  Declan Scott: That's a factor many people face in, regardless CAs and others.
• 15:31
  Declan Scott: They need that quiet space, that monotasking, although it sounds like what you can just do.
• 15:37
  Declan Scott: One thing it's almost unheard of when you've got, you know, your phone ringing, you've got messages.
• 15:42
  Declan Scott: You've got you phone ringing, you've got messages.
• 15:43
  Declan Scott: You've got, you know, people walking into your space.
• 15:47
  Declan Scott: But working with people in the profession over the last number of years, you know we have many of the major clients who have seen the value of resilience.
• 15:56
  Declan Scott: You know PwC and others have been, you know, 20 plus years working with us.
• 16:01
  Declan Scott: They're not doing it just for the good of their.
• 16:03
  Declan Scott: You know, they're not doing it to for the good of their.
• 16:05
  Declan Scott: You know they're not doing it to be nice, but that way they're doing it because there's returns from this.
• 16:08
  Declan Scott: They've introduced initiatives like focus friday and realizing that we're not machines, you know, realizing that we can't have multiple priorities.
• 16:19
  Declan Scott: That priority means one thing.
• 16:22
  Declan Scott: So starting to get a lot more, you know, intentional about how you plan your day and your week, learning to say no, learning to.
• 16:30
  Declan Scott: You know, help clients see that you are.
• 16:34
  Declan Scott: You have limitations, you have boundaries.
• 16:36
  Declan Scott: The digital boundaries are really important.
• 16:39
  Declan Scott: Otherwise you're constantly getting bombarded and each time you lift your attention, each time you're interrupted as Brad mentioned there, the switching it takes up on 25 minutes to get back into a state of focus and flow.
• 16:53
  Declan Scott: That was a study out of the University of California.
• 16:56
  Declan Scott: So if we're constantly being interrupted, digitally or otherwise, there's possibly no time during the day when we're actually in that state of deep immersion and focus which is essential for the work we do.
• 17:10
  Declan Scott: And so the practice then, to start being very deliberate with your time and your day.
• 17:17
  Declan Scott: Look, we sell time.
• 17:18
  Declan Scott: That's how we make money.
• 17:19
  Declan Scott: We sell time and yet we're diluting the power of what we're doing, so things take longer, we miss critical things.
• 17:26
  Declan Scott: We worry about things then because we are, um, you know, partners in business with a lot of people.
• 17:33
  Declan Scott: So, you know, in the interest of your own sanity, I would recommend starting to chunk your time and taking those micro breaks that you can step outside.
• 17:44
  Declan Scott: I don't ever remember stepping outside.
• 17:47
  Declan Scott: When I was as a CA in Dublin or London never thought of If I went out the front door they'd think I'm slacking off and so better not.
• 17:57
  Declan Scott: And so I know times have changed, but it's.
• 18:00
  Declan Scott: It's starting to encourage others.
• 18:03
  Declan Scott: I was sharing this with brad in preparation for this call.
• 18:05
  Declan Scott: I remember when I was working with kpmg in london there was only one partner I ever remember.
• 18:11
  Declan Scott: That used to work out and he would pop out at lunchtime and do his workout and everybody was kind of looking at him like he was weird, because all of us were like sitting at our desk eating our lunch and working away because we were trying to build our time sheet for the weekend.
• 18:23
  Declan Scott: And here was this one guy that seemed to be always on top of things, always organized, and I still remember him very, very clearly.
• 18:33
  Declan Scott: He was the one guy that was taking care of himself.
• 18:36
  Declan Scott: And so, you know, it's it's about setting examples.
• 18:40
  Declan Scott: It's, you know, your, your team, your that you have hired, from juniors right up.
• 18:45
  Declan Scott: They're observing particularly and we'll talk about leadership in a moment they're observing you and what you do and seeing what works and how did you get there, and they're replicating a lot of the behaviors.
• 18:58
  Declan Scott: So you do very much set the tone for the behaviors and the attitudes that are prevalent in your organization and what happens in your organization.
• 19:06
  Declan Scott: So so monotasking is just one thing that you can start to try to to protect your mind and then move on to the next thanks so much.
• 19:18
  Declan Scott: Yeah, go ahead, brad I'd love to just add look for distractions in your environment, things that pull your attention away from the present moment.
• 19:28
  Declan Scott: And push notifications on our phones are a real risk factor because they drag us out of the present moment and, as Declan said, every time you're disrupted it can take 25 minutes to reset.
• 19:39
  Declan Scott: So very simple tools just to turn off those push notifications.
• 19:42
  Declan Scott: Use technology deliberately and don't allow it to use you.
• 19:48
  Dee France: Yeah, great advice and I think what you're both mentioning there is something that will resonate very much with the audience for sure.
• 19:55
  Dee France: So, just talking about more sort of practical strategies and cognitive behavioral techniques.
• 20:01
  Dee France: So the report discusses using CBT to manage worry.
• 20:04
  Dee France: So, brad, if we could just maybe go to you, could you elaborate on how CBT tools can be applied in high stress professions like chartered accountancy?
• 20:15
  Brad Hook: Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:16
  Brad Hook: Now the name cognitive behavioral therapy might sound a little scary, but don't worry, this is a technique that's been used, of course, in therapeutic sessions, but it's also been used in high performance sports to help people think differently, to perceive situations in different ways.
• 20:34
  Brad Hook: It's about cognitive flexibility, asking what's my next best move rather than giving up.
• 20:42
  Brad Hook: It's very closely aligned with concepts like growth mindset.
• 20:45
  Brad Hook: So, at its core, cbt is about recognizing the interplay between our thoughts.
• 20:47
  Brad Hook: So, at its core, CBT is about recognizing the interplay between our thoughts, our emotions and our actions.
• 20:52
  Brad Hook: When we understand this dynamic, when we build that self-awareness, we can actually take control over how we respond to challenges, and this is a core part of resilience training.
• 21:04
  Brad Hook: So imagine if you're facing a looming deadline.
• 21:08
  Brad Hook: I think we can all imagine that you might have some looming right now.
• 21:13
  Brad Hook: The automatic thought might be I'm not going to get this done.
• 21:17
  Brad Hook: Everything will fall apart.
• 21:18
  Brad Hook: Now, this thought, it's just a thought, it's not reality, but it creates anxiety which can spiral into avoidance or frantic, ineffective work chaos.
• 21:28
  Brad Hook: Cbt asks us to pause and ask the question what evidence supports this thought?
• 21:36
  Brad Hook: Is there another way to view the situation?
• 21:38
  Brad Hook: It's almost like a lens that enables us to look at situations from different perspectives, perhaps the thought becomes okay, well, I've managed tight deadlines before and I have the skills to prioritize effectively straight away.
• 21:59
  Brad Hook: We've shifted from that life by default, that default response, to a response by design.
• 22:02
  Brad Hook: It shifts the emotion from anxiety to confidence or at least calm, which enables more productive action.
• 22:08
  Brad Hook: There are a range of tools available for supporting CBT, including journaling, which helps us to identify patterns of negative thinking, and mindfulness or meditation, being able to sit and just tune into the busyness of our mind.
• 22:22
  Brad Hook: It's interesting how perception of these tools has changed over the past few years.
• 22:27
  Brad Hook: You know, if I walked into a workshop with a large consulting firm and said, guys, let's all meditate, 10 years ago you would have seen a lot of eyes rolling.
• 22:36
  Brad Hook: But the research is clear that these types of tools can really help and they don't have to be an hour of mantras or anything strange.
• 22:45
  Brad Hook: It's just sitting down for a minute, calming the nervous system, noticing how busy is my mind, which thoughts are true and can I challenge those that may not be.
• 22:55
  Brad Hook: So I create a day by design, a life by design.
• 23:00
  Brad Hook: That's what CBT is all about.
• 23:03
  Dee France: That's great.
• 23:05
  Dee France: Thanks so much for that, brad.
• 23:06
  Dee France: And I suppose, like another practical strategy that is mentioned in the report, the role of sleep, and I know you've touched on it, both of you have touched on it the report emphasises sleep training and nighttime boundaries.
• 23:19
  Dee France: So why is sleep such a critical factor for resilience and how can professionals improve the sleep their own sleep habits?
• 23:27
  Dee France: So maybe, Declan, you can answer that one for us their own sleep habits.
• 23:31
  Declan Scott: So maybe, um, declan, you can answer that one for us.
• 23:32
  Declan Scott: Yeah, it's a this.
• 23:32
  Declan Scott: This particular topic is fascinating and you know I've had the good fortune of working with many industries now and many companies.
• 23:41
  Declan Scott: Um, just focusing on sleep, there's so much more to it than ever I imagined and in our work we we reference experts like Matthew Walker, a great book called why we Sleep, and you know he's, he's a number of great resources online for people to follow up with.
• 23:58
  Declan Scott: But you know what I, what I never realized when I was in the working world and at that time, is that I was very ad hoc.
• 24:08
  Declan Scott: You know it was.
• 24:09
  Declan Scott: You know it was never ad hoc.
• 24:10
  Declan Scott: You know it was.
• 24:11
  Declan Scott: You know it was never.
• 24:11
  Declan Scott: There was never rhythm in it.
• 24:13
  Declan Scott: And if we look at our life, we are, you know, we live in rhythm.
• 24:18
  Declan Scott: Nature follows a rhythm, the seasons, days, you know hours, day and night it's all in rhythm and every animal, every mammal, follows a rhythm.
• 24:28
  Declan Scott: And yet, as human beings, we have the audacity to think we're not, we don't need to, and in some cases, certainly in the past, it was like, oh, I can do it on four hours a night and I don't need, and that was seen as a bravado, saying that you know I'm Superman or woman.
• 24:44
  Declan Scott: And so, you know, when I really cottoned on to this and started to to have some rhythm in my own sleep, it changed my life.
• 24:53
  Declan Scott: And you know, to use an analogy, it's like you're working in in your job and you're never doing a backup of anything.
• 25:02
  Declan Scott: You're never consolidating the files, you're never, you know, calling the files.
• 25:07
  Declan Scott: You're, you're, you're.
• 25:08
  Declan Scott: You're.
• 25:09
  Declan Scott: Not even thinking about having a backup storage facility or anything like that.
• 25:13
  Declan Scott: You know the sleep in itself does consolidate and even bring forward some of that creativity we need.
• 25:21
  Declan Scott: It's an important, you know that phrase.
• 25:25
  Declan Scott: Sleep on it.
• 25:25
  Declan Scott: Well, it actually does.
• 25:26
  Declan Scott: You do start to think laterally during the night.
• 25:28
  Declan Scott: That's where some of your best ideas may come, after having a night's sleep and then using that fresh energy and appreciating the rhythm of the day.
• 25:38
  Declan Scott: Many of us, um, you know, will waste valuable time when our energy is high in the morning.
• 25:44
  Declan Scott: That's when we come in and we do our aimless scrolling or look at our emails or and that's your most productive time of the day.
• 25:51
  Declan Scott: You know, when you follow your circadian cycle of 24 hours and see actually the afternoon, by nature we're going to be losing energy and we shouldn't be going into critical performance reviews or meetings at that time in the evening.
• 26:06
  Declan Scott: You know we are not at our best and, and realizing that your brain is not on a constant setting of on and an alert, we are going up and down in cycles all day and within that 24 hours, every 90 minutes, we're going through a cycle called the ultradian cycle and so, appreciating to that, you know you won't keep focused for much longer than that at any time during the day, but we start to to win in that postprandial period of the afternoon.
• 26:36
  Declan Scott: That's not the time to be taking on new tasks, that you need to have focus and rational thinking with you know.
• 26:43
  Declan Scott: So you start to plan your time and plan your day and plan your night so that you're going to bed and literally you flop into bed and in the morning you are waking.
• 26:53
  Declan Scott: Naturally you don't need to keep hitting the snooze button when you appreciate and tap into the natural rhythm of the body.
• 27:01
  Declan Scott: And you know I was on the East Coast of the US yesterday, so my body clock is a little weird today.
• 27:07
  Declan Scott: Even that one hour difference or two hour difference can upset so many things in your day.
• 27:13
  Declan Scott: We know it.
• 27:13
  Declan Scott: When the clocks change, you see the impact of just a one hour change on every living creature, and yet we ignore that.
• 27:22
  Declan Scott: We work hard during the day, we're mentally fatigued, we like to party, we like to go out, we sometimes have to go out and entertain clients.
• 27:30
  Declan Scott: Our sleep is almost secondary to what we do and and yet we're constantly being depleted.
• 27:36
  Declan Scott: And we were in sleep debt.
• 27:39
  Declan Scott: And and you know, for those younger members and I saw in the, in the report, the younger members resilience, and it's not unusual, their, their resilience is often compromised.
• 27:48
  Declan Scott: They may be going through phases where they're dealing with young families and they don't have the luxury of eight hours sleep a night.
• 27:56
  Declan Scott: And you know they think, oh, that will be lovely, but yet we have very bad habits, that and and we're not honoring the rhythm that will help us in our day and our night.
• 28:09
  Declan Scott: And we are working late, we're hyper vigilant, we're awake thinking about things and I just my final comment on this say one of my, my dear friends down in new zealand.
• 28:19
  Declan Scott: He's a sleep doctor and he often says you know many of his clients who are dealing with insomnia, they're control freaks.
• 28:26
  Declan Scott: So they're, they're actually control freaks during the day and then they think that their brain is going to do something that night, and so they're control freaks.
• 28:32
  Declan Scott: So they're they're actually control freaks during the day.
• 28:33
  Declan Scott: And then they think that their brain is going to do something at night, and so they're awake at night then over thinking about things.
• 28:37
  Declan Scott: And again that's back to brad's point about cbt and starting to train in the mind.
• 28:41
  Declan Scott: I think we haven't.
• 28:43
  Declan Scott: We're comfortable with the idea of physical training for our body and we know the importance of that.
• 28:48
  Declan Scott: We haven't really focused too much on mental training and mental fitness, which is an essential skill.
• 28:54
  Declan Scott: If that's your biggest asset is your mind, then you've got to be training it and it works.
• 29:01
  Dee France: I've learned that, and sleep is an important to that thanks so much for that, jekyll, and that's really fascinating stuff.
• 29:08
  Dee France: And um, talking about training, so obviously resilience training this is fascinating stuff.
• 29:09
  Dee France: And talking about training, so obviously resilience training this is what we're all talking about today.
• 29:14
  Dee France: So what makes resilience training a game changer for sustaining long-term well-being in the charged accountancy profession?
• 29:22
  Dee France: So that idea of training and what can we be doing practically?
• 29:25
  Dee France: So, Brad, I might go to you on that one.
• 29:28
  Brad Hook: Sure.
• 29:29
  Brad Hook: So resilience training is not new.
• 29:31
  Brad Hook: In fact, the Resilience Institute was founded in 2002 by a medical doctor, dr Sven Hansen, who worked closely with PwC, and we've continued that relationship over the years.
• 29:42
  Brad Hook: In fact, I'm running a session for them in a few minutes.
• 29:45
  Brad Hook: Resilience training is all about building a set of skills that enable us to navigate a changing world effectively.
• 29:55
  Brad Hook: So it might be useful to define resilience so, from our perspective, just grit or perseverance, that's what people often think about when they consider the word resilience.
• 30:04
  Brad Hook: Our definition and our approach is far more aligned with anti-fragility, as popularized by Nassim Nicholas Tseleb in his book.
• 30:12
  Brad Hook: Anti-fragile it's how can we not just survive stressful events, but how can we actually grow stronger and thrive amidst chaos, change, challenge, uncertainty.
• 30:24
  Brad Hook: So the first component is what we call bounce, and the research shows quite clearly that 77% of the time, humans grow stronger as a result of change, challenge, adversity.
• 30:35
  Brad Hook: From our perspective, we want to enable people to recognize that's insight or self-awareness, recognize I'm on a downward spiral and we've actually deconstructed the different stages of a downward spiral emotional, physical, mental and have the skills to bounce forward fast so that we don't linger on a downward spiral for longer than is necessary.
• 30:55
  Brad Hook: The second component is what we call growth, and this is about our vitality, our well-being, as Declan said, our sleep, our ability to activate calm so that we have a baseline of calm and habits.
• 31:09
  Brad Hook: How can we close that knowing, doing gap?
• 31:11
  Brad Hook: Because it's fine to learn a whole lot of theory, but putting it into practice is hard, it takes time and effort.
• 31:18
  Brad Hook: How can we make that change easy so that we can bypass the natural resistance we all feel to change?
• 31:25
  Brad Hook: The third component is connection, our relations.
• 31:30
  Brad Hook: The third component is connection, our relations, and in this we learn about skills that help us to tune into those emotions that we all experience, that's emotional literacy and ways to reframe it, cognitive behavioral therapy, so I can name that emotion, I can tame it and I can reframe it so that I can move forward effectively.
• 31:51
  Brad Hook: We also look at empathy, which is one of those super skills in this changing, changing world where we spend more time than ever interacting through screens rather than in person, so we lose some of the nuance of being a human and understanding people in social settings.
• 32:07
  Brad Hook: So empathy as a real competence in social settings.
• 32:14
  Brad Hook: So empathy as a real competence, and the research shows that EQ is twice as important as IQ and technical skill combined for leaders and we're all leaders in some context and finally, we look at flow, which is our high performance zone.
• 32:22
  Brad Hook: This is about attention control.
• 32:24
  Brad Hook: How can we focus our minds on what is most important or meaningful in the moment and find those flow states?
• 32:31
  Brad Hook: The McKinsey research shows that when we're in flow state we're up to 500% more productive.
• 32:36
  Brad Hook: When teams are in flow, they double their productivity.
• 32:39
  Brad Hook: But there is a critical driver of anti-fragility and flow and that is balancing performance with care, the rhythms of resilience, as Declan said.
• 32:51
  Brad Hook: So if you're considering resilience training, I recommend finding a provider that is evidence-based.
• 32:57
  Brad Hook: Accountants in particular, in my experience, want to know that these ideas are based in solid, robust research, that it's practical.
• 33:06
  Brad Hook: You don't want a whole lot of theory.
• 33:07
  Brad Hook: You want to be able to take away one or two skills and use them immediately, and that it's integral or holistic, that it's not just one dimensional.
• 33:15
  Brad Hook: Here's skills from psychology, because we are integrated humans.
• 33:20
  Brad Hook: We have bodies, we have emotions, we have minds, we have people in our environments.
• 33:24
  Brad Hook: So you need a set of skills that help you in all of these different dimensions, and that's what resilience training is all about.
• 33:31
  Brad Hook: We always measure our training and on average, we see around a 38% increase in overall resilience after training, with some huge gains, particularly in those well-being factors that we were talking about before.
• 33:45
  Dee France: Thank you so much for that, brad.
• 33:47
  Dee France: So I want to move on, just as we're getting into kind of, you know, further into the discussion around sort of future proofing the profession, and some of the things that you touched on today are certainly, you know, strategies that people should and leaders should be actually integrating into the culture of organisations.
• 34:03
  Dee France: But we're trying to attract the next generation.
• 34:06
  Dee France: So the report is suggesting prioritising wellbeing to attract and retain people, young professionals, which is key.
• 34:11
  Dee France: How can firms integrate resilience into their culture to appeal to the next generation and future-proof organisations?
• 34:20
  Declan Scott: I'll jump in there and.
• 34:23
  Declan Scott: Brad, you can add your thoughts as well.
• 34:25
  Declan Scott: You know, when I reflect back on my time in the profession, you know it was quite a resilient profession because you know it's challenging, it's tough, it's tough to get through your articles and exams, and there is a contentment in that too.
• 34:40
  Declan Scott: You know it's not that we all want an easy ride, and so I think this is about mobilizing meaning and for our profession, one of the the strong points of it is that it's very meaningful and some people call it a vocation.
• 34:55
  Declan Scott: Because you are, you know you're supporting others, you're helping others and particularly for for the current generation that are coming into the workforce, it's really important to inspire that meaning in what they're doing.
• 35:08
  Declan Scott: So, service to others and how can this profession help others through service?
• 35:15
  Declan Scott: You know we mentioned earlier that's the strength of the profession, because we we have to build trust and alliances with, with our clients and and whoever is is needing to work with us.
• 35:27
  Declan Scott: But you know we are good at dealing with setbacks.
• 35:30
  Declan Scott: We can become a bit complacent with that and we can become a little driven through our own, I guess, desires to succeed in our own career, so we sometimes forget about our impact on others as well.
• 35:45
  Declan Scott: So I think having a profession where you can inspire others that you lead as well to meaning, to purpose and to fulfilment through their work.
• 35:57
  Declan Scott: I think that's really important, that we call out the importance of what we do.
• 36:01
  Declan Scott: Most people have no idea of the breadth of knowledge and experience and depth of what a chartered accountant has to learn coming through their training.
• 36:10
  Declan Scott: You know, postgraduate, you still have another few years to do training.
• 36:16
  Declan Scott: You know, postgraduate, you still have another few years to do uh, to really learn the ropes and to to understand the breadth of business that we support and and I'm just thinking of public practice there.
• 36:23
  Declan Scott: But then when you go into private practice and corporations and non-profits, they all need people that can think strategically, can look at at all the possibilities and problem solve.
• 36:35
  Declan Scott: So you know, I think that the challenge of the profession attracts a certain type of person and with that comes a certain type of risk that we will just keep pushing because we're good at bouncing back and we're good at overcoming setbacks, but then we become complacent and we rely too much on that, which is a risk.
• 36:54
  Declan Scott: And I think from a risk management perspective, which is always core to to our work managing risk we have to look at.
• 37:02
  Declan Scott: You know what are the risks in the way that we're working together, because others can see that others looking in that want to check out this profession.
• 37:12
  Declan Scott: They're going well, they're not taking care of themselves, they're not.
• 37:15
  Declan Scott: You know, it doesn't look like a very healthy, happy profession.
• 37:20
  Declan Scott: Well, you know, when I reflect back at my choice to leave public practice, I looked at the partner I was working for at the time.
• 37:28
  Declan Scott: I was working in Australia and he was 10 years ahead of me and I thought, in 10 years time, I do not wish to be like that.
• 37:36
  Declan Scott: And you know it was a gift to me at the time as well as a huge challenge, and you know I was.
• 37:43
  Declan Scott: I chose not to go that route because of where I could see those in the profession and how they were showing up and in their language and their speech and their behaviors.
• 37:51
  Declan Scott: And in their language and their speech and their behaviors I didn't.
• 37:54
  Declan Scott: I thought, well, he's at the top of the ladder and he's not happy.
• 37:57
  Declan Scott: And so you know it's important, this self-care, you know you can't deny it's not just for you, it's for those that are watching you and you know that finding meaning in setbacks, even that's resilience, finding opportunities to grow.
• 38:16
  Declan Scott: You know, I was super complacent about all of this until I kind of hit 40.
• 38:18
  Declan Scott: And then I had some major life events, with earthquakes in New Zealand, and I realized that I wasn't in control.
• 38:22
  Declan Scott: I realized, wow, I need to wake up and start to care for myself.
• 38:27
  Declan Scott: So, you know, don't wait till then.
• 38:29
  Declan Scott: I say um, you know, take this on for yourself and start to take responsibility for your own well-being, your own resilience and and that has a ripple effect and as leaders, you have a big role in in really designing the architecture and the culture of workplaces.
• 38:47
  Declan Scott: Yeah, we can be fantastic at what we do and and build our craft, but you can't do that at the expense of your mind and body fantastic, that's yeah, brad, did you want to come in there?
• 39:02
  Declan Scott: yeah, I just had one more thing.
• 39:03
  Declan Scott: I was in a very interesting meeting recently with a large consulting firm and and someone said you know, we're changing.
• 39:11
  Declan Scott: It's not just about what we achieve, it's about how we achieve it.
• 39:15
  Declan Scott: And that's the kind of message that resonates with younger people who are entering the workforce.
• 39:20
  Declan Scott: It's not just about financial reward.
• 39:22
  Declan Scott: They want a sense of belonging, they want opportunities for growth, they'd like to be recognized for their contribution and they'd like to experience fulfillment.
• 39:31
  Declan Scott: They want to know that what they're doing is of service, that it's purposeful, that it's meaningful and if you can, you can't manufacture a culture of well-being.
• 39:46
  Declan Scott: It starts at the top.
• 39:46
  Declan Scott: It's through how we act, how we interact, how we model these behaviors of, of resilience, providing the tools so that people have those tools to learn how their nervous system works, for example, to learn how the mind has a tendency to race into the future or into the past, and how we can anchor it in the present once again.
• 40:04
  Declan Scott: And these are all learnable skills of resilience combined with a really strong purpose of service or of contribution in some way, and that will attract young people and and help them to stay and to grow and to flourish as chartered accountants in this changing, changing world great listen.
• 40:25
  Dee France: Thank you so much.
• 40:26
  Dee France: I think we have maybe run out of time.
• 40:29
  Dee France: Can you believe that that conversation went so quickly?
• 40:31
  Dee France: Um, I think it was great that we managed to talk about you know, leaders and the responsibility of leaders, because that was an area that we were going to speak about in more detail, but I think we touched on it there at the end and I think it's very important for people to go and read the report, have a look at the resources and everything else.
• 40:46
  Dee France: Brad and Declan, what a fantastic conversation, thank you, and thank you for sharing your insights and expertise and, of course, to everyone here for joining this important conversation.
• 40:59
  Dee France: The resilience and well-being of Chartered Accountants are not just personal issues.
• 41:03
  Dee France: They are foundational to the profession's sustainability and success.
• 41:07
  Dee France: As we've discussed today, building resilience is about more than managing stress.
• 41:12
  Dee France: It's about fostering environments where professionals can thrive, innovate and make a meaningful impact.
• 41:19
  Dee France: The findings and the recommendations in this report offer a roadmap for creating such environments, and we encourage you to explore the full report and take actionable steps within your own organisations.
• 41:31
  Dee France: So please do head to the Wellbeing Hub on the Chartered Accountants Worldwide website or scan the QR code on the screen now and take a look at the report so together we can ensure that the Chartered Accountancy profession not only excels in technical excellence, but also leads the way in prioritising wellbeing and sustainable growth.
• 41:52
  Dee France: Thank you again, and we look forward to continuing this important conversation Until next time.
• 41:58
  Dee France: Goodbye and thank you for watching.