The ‘Reality Distortion Field’ at CPA Firms

No, this is not Rosenberg’s foray into science fiction.  Reality Distortion Field (RDF) was the term coined at Apple to characterize Steve Jobs’ legendary ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything with a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, appeasement and persistence. I first read of it in Walter Isaacson’s amazing biography of Jobs.  RDF distorts people’s sense of reality to make them believe that an impossible task can be done.

There are two sides of the reality distortion field. The positive is that it demonstrates how someone can bend reality in such a way that a difficult or impossible task is made to appear possible. The dark side is that people with this trait are so driven that they will lie, pester, cheat or do whatever it takes to succeed. A cynic would point to RDF as someone’s ability to manipulate people at all costs to get what they want.

I’m not sure if there’s another Steve Jobs out there among CPA firm leaders.   But a reasonable amount of RDF is the essence of many of my favorite definitions of leadership:

• Getting others to follow.
• Identifying challenges and focusing people’s attention on those challenges.
• Controlling people by pushing them in the right direction.
• Real leaders possess strong convictions.
• Leadership is crucial for facilitating change in organizations because people need help in overcoming their natural resistance to change.

Click here to download my carefully honed MP job description that I just reworded to incorporate the reality distortion field!

Of all the consulting work I do, the work I turn down the most is strategic planning.  It’s not because I don’t know how to do it.  It’s not that I don’t believe in it.  It’s because firms don’t have a leader who is willing and able to champion the strategic plan, get the partners to be passionate and driven about implementation, and convince them that their goals can be achieved.

Firms can spend all the time and money they wish creating a beautiful strategic plan.  But this plan will be of little use unless there is a strong leader to champion the plan, to coach firm members with goals in the plan but at the same time, hold them accountable for achieving those goals. Yep, you guessed it. MPs need their own Reality Distortion Field.

Every strategic plan needs a champion who will inspire the firm to believe what seems impossible CAN be achieved: our book Strategic Planning and Goal Setting for Results identifies the steps to take.