Intent, tone and delivery matter just as much as the message itself.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

One poorly handled conversation can undo months—or years—of trust. In this episode of Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, and Liz Mason, CPA, unpack why difficult feedback often fails, how leaders can communicate with greater intention, and what separates constructive coaching from conversations that send employees looking for another job.

The conversation starts with a story familiar to anyone who has ever hovered over the “Send” button on a difficult message.

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Mason, founder and CEO of High Rock Accounting, recalls proposing a conference talk with a deliberately provocative title — a reminder that most professionals feel the tension between holding the line and keeping the peace. The point, she says, is not to sanitize reality. It is to learn how to hold people accountable without turning it into a personal attack.

Originally published Feb. 5, 2026

The profession's fastest-growing opportunities help business owners make decisions—not just balance the books.

Accounting Conversations
With Chayton Farlee
Center for Accounting Transformation

For many accounting students, the profession appears to offer two primary destinations: tax or audit.

But what if that's only part of the story?

In the latest episode of Accounting Conversations, host Chayton Farlee, an assurance associate at CliftonLarsonAllen (CLA), welcomes Kaden Cook, CPA, CMA, a virtual CFO with Anders, for a conversation that challenges many of the assumptions students have about accounting careers.

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Cook's own career follows a path that many students may not realize exists. He begins with bookkeeping, gains experience in accounts receivable and accounts payable, discovers outsourced accounting and eventually finds his way into advisory services, where he helps business owners make financial decisions rather than simply report financial results.

That distinction becomes one of the central themes of the conversation.

It’s not just growth.
Full show notes here.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

Scaling a business successfully usually doesn’t happen automatically when top-line revenue grows, as Jason Blumer and Ian Vacin explain in their new book, “Scale with Purpose: The Service Entrepreneur’s Guide to Intentional Growth.”

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Vacin, co-founder of Karbon, had seen a peculiar pattern across Karbon’s Practice Excellence survey over the last eight years. Instead of smooth growth curves, firm data showed distinct scaling plateaus at specific headcounts. “Ninety-five percent of firms had this going up motion. Generally, we get to 12 to 16 employees, and then go backward, and they would tell us, ‘Yeah, it grew too fast. It didn’t feel like the company that I wanted,’ ” he explains.

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