The essential career skill you’ll need in the AI era

Tahn Sharpe:
Most of what professionals know how to do today will be the transformed or redundant by 2030. I'm Tahn Sharpe, editor of INTHEBLACK, and today we're going to discuss what will separate the professionals who will thrive in this environment from those who may not.

And with me today, I have two guests who have thought very deeply about that exact question. David Carney is the executive director of the Careers Industry Council of Australia and Amanda Kenafake, CPA, is CEO of Queensland Financial Services Group's Power Tynan. David and Amanda, thanks for joining us.

Amanda Kenafake:
Hi.

David Carney:
Thanks for having us.

Tahn Sharpe:
Wonderful. Now the statistic that I read out before is slightly confronting, but it also represents a great opportunity. I think we should frame the discussion less so around the threat of disruption and more around how professionals can respond in a way that sees them as not only relevant but also irreplaceable. So let's get to it. I'll start with a question to you, David. When you look at the pace of change for professionals in the industry today, does that alarm or excite you? And maybe you could explain a little bit what the difference means.

David Carney:
Yeah, sure, Tahn. Thanks for the question. Look, I think it probably requires two answers because I think probably when you talk about alarm and excite, they're at opposite ends of a professional thinking. So I think when we think about the distinction between the two, I think alarm makes people freeze and start to panic a little bit and tend to wait for the disruption to occur. Whereas excitement is something that, from a career perspective, is something that is paired with a plan. So it makes people move and experiment and reposition themselves. And so, their outcome is probably less defined by the technology which we can't control.

We know that that's here and that's something that we just have to live with. But I think for a finance professional, it's how do they lean into that? So I think we should be excited by the technology. Not a naive excitement though. I think we obviously have to be aware of how that technology is disrupting the profession. But I also don't think it's a cause for major alarm where professionals all of a sudden think that in the next five to 10 years, they're all going to be looking for new jobs.

Tahn Sharpe:
I would tend to agree. And Amanda, you're at the coalface, you're running a financial services firm, and you'd be dealing with professionals every day. When you look at the professionals who really stand out, what kind of qualities do they harbour?

Amanda Kenafake:
I think the main qualities they harbour is they've got to be problem solvers. And I know that sounds really silly because you think most people in this world is problem... but problem solving has become a skill all in its own and they've got to have that. They've got to have really great emotional intelligence to be able to pick up on cues around people, building relationships with people.

To what David said before, they've actually got to also have a bit of a resilient kind of mindset and work with that change management. Like I often say to our team here, a business can make a change statement as such, but the people within it, you have to help them transition to that change and do all that stuff. They've got to be able to help people implement, hold people accountable to doing things or know how to read the room or get the vibe of what's happening so that they can make it in bitable pieces to move forward. They can't just expect things to happen.

So a lot of it is that mindset of continuously learning, keeping on moving forward and really being people focused, and the finance stuff is the output of the activity.

Tahn Sharpe:
Very good. I'll stick with you, Amanda, because I want to keep that lens on the professional services people at the moment. Now there's a version of this AI narrative where we say that it lifts everyone up equally, but I think we all know that that may not always be true. Does the technology amplify or how do you make sure that the technology amplifies the good things and not the bad things?

Amanda Kenafake:
I think you've just got to start building skills around questioning skills, making sure you're augmenting what you've already got. So I often talk about thinking about AI of going, if you were good at your job already, so you're there, if you use AI and you use your skills and your knowledge and everything you know, you can be exceptional. If you use AI and you don't use your skills, knowledge and all of that stuff, you can be average, and drop back from that where you were before, which was probably good.

So I think to me it's really honing in and going, use the AI to enhance your already skills, don't use it to replace. And I think that's the gap that people... There wouldn't be a gap if people were using it to enhance what they already knew and actually help them do things that maybe they couldn't do before, but they at least knew the concept or knew where to go.

Tahn Sharpe:
I'd like to get your view on that, David, as well. I mean, you have to wonder if sometimes AI exacerbates or exaggerates the good professionals from the ones who might be slightly towards more the average band of the spectrum. How do you actually stay on the good side of that ledger?

David Carney:
Yeah. I think our view in relation to technology and AI is that it's definitely an amplifier, it's not a leveller. So I think it probably lifts the baseline. So when we think about the finance professionals is that we're all able to use AI to obviously undertake the computational aspects of our role much quicker. But then I think as Amanda was saying, if you then can't judge and contextualise and apply those outputs, then I think as a professional, it shows you up. It raises the floor. In some respects, it widens the gap between really good finance professionals and those that are using the tool that perhaps don't have all of those other skills that you're going to require.

So I think from our perspective, I think it's what are those additional skills that you require as a high performing finance professional where you're using the technology to amplify your work, to make the computational side of the work, obviously the output a lot quicker, but then again, how do you then use those outputs to be able to contextualise those and applies those with the clients that you're working with?

Tahn Sharpe:
Yeah. I might just pull the thread on that concept of how we're using the tools, Amanda. When you're speaking to your staff, how do you ensure that they're using them to really enhance their skills rather than replacing them, especially when deadlines are tight and the pressure is on and the temptation is to take AI output at its place value?

Amanda Kenafake:
It's exactly what David said though. If you don't know what you're doing and you're pulling something out and your data is showing you the incorrect output, it does show a gap up that you didn't check or you didn't use it properly. So I think it's context. I think you've actually got to know what AI is really going to enhance and add value to and what it won't.

I think what AI helps you do is actually create simple solutions for complex problems and allows you in your own ability as a human to actually have the conversation with other humans and turn it into digestible information. So I think it comes back to that, know what to use, know how to use it, but don't replace it for your own knowledge and skills. Use it to critique things or use it to do a whole heap of data analysis that you wouldn't have time to do, but know... You've got to be able to see the rubbish from the right stuff, if that makes sense.

So you still got to use your brains and your context to go, does that number make sense? Can I still... Every number has a story, and can I tell the story to that number or does that number not make sense?

Tahn Sharpe:
Absolutely. And I think from a firm perspective, company-wide you need to set up protocols for those processes. Absolutely. I want to talk about the human skills that finance professionals might need in the future. Amanda, we often look at the narrative of there is a technically correct answer and there is a right answer, and when you're looking at a practise level, there is a tension between those two. So can you really speak to how that tension plays out when you're dealing with clients?

Amanda Kenafake:
Yeah. I always go with there's many ways to skin a cat. I don't know if that's the right saying, but I think that's a saying from many years ago.

Tahn Sharpe:
It'll do.

Amanda Kenafake:
It is that simple solution to complex problems. And with all the legislation around now too, you've got to know your clients and you've got to check for their understanding and stuff as well. So I think there's things that have been put in place to ensure that everyone does it. But as a good professional, I think you've actually got to sit there and look at people, and that's the EQ that comes into it and understanding... Are people actually understanding what I'm telling them?

And if I sit there and try and explain a Div 7A law to you with legislative whatever, I go, "Don't take money out of a company or you've got to pay interest on it." They'll get that better than me explaining the rules and the laws and all that stuff. So I think that's where I go, the technically correct answer sometimes is not the answer that you need to have for the client. And I think this is where if I link this back to skills of a person and not just using AI, they actually have to know and understand something because they need to potentially be able to explain it up to five or six different ways until a client can actually go, "Oh yeah, I get what you're saying now."

You've got to understand the industry, you've got to understand whatever you're talking about so that you can explain it to someone in a way in their world or in their terminology that they get what you're talking about so they can get the right information to help them make the decision because at the end of the day, they're making the decision on what you're telling them.

Tahn Sharpe:
Yeah. Does that scan with you, David? It makes sense to me because in the end you're dealing with people, right?

David Carney:
Yeah. And I think that's the thing that all industries that are being impacted by this technology at the moment is that I think at this stage and our own profession is that we say to career professionals who are working that the technology is there to enable you to enhance your practise and your work with clients, but it still requires the human element because as Amanda said, AI has inherent bias in it and unlike the use of the internet, which is just looking for information, AI generally gives you what you ask it to give you. It doesn't come back and question you saying, "Have you given me the right information? Are you sure this data is correct?" It just responds to what you tell it.

So I think for those... not just for finance professionals, but for anyone who actually doesn't understand how to use the technology correctly and understand that there is inherent bias in the technology and it does produce a lot of hallucinations. It does draw on research, which sometimes doesn't exist. It may draw on legal precedent, which doesn't exist. It just makes stuff up. And so, if you don't have someone that is human that has the capacity to be able to critically analyse the output before you go to a client, then I think you get shown up.

Tahn Sharpe:
Yeah. I think people get found out pretty quickly if there aren't robust controls in place and that probably comes back to culture as well, I think. David, while I've got you, I'm just wondering now if there are professionals out there who are struggling with their place in this new AI driven world, what's maybe one piece of advice that you would give them in terms of ensuring their place in the future workforce?

David Carney:
Look, I think it's a really interesting one and it's obviously not unique to the finance profession. I think it's any of those professions at the moment that are being impacted in the first instance by this first wave of AI and generative AI is that most people that work in professions that are impacted, their technical skills are strong. They wouldn't be working in the profession if they didn't have good technical skills.

Where they sometimes struggle from our perspective is that they don't actually manage or own their own career learning, their career pathway. So rather than just relying on the qualifications that they've got and the pathway that they're in, I think they struggle to find out, okay, how do I pivot? Where do I move to be able to read how the profession is moving, what are the skills that I'm going to be required?

So I think from my perspective and from our perspective as people that work with clients, everything from school aged students through to people in their mid to late careers is that again, it gets back to the human. It's how do you actually manage your own career development? And they're not things that we're actually taught in school or at university. These are not skills that we're actually taught.

And so, it's actually not a fault of the individual and very rarely do we actually stop and think about, well, how do we actually need to manage this next phase until most of us get into a situation where we're forced into that. And so, we either find that our roles have been made redundant or we're out of a job and then all of a sudden, that ability to manage your career when you're in that fight or flight stage is not the best time to be managing it.

So that would be my piece of advice is that even if you're working in the finance industry at the moment and everything's fine and you can use the technology, you should be also turning your mind to how you're actually managing your career forever how much longer you think that you're going to actually be working in a paid career pathway.

Tahn Sharpe:
So being more considered and intentional with this continuous professional development, which I guess for years we've taken it for granted as something that we just need to do.

Amanda, can I ask you if you're talking to a professional who's trying to make themselves an indispensable accountant or CFO or auditor in the future, what's the piece of advice you'd give them?

Amanda Kenafake:
Yeah. Have that continuous learning, that growth mindset, all that kind of thing to make sure that they do every year, have a, what am I going to stop doing? What am I going to start doing? What's my goal? A lot of people don't set those goals of where do I want to be in 12 months' time or whatever that might be. I think they've got to unlearn some stuff. They've got to realise who they want to be.

I always talk about, do you want to always be known as the tax guy? If you don't, well stop learning tax, go learn whatever else you want to be in the future. Actually, start understanding that and knowing that you're working with a whole team and upskill your team around you and get their mindsets going along with that as well. Learn how to delegate. Learn how to work with other people so that you don't have everything on you.

And I think to me, it's a lot of the people skills and it's a lot of the mindset stuff and it's a lot of that stuff that's happening in the future, I think, that as finance professionals probably historically haven't really thought about as one of the main areas of development, I think that's something that everyone's got to do.

Tahn Sharpe:
Absolutely. Well, I'm sure a lot of those professionals who are considering their future would find this discussion valuable. David and Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today.

Amanda Kenafake:
Thank you.

David Carney:
Thank you.

Tahn Sharpe:
And for our listeners eager to learn more, please go and check the show notes of the CPA Australia website for more details. And don't forget to subscribe to INTHEBLACK and share with your friends and colleagues. Thanks for listening.

Crew:
[inaudible 00:16:58].

Tahn Sharpe:
Yeah. I botched that completely. Yes, will do. Very good. Well, there will be thousands of professionals. Sorry, Chris, I'll do that again. I mentioned thousands before, so I'll use a different little analogy.

Well, I'm sure many of the professionals who've been listening to the discussion today will find the contents invaluable. Amanda and David, thank you for joining us.

Amanda Kenafake:
Thank you.

David Carney:
Thanks for having us.

Tahn Sharpe:
And for our listeners eager to learn more, please visit the show notes or visit the CPA Australia website. And don't forget to subscribe to INTHEBLACK and share with your friends and colleagues. That's all for now. Thanks for listening.

I'm in the naughty corner now, guys. Do you just want the last bit, Chris? So do you want me to start at for our listeners eager to learn more? Okay. All right.

Well, there'll be many professionals who I think will find this discussion invaluable. David and Amanda, thanks for joining us. And for our listeners eager to learn more, please visit the show notes or the CPA Australia website and don't forget to subscribe to INTHEBLACK and share with your friends and colleagues. Thanks for listening.

I didn't nail Amanda's surname, but I think I got close enough.

Amanda Kenafake:
It was fine. I heard a lot worse, Tahn. It's fine.

Tahn Sharpe:
Thank you for your generosity.