Introduction: Professionals in a Digital World

DIGITALIZATION AS WELL AS the pandemic are transforming our clients' businesses and the professional services industry. Disruption may mean that in the future, our clients' business models will no longer work in the future. But our own business models are also put to the test. In the future, how can we support our clients with our services? Are we paving the way and driving a successful future for our clients, or are we blocking important change processes with our consulting services? What are we doing in the professional services industry to successfully master digitalization? We need to find the right answers to these and many other questions.

Artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, social media, virtual and hybrid worlds, smartphones, Zoom, and MS Teams meetings have led to a complexity that is a particular challenge for every professional. To this we add the associated possibilities that we are able to call up information and communicate almost anywhere in the world while making decisions at every turn creates additional complexity. Professional private lives are often inextricably linked. Professional information can be transported almost anywhere in the world via smartphone. On the other hand, professionals receive information about their children's school grades, their life partner's problems, or other private matters at almost every location where they work. In work-life blending, the professional world merges with private life and the worlds become inseparable. In addition to a wealth of professional information, there are plenty of distractions in a professional's daily life.

Complexity has increased at all levels, and it has to be mastered. We live in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity - a VUCA working world. Volatility refers to conditions that are unstable, unpredictable, and therefore hard to foresee. Nobody knows when a particular status will change and move into a different direction and what events will follow. Uncertainty refers to a state that is subject to unknown risks. We have less and less certainty about what will happen next. Known, earlier paradigms no longer apply, and it is unclear what actually still does. Predictions and forecasts are increasingly unreliable. Ambiguity means double or even multiple meanings of a fact.

Professionals have always had a particularly trusted and responsible role with their clients. To live up to this trust, the profession's service portfolio is under scrutiny in a changing world. Professional services providers are also in a state of upheaval due to digitalization. What impact does this have on the management of the firm and on self-management? Does the ever-increasing complexity of everyday life in a VUCA world and the digital age require new principles, tasks, and tools from professionals in order to be successful?

Professional services are occupations in the service industry that require specialized education and training in the arts or sciences. Some freelance services, such as those provided by architects, accountants, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers, require a professional degree, or licensure and unique skills. I am a professional in the accounting and consulting industry with certifications as a German certified public accountant (Wirtschaftsprüfer) and Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA). I have professional experience in these industries. Therefore, most of the practical examples I provide throughout the book relate to the accounting and consulting industry. However, transfer to other industries is easily possible.

Soft Skills for the Professional Services Industry presents the principles, tasks, and tools of professionals that are necessary to master the increasing complexity of everyday life and the VUCA world. Effective self-management and the effective management of teams are more important today than ever before.

This book uses the profession of auditors as an example to demonstrate which soft skills are necessary to be successful. The principles, tasks, and tools also apply to a large extent to other professional groups, managers, and entrepreneurs. Successful professionals are characterized by excellent technical knowledge in their field of activity. In addition, they have a certain mindset and soft skills. Effective self-management as well as effective management of teams are indispensable for entrepreneurial success. Only those who can manage themselves effectively and efficiently have fulfilled an essential prerequisite for managing employees and teams successfully themselves.

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The principles, tasks, and tools outlined below are the basis for mastering complexity in a digitalized professional and private life and in a VUCA world.

TABLE I.1-PRINCIPLES, TASKS, AND TOOLS

Those who apply the Principles, Tasks, and Tools shown in Table I.1 will be more successful both professionally and personally.

Principles in this context should be adhered to when performing tasks and using tools. Adherence to the principles requires a certain degree of discipline. The principles can be learned more, or less easily. Since their application involves changes in behavior, it is essential that an individual understands that the principles are important for successful business transactions. If this insight is lacking, the tasks are usually performed unsatisfactorily. At the same time, they form the framework for the tasks and serve as an orientation for the use of the tools. The principles are not only valid for a CPA or valuation expert's successful professional life, but also for lawyers and other expert groups as well as managers and entrepreneurs. Accordingly, they have a universal character. These principles are the most important and valuable soft skills of a successful personality. Those who adhere to them distinguish themselves significantly from others. They also apply to a significant extent to private life and therefore, serve as a basis for functioning relationships.

Tasks characterize a professional's work. Professional standards in particular often regulate certain duties. In the following, duties do not stand for the specialized duties of an auditor or lawyer, which are sufficiently well known. Therefore, it does not refer to a professional's given skill set. Where applicable, these are specified in detail in professional standards, laws, decrees, and so forth, to their specific field of expertise. They are special tasks predominately related to the auditor's own management and the management of employees. In this sense, they are the key tasks that are especially critical success factors. Those who perform these tasks poorly will not be as successful as professionals. At its core, the book deals with the professional tasks for successful self-management and management of employees. Transfer to personal life is possible for some tasks. For example, the "setting goals" task applies to both professional and personal life. Successful professionals can distinguish the essential from the non-essential. They know their key tasks and perform them in an above average manner.

Tools are the third element and are used to perform the tasks. Professionals are more likely to expect technical tools in this Part of the book when reading the term tool. Closely related to the term tools are apps. To prevent gaps in expectations at this point, Part III, Tools is not essentially about technical aids. Technical aids can make it easier to perform the tasks described above. In the age of digitalization, there are a large number of apps that represent technical tools, and in the tools presented here, technical aids are mentioned only in passing. Rather, Part III is about tools that have already been used in part by professionals long before the advent of digitalization. These are tools that successful professionals, managers, and entrepreneurs have also used in their daily work both skillfully and correctly. Since the tools I have presented are a selection of valuable soft skills, they were never a formal curriculum in training, in college, or in a professional exam. The tools presented here are the key to a successful professional life and happy private life.

However, mastering these tools requires a willingness to learn. Surely most people know that life consists of a lifelong learning process. Professionals in particular are accustomed to learning through regular continuing education. By contrast, soft skills are not trained and assessed in preparation for the professional exams as lawyers, tax consultants and auditors. Here, learning may be like learning a new language.

The tools will help you perform the tasks and adhere to the principles of successful professionals.

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Incidentally, professionals should ask themselves whether the following principles, tasks, and tools are useful. Before rejecting an idea, every professional should consider whether it could help in achieving professional and personal goals. Whenever an internal resistance to a statement arises, it could be a moment in your life that moves you forward. Analyze exactly why you are rejecting the thought. Anything that leads to a positive change in your...