A few days ago, I stepped onto a stage for the first time as a stand-up comedian. I’ve spent years doing improv, but stand-up is different. Stand-up isn’t about reacting in the moment; it’s about crafting, refining, and delivering material in a way that resonates (hopefully) with an audience that wants to be entertained. I learned a ton from my stand-up classes and first performance and a great deal of what I learned can be applied directly to business leadership. Here are the three biggest lessons that business leaders can learn from stand-up comedy:

The backstory:

With the college football playoffs set and the NFL season coming down the home stretch, there have been countless close games going down to the final seconds. The difference between winning and losing often has more to do with a team’s culture and preparation than it does with their pure talent. In the same way, most accounting firms have smart, conscientious, talented people at all levels of the organization. The difference between high performing firms and mediocre firms is that the high performers have the ability to stay in alignment and hold their composure when the pressure is on. While it’s easy to put your organization’s core values on the wall of your lobby or locker room, you don’t find out who has really bought into those values until the you-know-what hits the fan. Like elite sports teams and military units, high-performing firms stay together and stick to the game plan when faced with a big client loss, departure of a key employee, or busy season fire drills. Under the same circumstances, lesser firms throw in the towel, point fingers, and watch staff head for the exits. Sound familiar? Sun Tsu, the legendary general and philosopher of ancient times said, “Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.” In the heat of battle, I’ve found, you must think like a triage unit in combat. Casualties are all around you and coming in fast; you must treat the most serious life-threatening injuries before the ones that are merely painful – no matter how anguished the victim. In the heat of battle, you’re not going to get perfection. You must do the best you can with the people, resources and time you have to work with. As a leadership coach, I’ve noticed that firms with a strong culture and governance model are particularly well equipped to handle “battlefield” conditions. They tend to have four characteristics in common:

December 4 2024 | 10 am PST / 1 pm EST

Dan McMahon contributed to the following article in Illinois CPA Society's Insight Magazine summer issue on the topic CPA firm M&A.

Check out Dan McMahon who recently appeared as a guest on Doug Noll’s Listening with Leaders podcast. Dan and Doug discuss the importance of listening as a leader, the art of improvisational theater performing, and why management teams must follow a parliamentary procedure for decision making.

Key Takeaways

See Dan McMahon’s latest article on Firm Governance Best Practices, which was published in the Summer issue of New Jersey CPA Magazine.

Key Takeaways