Welcome back to Count Me In,

the podcast where management
accounted stays center stage.

I'm your host, Neha Lagoo Ratnakar.
Today, I'm joined by Dr. Marsha Huber,

who is IMA's director of research to
discuss a recently published report,

Thriving Amidst Challenges: A
Guide to Small Business Resilience.

I have to say,

this report is such a great example of
the timely and rigorous research IMA

specializes in with the goal of providing
practical insights and actions that

truly help businesses learn and grow.

We cover a lot of ground
in this conversation,

but make sure to download the full
report using the link in the shownotes,

because it's literally brimming
with insights that can be put to use

immediately. Now let's
get started with Marsha.

Hi Marsha, welcome to Count Me In. It's
such a pleasure to have you on the show.

Oh, thank you so much Neha. I feel
privileged to have been invited to talk

about this IMA publication.

Oh, it's all my pleasure,
Marsha. And first of all,

congratulations on your new
report. Thriving Amidst Challenges:

A Guide to Small Business
Resilience and that's quite

mouthful, but a very much needed
topic. Can you tell us, our listeners,

what this report is all about?

Yes. It's a report that was developed from

interviews with business people, the
small business development center,

and various members of the small
business committee at the IMA.

And I spoke with people,

read interviews and developed
models with people and

experts, and here's the
report of our findings.

Cool. And I'm glad you
were able to do all that.

And how did you come up with this topic?
What's the story behind this report?

Yeah, it's really interesting. I was
not the originator of this report.

During the pandemic,

the small business committee
at the IMA had a heart

for small business and they
actually had another publication.

And then this was the second
of the two about resilience,

small business resilience.

And I was invited as a
new researcher at the IMA

to help the small business committee
write this report. And that's what I did.

And it was a excellent experience.

Thank you for sharing that
journey with us Marsha. So,

let's talk about the resilience
model. I found it very interesting.

Where does that come from and how
can it help businesses bounce back?

Yeah.

This came from actually a lot of
interviews with the small business

development center,
Youngstown State University,

because they worked with small businesses
and they worked with small business

during COVID. And at that
time, when this was happening,

I was also a faculty
member at Youngstown State.

So I worked with them as well
to work small businesses.

And so we decided to think about
companies that thrived, you know,

this is a report about thriving during

hardship and resilience, the very
definition of it is bouncing back.

So how can you bounce back when
certain challenges come your way?

And what happened was we found three
elements among the businesses that

thrive as well as the experiences
of our small business committee

members. These different three,

there were three concepts that stood out.

And would you like me to
describe those concepts?

Sure. Go ahead, that would really
help our understanding of the model.

Okay. So just imagine three circles,

and you can also look at the report
as I talk about these things,

because these are
illustrated, but you know,

I'm just gonna lay it out three circles
and one circle is business focus.

And of course, during COVID, and now,
we still have a continuing pandemic.

You know, business focus is important
for everyone, but it's not everything.

Okay. So what else we saw as a visionary
leadership and the companies to thrive,

they could see beyond they
didn't lose sight of their goals.

They kept their eyes on the goals,

but they also had to be flexible and
agile and they had to change for the

circumstances and they could see
things that they never saw before.

So, and I might give some examples
if you want some in a moment.

And then the other element that was so
important was a people-centric culture.

That the companies that thrived
thought about their people,

they thought about them as family, you
know, not worrying about, you know,

we have to lay people off or we have to
do this and that they're thinking about

how can we keep our people
here? They're our family.

And I think you see now even a
heightened awareness of wellbeing,

but before the pandemic,
yeah, wellbeing is around.

But right now it's very important.

And I think it actually began at that
time where everybody was in the same boat,

we were all working from home,
having kids at home, you know,

things happening, dogs
coming in our Zoom meetings,

our animals and everything else going on,

that we had to change.

And some of those things
brought humor into what we did.

And when you bring these things together,

the business focus with the visionary
leadership and the people-centric culture,

those items mixed together,

came to what I called a zone of thriving.

Wow. That was very insightful. And thank
you for bringing the human bit in it.

It is true that the pandemic did
bring out that human side of us.

We were more real on those Zoom calls
than we are in the actual office setup.

Yes. Like I'll just give
you example of one company,

they were in the concession food
truck business. Now during COVID,

there was no food truck business to go
to, people were not going out to eat.

All their orders were canceled.

And they were the top food truck
company basically in United States

and everything came to
standstill. So they thought,

how can we keep our people working
when we don't have a business anymore

for a while? And so they developed and
they saw, looked at everything they had,

they basically reenvisioned
what they could do.

And they started a hand
washing station business.

And they cuz they had the products,
they had the manufacturing process,

they had the people and
that's what they launched.

And then they started selling these

hand washing stations. And the
University I worked at, they put them in,

people put 'em in venues
and they're really cool.

You don't need to touch
anything. There's three stations,

you're six feet from each other. And
then you wash your hands and your,

the soap is there. You wash
your hands, you dry your hands.

It takes like 20 seconds. And
then the next person could go.

So that's the very ingenious
idea that came just

because they cared about their people.

Wow. That was pure genius, I agree,

Marsha and thank you for also
volunteering a bit ago to

talk about some examples.

And let's talk about the
six Rs of resilience.

That's something that also stayed with me.

Can you give us some examples of what
that means for a management accountant?

Yeah. And when we talk about
the six Rs, let me mention them,

under visionary leadership,
there's reflect and reimagine.
Under business focus,

there's reevaluate and reinvent.

Under people-centric culture
is reconnect and recharge.

And again, you know, it's the
six RS, resilience, you know,

was a way to model these
things, these different ideas.

So the first example already talked
about was visionary leadership, you know,

reflecting and reimagining,
you know, what can't we be?

What can we use our
resources to do to help our

business or even our client.

We have a story from one management
accountant where, you know, there,

she was working with a
performing arts company, right?

So you can't during COVID, you
know, we couldn't meet people.

She had to help the
organization reenvision what

they could do. So this local
company, she helped them.

She used zero based budgeting to help
them look at their resources and what they

could do. And then they reenvisioned
what they could be. And they opened,

and they became a global
company that taught performing

arts to people all around the world.

So that's an amazing change and long

lasting as well. You know,
so that is, you know,

that part of what we might call the
sticks are, is a root of resilience.

It's, you know, and a lot of
people, they don't spend time,

they focus so much on a problem. They
don't do the reflect and reimagination,

and I think that's very important to
do. And then the next step of course,

is the business focus, which
management accountants,

the accounting and finance
professionals that we're involved with,

that we have the, we
have the financial data,

we have non-financial data and what are
the type of things that companies need,

or maybe the C-suite needs. So,
you know, it's reevaluating,

what are the key performance indicators
that are needed? And that's what,

you know,

some of the management accountants
did as far as for their organizations.

And we have one management accountant
that actually had a business,

they were a specialized tax
consulting type business,

but they thought, okay,
what do people need now?

What are the helps in the financial realm?

And the beginning of COVID people
needed help with the incentives that the

government was offering.

And they closed and went into
that gap and made those offerings.

So that was part of, you know,

this part of the process
with the business focus of

reevaluating what was
needed and reinventing.

And then the third part is this
people center culture. So, you know,

this idea of reconnecting,
but not just reconnecting.

Reconnecting with others
in your organization and
reconnecting with customers.

Companies

had to reach out to customers
in a different way to
say, we're here. You know,

we're doing this now and then recharging
ourselves because reports say that even

today, anxiety is an all time high,

not only among workers,

but among the population
over a period of just one

year is three times the
people are reporting anxiety,

symptoms of depression and anxiety.

So what we going to do you
know this constant you know,

what do you call it, the unsure future?

You know, we think the pandemic's
over things are going on.

Something new happens.

And even though you might feel
like you've adjusted to it, no,

you don't really still have to make
decision every day. You know, like,

am I gonna go to this conference? Am

I going to wear a mask, not wear a mask?

What about the family outings on and on?

And it's not as critical as it was in
the beginning where we knew nothing,

but still it's a consideration.

And the people around you with different
attitude and opinions and all these

different things. So, you know, we still
have this bit of stress and anxiety.

Everything is not back to
how it was pre-pandemic.

The way we work has changed forever.

Eighty percent of companies say they're
going to keep some form of remote work.

And new workers are demanding remote work.

And remote work worked of
all things. So, you know,

this is the thing about,
you know, all these changes,

even though it's been a
year, a year and a half,

we still haven't adjusted to everything.

Companies are still trying to figure
things out and we are too, what we like,

what we don't like, how much interaction
do we need with other people?

How do we perpetuate our culture?

So this part of stepping back
and focusing on people is key.

I mean, I just heard a panel. I'll just
throw this in, it kinda blew me away.

Maybe people may not wanna know this,

but this big four accounting
firm said they have sad days.

Okay, what does that mean?

Before you just take the
day because you're sad.

No one would've heard of anything
like that, without getting without,

before you, if you were having some
sort of family problem, mental distress,

you know, you, people would
generally hide it wasn't accepted.

You would see it as weakness. Here's
an accounting firm that says, okay,

we know things are happening. If you
need a day off, you can just say,

I need a sad day and take the day off.

Way to normalize it. I like that.

Yeah. Normalize it, like
it's OK. Take a sad day.

I don't know, it kinda blew
my mind when I heard it.

I'm like, wow. A sad
day. So are all things,

how to put your people first? And
we, we have one of our IMA committee

members spoke about that
and being transparent.

He felt his management team had to be
transparent and cared about the safety

of their employees first.
So that's a big shift in

the mental attitudes
of leaders in business.

And I think it's a wonderful thing.

I agree. We are evolving
for the better, for sure.

Yes.

All right.

Talking about evolution also
reminded me about nature

and you do bring up a very
powerful concept in your report

about creativity, where you compare
mountain climbing with mountain building,

help us understand why that
concept is so important.

Yeah,

it's a concept I ran into from this guy,

his name is Jay Barney. He's considered
one of the fathers of strategy.

And as

I was looking for ways
to describe creativity,

there's mountain climbing a mountains
in front of you. You climb up,

you take the effort and you're not
a first mover. You're reacting,

you're reacting to the market. You're
reacting to what's happening around you,

right. Versus mountain building.

But what if entrepreneurial opportunities
were not just mountains waiting

to be discovered?

What if rather is searching for
mountain climbing opportunities,

business engaged an iterative learning
process that ultimately led to the

formation of mountain building activities.

So the idea is instead of climbing
the mountains in front of us,

let's build our own mountains.
Let's be a first mover. Let's

look beyond again as I mentioned earlier,

reacting to problems,
being entrepreneurial,

and looking for opportunities
being first movers.

And first movers do have a competitive
advantage rather than copying.

You're gonna be the leader.

And so there's a different
way to view things.

And that's a creative mindset,
you know, looking outside,

not staring at the problems, but
looking for the possibilities,

not being distracted from your goals.

There is a company and
they won the 2020 award

for the most innovative small business
enterprise in the United States.

And actually what happened is the
pandemic catapulted them forward

in their future plans because
what they couldn't do,

they were a manufacturing plant,

but they're also starting
to look at 3D printing.

So what happened is, and
it was again, this mindset,

how do we keep our people busy? You know,

we aren't getting the orders
anymore for what we do,

our castings and those
things we do. But Hey,

we have these 3D printers. So
they focused on the 3D printing,

the 3D printing that would
save companies money,

3D printing auto parts. And that's
one thing they did. So that excelled,

and then you were able to stay with their
long term goals and accelerate in the

areas that they would've never
thought they could move forward in.

So once again, that's resilience,
something happens. You're losing business.

Now you're bouncing back.
You're being creative.

Now you're actually building mountains,

not climbing them and offering services to

organizations or services to other
manufacturing plants, et cetera,

even to the extent of winning
this manufacturer award,

it's quite a story. And they
also kept all their employees.

That was a tough nut to crack for
many, many small businesses. Right.

So that's really, and you
brought up, entrepreneurs.

I also wanted to talk to
you about intrepreneurs.

So people who are within a company. And,

connect that to your concept of creative
preferences that you talk about in your

report. Yeah, so my question was,

how can leaders make sure that they're
leveraging these different styles,

but at the same time also building
cohesive teams in their organizations.

Yeah.

There is an excellent
theory about creativity

that we all have our preferences.

And I hope this resonates with the
audience because it's perfect for

building teams and working
within an organization.

You could might need to
create a new process.

You might be able need to create a new
product accountants and finance people

might be asked to create
new dashboards, new systems,

make recommendations.

And so this technique has four
parts to it. Or this study,

this from the research says there are
people that are clarifiers, ideators,

developers, and implementers.

And so let me talk about each one. And
maybe you can identify with one, you,

the people in the audience. So clarifiers
are people who ask lots of questions.

They cannot move forward until
they know what's going on.

And sometimes they slow things
down, but they want the facts

and they're stressed. They,
they are still stressed.

If they do not get this information.

Now there's another group of
people they're called ideators.

They just love to brainstorm.
They don't care about anything.

They don't need clarification.
Just tell me what you want.

And they'll brainstorm
and they'll go hours.

And they have joy and they
just love it. And they can,

they don't care if they have
direction, no direction.

They're those people that are always
throwing out these ideas and they annoy

some people.

You call it extreme brainstorming, right?

It's extreme brainstorming. You know,

I'm one of those people and
other people get annoyed,

but let these people brainstorm this
is what they're actually good at.

And they love it. And then we have
these people called developers.

They're the people that
evaluate the ideas. They're
always there evaluating, no,

we can't do this. These are the pros.
These are cons. You know, this is,

you know, this isn't realistic. This
is what we need to make feasible,

et cetera, et cetera.

So these people are
excellent at this stage,

but you don't want these people saying
things during a brainstorming stage

because that just shuts it all down.
You know, they're just like, Hey,

wait a minute. No, we heard that. We
tried that. And you hear that in meetings.

And it just, you know, the brain and
then your ideators get all frustrated.

And so developers just keep your
mouth shut and you'll get your chance.

These ideators, they don't wanna
develop. They just like ideas.

And then you have the implementers.
They're the people that just wanna do.

They're like, just stop,
you know, you let's,

let's just do a survey. Let's just do
this. Let's just do that enough for this.

Let's get a plan. OK. So those
people just wanna do action.

When I was a teacher, I have a story,
a funny story. I had a student, I said,

okay, we're gonna do this interview
assignment. He came back next time,

like "Dr. Huber, I'm finished". I'm
like, I didn't give you instructions.

You know? I'm like,

how could you do the assignment when
I gave you nothing about it, he said,

it was an interview assignment.
I did an interview. I'm like, OK,

that's an implementor, you know,
they wanna do, they wanna do action.

So if you understand
this process, you know,

you don't want people implementing
things that they'll just do anything.

You know, they wanna go, go, go.
So you need these clarifiers.

And if you can identify those
people, they will figure it out,

gather the data and they can
hand it off to someone else.

They can still be on the team,

but they have to understand when they
hand it off, the ideators will go with it.

And then you can have all, you should
have all these people on your team,

but the developers need to hold their
tongue and not be throwing in all these

bombs. You know, just let them go and
participate. Because when ideas go,

usually it takes three rounds of
ideas to get very unique ideas.

Because a lot of time brainstorming
meanings, it's all the ideas we have,

and it's nothing new. And
so you've got to, you know,

let the people, you know,

do this first round of all the ideas
in people's heads to clear 'em out,

then you do another round and you might
have to use certain practices to get

people thinking. And then
it's a little awkward,

but then you get to the third round.

And that's a lot of times where the good
ideas come from and then hand off to

developers, you know,
figure out the good ideas,

what developers that work with it,
pros, cons. How do we, you know,

who do we need to help with this, that
this, and then hand off the implementers,

they'll run and do it.

So this is how you build a really
great team research supports it,

it's been used in, I would
say thousands of companies.

There's people who can lead these
meetings. And we all have our preferences.

Sometimes we have more than one. Sometimes
we need what they call integrators.

They actually can work in any preference
and help move the group along.

And you often need
training in this and it's,

and there's a company that
actually this called foresight.

If you can't figure out where you're
at, you answer some questions and,

you know, they'll give you, you know,
say, oh, I'm an ideator-implementer.

I have ideas. and I do it.

Wow. And you can make the best
use of every team member you have.

And everybody feels like they have
contributed to the whole process.

Right. And you understand
the other people, you know,

you understand this is a process
and if you're an implementer,

I just have to wait or I'll
show up at the end, you know,

just gimme what to do and I'll do it.

But I don't wanna be
part of this whole thing,

but usually people enjoy the whole process
because you can do this process in a

few hours. So it's not like
days and days and days.

A lot of these sessions can be
done in about two hours. And so,

and people can participate and understand
and use the benefits and the talents

and the preferences of every person there.

And it's really nice for building
teams. I mean, the teams' cohesiveness.

And I found that when I work
with people and you know,

you can use this among your own teams.

I work with writers and I
understand what the skills, talents,

preferences of other people on my
writing teams are. And I'm like, OK,

okay. I turn it over to you. OK.
We're here. And they do their thing.

Cause I'm not a developer
and I'm terrible at it.

And I'll never become good at it, it's
just not my thing, I don't like doing it.

So why should I even become
good? I mean, seriously?

But I do try to think a little bit
more pros and cons. And, but you know,

some people are great these different
areas and they can develop that skillset.

That's fantastic.

Thank you for walking us through what
it looks like and giving us great

examples. Now, I think we have time
for one final question. I really,

really enjoyed reading the report and
I want every listener to download the

report right away and read it. Now,

I want you to give us a really compelling
reason why they should do it as soon

as possible.

Now I think if you download
the report and read it,

you will get something out
that will change your life.

There's bits of I would call,

there's gems of knowledge in this report.

And I don't know what
you need at the moment.

Maybe you just need
recharging or maybe you need,

Hey, we need to move a process
ahead. And how might we do this?

Or you might just understand something
about yourself and how you can contribute

to your company better. Or if
you are a leader, you might say,

you know what let's really think
about before we go ahead and,

you know, deal with a problem.

Let's spend a little time just
reimagining what we might do.

So I think there's something for
everyone, whether it's for your business,

your team, or even yourself.
I mean, I'll be honest.

I live by these principles myself
and I use them all the time

and I was very happy to share
them in a report as well.

Cool. Thank you so much, Marsha. And yes,

I leave the link to the report right
there in the notes for the episode.

So all you listeners can go
and download it right away.

Keep it next to you as you listen to this,

it'll be the most helpful way to get the
most outta Marsha's conversation today.

And it brings us to the end
of our conversation today.

Thank you so much for being on the show
and sharing your insights with us, Dr.

Marsha Huber.

Thank you for inviting me.

This has been Count Me In,

IMA's podcast providing you
with the latest perspectives
of thought leaders from

the accounting and finance profession.
If you like what you heard,

and you'd like to be counted in for
more relevant accounting and finance

education, visit IMA's
website at www.imanet.org.