Spotting strategic accountants and Yeti's

One of new Zealand's leading papers, The New Zealand Herald, ran an article persuading small businesses that they really needed to go to the trouble of ensuring their accountant was able to add value for them strategically   OMG, what were they thinking.  Here is a snippet.

Business consultantA good accountant will help your business grow by bringing a wider commercial perspective to the partnership. For small businesses, your accountant should be a trusted business adviser and provide credible, strategic advice. They should be able to evaluate business problems and offer solutions. To do this successfully, your accountant will make the effort to understand your business and your product or service, right from the very first meeting.

Lets be absolutely clear about this, they are accountants and that makes them qualified to provide accountancy advice.  Why don't they dispense legal or HR advice?  Because they aren't qualified, yet somehow the article makes them well equipped to hand out strategy advice.  Maybe it is because business strategy is easy and just plain common sense.  

Ahhhhhh NO.

Business strategy is arguably the most important bit to get right and my research, which I hope to publish in the next six months, shows that those that are good at strategy have got good at it through a lot of hard work and being involved in, surprisingly business, management, leadership and strategy.  Unbelievably no one I interviewed thought that accountancy was the way to improve their strategic skills.  Also unbelievably none of my participants, all selected through peer recognition of their strategic ability, were accountants.  Two started down that path and realised that wasn't them at all. 

Chances of finding an accountant that is competent at strategy are slim and it is simply because they spend the majority of their working day not being strategic, they are looking at the financials which are historic.  They are gaining experience in accountancy which is almost at the other end of the management spectrum to being strategic.  

I can't wait to get out there and let my research dispel a few rumours...  I need to get back to writing up my PhD....