The first thing that comes to mind is some sort of a picture or sculpture or craft. It’s something that comes from the right side of the brain. The second piece of that usually involves some level of creativity. For example, I think that most people can paint a wall, which still requires some level of skill to do it right. That’s why there’s people who are painters, but you know if you paint the wall the right color, add the right texture, do something a little bit different and bring creativity to that wall, you’ve taken it from a skill to an art. And in business? Well, I get to draw flowcharts! But really, I think the bigger deal is the client will most often be able to paint a picture of their business – what it looks like today and what they want it to look like in the future. However, they may not necessarily know how to express that. A commissioned artist might be starting with a blank canvas, but through conversation with their client, they develop a piece of art to the client’s liking. I think most clients have something more than a blank canvas when they come to us. Through dialogue of understanding their overall business strategy and objectives, hopefully I can suggest they need a little more blue over here and a little orange over there. Something to help make that picture come out and pop or be more successful. If I’m not helping them develop that picture they have in their head, or making it better, then I shouldn’t be at the table.

I use science in business through debits equal credits. That’s the easy one. The balance sheet either balances or it doesn’t. For me as a tax practitioner with a law degree background, it’s interpreting words in a statute or regulation (that’s the data) to arrive at a conclusion based on a set of factors that is consistent with the legislative intent. After that, you input the numbers into a formula to see how everything pans out with respect to your interpretation of a statute or regulation. Some people say the proof is in the numbers, and many times that’s right. You can interpret something in one way and go down that path, but after you apply the numbers and the actual facts in the situation you’re dealing with, you might end up with a result that is not at all what anybody intended. So, you’ve got to come back and look at your result and say, “What variable did I input that was incorrect causing that answer?”  The numbers will almost always prove whether your thought process was right or not.