Where do we go from here? Career advice for high performers

Donny Shimamoto, CPA/CITP, CGMA, the founder and managing director of Intraprise TechKnowlogies LLC, recently co-hosted a conference session on feedback – specifically, how high performing employees sometimes get a low amount of valuable feedback.

Such high performers can have their development halted if they fail to seek out the right feedback to advance in their careers, Shimamoto said.

Shimamoto also reflected on the recently completed AICPA & CIMA ENGAGE, highlighting the words of Carla McCall, CPA, CGMA, the AICPA vice chair, about asking for help.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Donny Shimamoto’s reflection on last month’s AICPA & CIMA ENGAGE.
• Why employees identified early as high performers sometimes fail to receive meaningful feedback.
• Shimamoto’s comparison of performance reviews and financial statements.
• Why an ENGAGE session about mental health resonated with him.

Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:

To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.

Transcript

Neil Amato: Hello, listeners. This is Neil Amato with the Journal of Accountancy. We’re glad to have you back for this episode. Our next guest is Donny Shimamoto. Donny is a CPA who is founder and managing director of Intraprise TechKnowlogies LLC. Donny and thousands of other CPAs have finished up attending, speaking, networking — all of that — at AICPA & CIMA ENGAGE, and we’re recording the Friday after the conference has ended. Donny, first, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for being on.

Donny Shimamoto: Thank you, Neil. I’m always honored when you reached out. I’m actually excited because this was a really fantastic ENGAGE. It felt like the old ENGAGE, like the pre-pandemic ENGAGE. Lots of energy. Previous years I felt like I didn’t get to see everybody. Because they were like, “I was there, I didn’t see you.” This year they tightened it up. I felt like I saw everybody that wanted to see. It was great.

Amato: Good to hear. The thing I want to zero in on is your session and I’m going to start with the description, which has the following as its first sentence: “When you are a high-performing person and have been identified as a ‘rising star’ in your organization, it’s often hard to get meaningful feedback from supervisors to help you advance.” Why do you think that is the case?

Shimamoto: I actually was sharing this session, and let me say thank you to the EDGE committee that accepted the session because for me, what I wanted to do was share some of my story back for the younger CPAs, since I don’t qualify as young anymore. I was reflecting and saying, what from my experience would most help them. The thing that was hardest for me as a rising star, as one of the top people in the profession, is getting that feedback and figuring out what is the next step in my career. That was really where I came from with it.

What I differentiated though in the presentation to was the concept of being a high performer vs. being a high potential, and the high performer really being someone that is very technically strong, pays attention to details. It’s the straight-A student and very strong technician. If I start to translate it into words that we use in the industry, within the profession, is this is a very technically strong person. That’s a high performer compared to a high-potential. That’s someone that potentially can go up and move up into leadership, if not all the way to the CEO seat.

This is where the T-shaped skill curve that Tom Hood talks about becomes important because yes, you’re going to have that technical depth, which is the leg or the mean stalk of the T. But you need all of those success skills across the top — communications and all these other leadership skills that form the top of the T. That makes you broader and be able to address warrants. The high potential is going to be someone that has perhaps a little of both, but definitely has that T across the top.

Amato: Are you saying that the solid B-plus performer gets more feedback for how to become an A plus performer than maybe the person who was identified early as an A-plus performer?

Shimamoto: Yes, completely. I wasn’t an A-plus student; they didn’t have a lot of A-plus when I went through school, but I was an A student. What I got in a lot of my performance reviews, especially early in my career was, You’re doing great, keep just doing what you’re doing. You’re doing great. That was really fabulous. I didn’t get the, how do I get better? What do I need to do to keep moving upward? How do I know and how do I start getting ready for the next challenge? Those were the questions that I had, and it was very hard to both get additional constructive feedback and to have someone help give me that vision for OK, what do I need to do or what are my options for the next steps upward?

Amato: Yes, that is a good point. I guess I’ll ask this. That was one of the things my manager said about managing high-potential employees 15 years ago. He was like, Neil, it’s one thing to give a person a performance evaluation, but what about a development plan? What is your plan for them to get better? I don’t know if there’s any aspect of that you want to comment on.

Shimamoto: I love that you brought that up because that is exactly what I covered in the session. I feel like maybe you looked at my slides. The performance review is the historical view. And the analogy, and I wish I had thought of this in my presentation, the analogy is the performance review as the financial statements. It is historical looking and it tells us what happened and we all tell everyone, hey, get into advisory and help your clients plan and figure out how to get better or be more successful or be more prosperous.

That is what the individual development plans are. They’re plans that look toward the future and say if this is your goal, then these are the things that you should be doing. Or here are some options from your goal. That’s maybe a conversation that’s had. Here’s some conversations for your next goal. Which of these are appealing to you? Let’s get you some exposure or let’s get you on the path toward figuring out, OK, is that something that you want to do? If it is, or if they already know that it is, then what are the steps that they need to do to achieve that? More forward-looking and more planning focus.

Amato: One of the other phrases mentioned in that session description, and going back, by the way, I did not look at your slides. That was total coincidence by the way. But one of the things I did look at, of course, was the session description. There’s a phrase in there, and I want you to define what this means. What is “compete against yourself” and how can that play a role in a high performer getting better?

Shimamoto: In competing against yourself, whether you’re a high performer or a high-potential, I think it applies in either case. The way I explained it was really once you’re “at the top,” where do you go from there?

I gave them my career as an example, which is, again, I was valedictorian, I got all the scholarships. Like I got a whole free ride through college because I had the best scholarship for my university. I came into the profession. I was at PwC or Coopers & Lybrand actually at the time. I know that I was one of the top there. I started my own firm when I was 25 or 26. I’m doing all this stuff and I was speaking at my state society already, so I was already recognized locally. So it was, what is the next step? The next step was well, let me get into national. I got involved with the AICPA. I started volunteering. I was definitely the youngest on our committee, which was at that time the IT executive committee.

I served on ASEC. I’m pretty sure I was the youngest one on ASEC at that time. From there, I went on to chair the IT executive committee. It was this continual progression. I’m still in my early 30s, let me think about the timeline – yeah, I’m in my 30s in all of this. Here I am hitting this point and I’m going, what is next? Where do I keep going? I’m now nationally recognized. I’m getting asked to speak at all of these events. Where do I keep going? Do I now have to become internationally recognized? Eventually I got there, too. I was on a advisory group for IFAC. I’m like, now I’ve served internationally. I’m recognized. What’s the next thing?

I shared with them like, yeah, I continually have to challenge myself not to look at and go, well, who else am I competing with and how can I be better than them? Because I also feel like there’s so much in this world, there’s so much opportunity in this world. We don’t want to look at this as a zero-sum game that I have to compete with this other person and be better than them. It’s like, how do I elevate myself further, which is part of my intent with the session, and how do I elevate everyone else as well? It becomes this competition with myself, part of which is carrying all these others with me. How do I keep doing that challenge? That’s really what I was talking about a lot in the session.

Amato: I think that’s a really good point about, just trying to better yourself and not worrying about what some person who you’ve seen out there and trying to be like them or be better than them. You mentioned Tom Hood earlier and I guess the T model that he uses. For those who may not know, what is that and how did you apply it in your session?

Shimamoto: Sure. I know we’re totally calling it the wrong thing, and I wish I could figure out what the real name is. But it is the T skillsets is what he’s describing. The trunk of the T or the vertical line is the depth of technical knowledge, which we often have and which we’re often focused on in our profession. Because if you’re that great person that knows the tax code in and out, you know, the audit and the financial reporting standards. That was that piece. The top of the T is really all the soft skills. I like to the call them success skills because these are the things that I think truly make us stand out.

The interesting thing is I had the audience do an exercise to talk to each other in pairs and share what of these things — what were the skills, aptitudes, traits, or knowledge that you felt you had or were doing that was helping you excel in your career? That was helping you be this high potential rather than just a high performer. I had them all put it into the polling app. The polling app created the word cloud, which makes words that appear more often larger. One of the biggest words that showed up was purpose.

Just think about the power of that. This focus on purpose and why are you here and what are you doing, that was the thing that people said that actually made them more of a high-potential or a leadership candidate, someone that could eventually come to the top. You tie that into a lot of the discussion that’s going on with The Great Resignation or realignment, and the next generation that people are saying, hey, as part of COVID, people are re-assessing whether or not their employer aligns with their purpose and why they really want it working.

The two effectively support each other. That’s the other thing for these rising stars or for anyone that’s also managing rising stars, that was a cool thing. I thought I was going to get all young CPAs that are trying to do stuff. Well, actually I polled the room. Half the room was young CPAs that are the rising stars. I shouldn’t say young. I shouldn’t say young, because there was a woman that had salt and pepper hair, so newer CPAs. I’m going to say it that way. Newer CPAs or newer CPA candidates who are coming into the profession saying, yes, I am that rising star.

Well, the other half of the room was actually the people managing the rising stars. They were still practitioners, but they were like no, I’m like the mentor or coach for the rising star and I need to know what I need to do to develop them. It was very interesting to look at this cross-section in the room and see things like purpose and communication and commitment. I’m trying to think, like, these are the type of words that were coming up. There was no tax, audit, no technical skills on that list. It was just, I think, real affirmation and evidence that what Tom is saying and this is so true that we really need to look at the broader picture of what we do, especially as CPAs, because we’re not just that technician.

Now, this is not to say that we don’t need those technicians. We need those technicians. They are the core when we come into that issue, even for myself, I go to a technician and like, hey, help me understand this or here’s the facts. Help us understand what the right options are. But a lot of times, the value that I provide to clients is making sense of that changing and complex world. The purpose of CPAs, as we define in CPA Horizons, and really taking that and helping them figure out what is the best option for me. Whether it’s my job as the CPA, whether I’m coaching a high-rising star, that’s what we really need to focus on.

Amato: To close this, is there any one moment or session that stood out to you from ENGAGE?

Shimamoto: Yes. The Wednesday morning keynote, I thought, was amazing. Honestly, I never thought I would see a session like that on the AICPA stage. It was the session where they were talking about meditation and the need for mental health. I’m trying to rememmber the newscaster, Dan something.

Amato: Dan Harris.

Shimamoto: Dan Harris. Thank you. Yes, Dan Harris came on and talked about the breakdown that he had on national television and how meditation helped him through that. There was also Nicole Long and Carla McCall, who were there sharing from a B&I and from a public practice perspective, how important mental health and the self-awareness and the well-being of our staff is. One of the things that Carla said that resonated with me and stayed with me — I actually posted it on LinkedIn because I thought it was so important — was she said reaching out to ask for help is a sign of strength. We need to change the mindset of the profession. Reaching out for help is a sign of strength.

This is not just, for example, only when you first about to have a mental breakdown. It needs to be before that. If you’re working crazy hours and you’re feeling like you’re going to burn out because you’re working too much, the sign of strength is reaching out for help. I’m overloaded. I need some help here. But for me, it also resonated with me because I was going through a situation, and it was actually forcing me to avoid social situations, so luckily I recognized it and Carla’s words came to mind and I said, hey, I need to reach out. I actually reached out to a therapist friend. Luckily, I have a therapist friend.

If not, I would have sought out a 1-800 number or looked at something that would have put me in touch with a therapist to help me think through these feelings and figure out how do I actually prevent myself from spiraling further because I could feel that I was starting to spiral. I was having a lot of emotionality. I found myself crying. I’m driving and I find myself thinking about it and crying, having tears. I think that was, if anything, from ENGAGE, that was my biggest takeaway and I’m so glad that they had the keynote session about the importance of self-awareness and mental health.

Amato: Thank you for singling that out, Donny, and thanks for joining the podcast. As always, a pleasure to have you on.

Shimamoto: It is my pleasure and thank you again for having me.