Episode #580 - The Business of Civic Leadership: Interview with Tim Riordan

Ron and Ed welcome Tim Riordan, president of BIPAC (Business-Industry Political Action Committee), for a conversation at the intersection of business, civic engagement, and public policy. BIPAC works to educate and mobilize the business community around the political process — equipping leaders with the tools and insight needed to participate thoughtfully and effectively in American democracy.

Tim brings decades of experience helping organizations navigate the often-murky waters of public affairs, grassroots advocacy, and leadership development. In a time when politics and business are increasingly entangled, sometimes constructively, often chaotically, he offers a perspective grounded in education, participation, and long-term institutional thinking.

As a Soul of Enterprise guest, Tim fits squarely into the show’s deeper inquiry: What responsibilities accompany enterprise? How should leaders engage the broader culture without being consumed by it? And how do we preserve institutions that allow free people to flourish?

This conversation explores not partisanship, but participation and why the health of the republic depends in part on whether business leaders choose to show up.

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

• Welcome Tim Riordan! First question: What is BIPAC? A community built on member and partner success. Delivering Educational Programs, Curated Resources, and Political Analysis. https://bipac.org/ 

• Founded in 1963, BIPAC is widely considered one of the first political action committees representing business interests in the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIPAC 

• The stated mission of BIPAC is to advance economic growth by engaging private-sector employees as voters and advocates. In other words, BIPAC helps companies activate employees politically, not just lobby directly. https://bipac.org 

• Tim brought back a great quote today on the show: “Congress is dysfunctional, except for my member.”

Segment two

• Tim mentioned a great book today: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes/dp/1260474216  

• “Risk mitigation has become an element that’s being looked at in political engagement.” —Tim Riordan of BIPAC

• “It’s such a fundamental right of this country to disagree. And we have been disagreeing for 250 years. This is our birth right.” —Tim Riordan of BIPAC

• Report: The Role of Trust and Employed Voters in the 2024 Election https://bipac.org/2024-post-election-survey-report 

Segment three

• Employee Voter Registration Week was started 14 years ago by BIPAC. More information here: https://bipac.org/syndicated/why-i-m-excited-for-employee-voter-registration-week 

• BIPAC provides companies with a PAC strategy, voter education programs, and grassroots activation systems. Essentially, it acts as a political operating system for corporations. https://bipac.org 

• Adam Smith Collection: The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments https://www.amazon.com/Adam-Smith-Collection-Nations-Sentiments/dp/B0DQHFCH12 

• Looking Back at 2025: Key Takeaways from the BIPAC Pulse Benchmarking Report https://bipac.org/syndicated/looking-back-at-2025-key-takeaways-from-the-bipac-pulse-benchmarking-report 

Segment four

• ~75% of registered voters say they look to their employer for information about elections and issues https://www.linkedin.com/posts/employees-vote_ignoring-the-election-cycle-is-no-longer-activity-7393664142831796224-I4D1/ 

• 57% of employees say workplace information increased their support for company-aligned positions https://bipac-momentum-media.s3.amazonaws.com/Media/assets/000/024/115/original/The-Business-Case-for-E2E-Survey-Presentation.pdf 

• “Watch the news that pisses you off […] because that’s gonna give you the other side of the argument.” —Tim Riordan of BIPAC

• A big THANK YOU to Tim Riordan for joining us today. BIPAC encourages civic participation through business. Learn more here: https://bipac.org 

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #579 - Leading a Modern Advisory Firm: Interview with Matt Armanino

Ron and Ed welcome Matt Armanino, CEO of Armanino Advisory, for a conversation about what it really takes to lead a modern professional services firm in an era of relentless change. Under Matt’s leadership, Armanino has pushed beyond the traditional boundaries of accounting — building advisory depth, embracing technology, and reimagining how firms create value for the businesses they serve.

In this episode, Matt shares his perspective on scaling culture, navigating growth without losing identity, and balancing innovation with institutional stability. They explore what leadership looks like when your firm is no longer “just” an accounting practice but a multidimensional advisory organization — and what it means to build something designed to endure.

As a Soul of Enterprise guest, Matt embodies the show’s core inquiry: how do we elevate the profession from compliance to contribution? This conversation goes beyond tactics to mindset — and what the next generation of firm leadership must understand if it hopes to thrive.

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

• When thinking about advisory services, Matt had a great quote at the beginning of the show: “Most of us want to be a professional service. To serve other people.”

• “Everyone one of our clients has a dream, something they want to accomplish.” —Andy Armanino, founder of Armanino

• On private equity in the industry, “The trend to a more modern capital structure allows firms to make much bigger bets towards the future. Towards transformation.” —Matt Armanino

• “Firms that are positioning themselves to be winners are the ones that are most agile right now, and are questioning things. I think that’s where Armanino sits.” —Matt Armanino

Segment two

• Did PE cause Armanino to be inwardly focused? No. “Our entire strategy for where we’re investing is centered on the client. On the needs of the client.” —Matt Armanino

• “The type of core middle market companies that we serve, that see us as a key relationship partner, actually value investments in technology.” —Matt Armanino

• KPMG demanded a discount from its auditor for AI cost savings https://www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/kpmg-demanded-a-discount-from-its-auditor-for-ai-cost-savings-20260210-p5o117 

• “If our clients perceive that we are the best firm to work with, because we are the only firm and they can’t get it from anyone else, then guess what? There’s a lot less focus on price. It’s a focus on value.” —Matt Armanino

Segment three

• How does the shift to value pricing manifest itself at Armanino? “Making a shift to a pricing change? That is very simple. Sitting down and investing on the front end in your relationship and having a value-based discussion with a client. That’s important.” —Matt Armanino

• “If you are only monetizing the value of what you do based on increments of time then, as you reduce time, you effectively reduce your pricing and impact.” —Matt Armanino 

• As an example, Matt cited managed services and had this to say: “That’s an example of where you see the core external trends in the marketplace becoming a virtuous element of a recurring service model.” —Matt Armanino

• “At the core of who we are—the core purpose of our firm—is the desire to be the most innovative and entrepreneurial firm. […] That is why our business was founded.” —Matt Armanino

• Built to Last : Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras https://www.amazon.com/Built-Last-Successful-Visionary-Essentials/dp/0060516402 

Segment four

• The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-New-Foreword-Technologies/dp/1647826764/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0 

• The Innovator's Solution by Clayton M. Christensen https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-New-Foreword-Sustaining/dp/1647826780/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0 

• Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove https://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Exploit-Challenge/dp/0385483821 

• A big THANK YOU to Matt Armanino for joining us today. He joined Armanino 18 years ago! Here is more information on him and the firm https://www.armanino.com/company/people/matt-armanino/ 

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #578 - Stop Managing Minds Like Hands: Knowledge workers aren't paid for hours!

In this episode, Ron and Ed explore a distinction that Peter Drucker saw decades ago but many organizations still struggle to grasp: knowledge workers are fundamentally different from service workers — and managing them the same way is a category error.

Drucker famously wrote, “The most valuable assets of a 21st-century institution (whether business or nonbusiness) will be its knowledge workers and their productivity.” That statement isn’t aspirational — it’s diagnostic. Knowledge workers own the means of production: their minds. They cannot be supervised into excellence, scheduled into creativity, or measured into insight.

Ron and Ed unpack what truly differentiates knowledge work: autonomy over time, responsibility for outcomes rather than tasks, the necessity of continuous learning, and the reality that effectiveness — not efficiency — is the governing metric.

If we continue to treat accountants, consultants, and other professionals as if they were interchangeable labor inputs, we shouldn’t be surprised when engagement drops and innovation stalls. The future belongs to organizations that understand what Drucker meant — and are willing to build differently because of it.

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

• Are you in NY or San Francisco in April or June, respectively? Join us! (Ron and Ed will be at the Rippling events) https://thresholdnow.com/rippling 

• From Peter Drucker in “On the Profession of Management” (2003): The single greatest challenge facing managers in the developed countries of the world is to raise the productivity of knowledge workers which will dominate the management agenda for the next several decades and will ultimately determine the competitive performance of companies. https://www.amazon.com/Drucker-Profession-Management-Harvard-Business/dp/1591393221 

• Gauntlet thrown! Ed called CRM systems the ultimate panopticon on today’s show and he’s not wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon 

• “What is a knowledge worker and what do they do?” from IBM https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/knowledge-worker 

• "Why is it every time I ask for a pair of hands, they come with a brain attached?" —Henry Ford

Segment two

• “Where is the wealth of nations? Measuring capital for the 21st century” from the World Bank https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/287171468323724180 

• The EFFING debate (efficiency vs effectiveness) was a phrase coined by Ed. Here is a LinkedIn article from Ron going into some of the details https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20121226185000-38251380-the-efficiency-vs-effectiveness-debate-continues/

• Peter Drucker famously differentiated between effectiveness and efficiency, stating that "effectiveness is the foundation of success—efficiency is a minimum condition for survival after success has been achieved”

• Continuing with the EFFING debate: “I will take an effective heart surgeon over an efficient one anytime.” —Ron Baker

• Revolutionary Wealth by futurists Alvin Toffler and his wife Heidi Toffler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Wealth 

Segment three

• “Take away my people, but leave my factories, and soon grass will grow on the factory floors. Take away my factories, but leave my people, and soon we will have a new and better factory". —Andrew Carnegie

• “It was the rise of the knowledge worker where it made possible the idea that you could employe somebody in a job that didn’t exist before.” —Ron Baker

• Great questions from Drucker for knowledge worker effectiveness:

• What is your role?

• What should it be?

• What should you be expected to contribute?

• What hampers you in doing your job and should be eliminated?

• How could you make the greatest contribution with your strengths?

• What results have to be achieved to make a difference?

• (And several others in segment three of the show today)

Segment four

• After action reviews are definitely a part of this conversation but we have done a show or two on that already. Here’s the original show on AARs. Episode number 15! https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/15 

• We have a LARGE number of guests coming up including Matt Armanino, Tim Riordan, Tim Williams, Hector Garcia, and Alexis Kingsbury! Do you like what you hear? Please take 10 seconds to rate the podcast so that other people can find us. https://ratethispodcast.com/tsoe 

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #577 - The Profitability Breakthrough: 11th conversation with Joe Woodard

For the eleventh time (because apparently we’re not done yet), Ron and Ed welcome back Joe Woodard to talk about The Profitability Breakthrough, the live workshop they’ll be leading together in May.

This episode goes beyond theory and into architecture. What actually drives profitability in an accounting firm? Is it pricing? Positioning? Capacity? Client selection? Or is it the uncomfortable truth that most firms are solving the wrong problem entirely?

Joe unpacks the core ideas behind the workshop — why incremental tweaks won’t move the needle, how firms get trapped in activity instead of outcomes, and what it takes to engineer a genuine breakthrough rather than another marginal improvement.

If you’ve ever wondered whether profitability is a math problem or a mindset problem, this conversation might make you slightly uncomfortable — which is usually where the good stuff starts.

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

• Buck Henry was the screenwriter of The Graduate (among other things) and he hosted Saturday Night Live TEN TIMES. This is Joe’s 11th appearance. More information on Buck Henry at this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Henry 

• Here is the article by Joe on The Woodard Report called “My Daughter Went to a TurboTax Store and Here’s What Happened”. It’s a TRUE story. He sent his daughter into the flagship Intuit store in Manhattan. https://report.woodard.com/articles/my-daughter-went-to-a-turbotax-store-and-heres-what-happened-ocewr-fpwr 

• From Joe’s daughter after her first experience in the Manhattan TurboTax store: “Full service was $150, and you can pay it out of your refund if you want. I paid with a card.” More at this link https://report.woodard.com/articles/my-daughter-went-to-a-turbotax-store-and-heres-what-happened-ocewr-fpwr 

• The comments at the bottom of the article published on The Woodard Report are mostly positive — and available for public viewing. You can check them out here https://report.woodard.com/articles/my-daughter-went-to-a-turbotax-store-and-heres-what-happened-ocewr-fpwr 

Segment two

• Ron asked Joe about skim, penetration and neutral pricing with respect to his daughter’s trip to the Manhattan TurboTax store. Here is more info (in general) about these pricing methodologies https://www.culturehive.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Three-Approaches-to-Pricing-Strategy-1.pdf 

• The Profitability Breakthrough is a workshop for Accounting Firms coming up in May. Ron, Ed, AND Joe will be running the workshop. More information at this link https://thresholdnow.com/woodard 

• The combination of Ed, Ron, and Joe brings an extremely unique set of perspectives. Joe brings a 20 year ground game in working with individual practitioners and Ron + Ed have been doing pricing research since…….what…..the 1920s? :)  The Profitability Breakthrough is a 3-day event in Las Vegas in May. More information here https://thresholdnow.com/woodard 

• “There’s nothing so practical as a good theory.” —Ron Baker as quoted by Ed Kless

Segment three

• “Doctor’s don’t have scope creep.” —Ron Baker

• Joe mentioned Client Advisory Services during the chat today. I don’t want to assume everyone understand this fully. Here is “4 reasons why CAS offers a compelling career path” from Jean Zick, CPA at this link https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/newsletters/academic-update/4-reasons-why-cas-offers-a-compelling-career-path/

• “If you want to stay fiercely independent, join an alliance.” —Joe Woodard on how firms can stay independent while not offering an unnecessary grab bag of services to all customers

• “What could I have saved them if I had been their tax advisor the last 2 years? That’s the key question.” —Joe Woodard

Segment four

• “The SaaS Apocalypse Or The SaaS Evolution?” https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2026/02/17/the-saas-apocalypse-or-the-saas-evolution/ 

• What are your thoughts on specialized AI tools for accountants? “The gap between reality and hype is closing. I would encourage everyone that’s listening here to please take a fresh look.” —Joe Woodard

• A big THANK YOU to Joe Woodard for joining us today. Check out information about The Profitability Breakthrough, a workshop for accounting firms, at this link https://thresholdnow.com/woodard 

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits.