I have had the honor of meeting and shaking the hands of several well-known people over the years. Ronald Reagan, Bill Gates, Walter Cronkite, Michael Dell, George W. Bush, and Sidney Kess all come to mind. While I remember each meeting clearly, the meeting that matters most is Sid Kess. The Sid Kess Approach: 60 Years of Best Practices in Tax, Education, Careers and Life is a new book from the AICPA in which author James Carberry chronicles the extraordinary effect of one CPA on an entire profession.
It is wonderful to acknowledge giants that have gone before us. It takes significant insight and courage to recognize the truly great ones while they are currently making huge contributions to their profession. Tennis player, Roger Federer comes to mind. He is not only, arguably the best tennis player who ever lived; he was also named the most admired person in 2011. Sid Kess is such a man. The AICPA has done every CPA a tremendous favor by compiling vignettes of Kess’ thoughts, ideas, speeches and letters from the many CPAs and others that Kess has helped and influenced.
“Sid has put into practice the values that are now institutionalized in the AICPA’s Vision Statement, contained in its, ‘The CPA Vision Project: 2011 and Beyond,’” said Carberry.
The Vision Statement says the core purpose of CPAs is, “making sense of a complex world.” Carberry continues, “CPAs can accomplish this aim by: communicating the total picture with clarity and objectivity; translating complex information into critical knowledge; anticipating and creating opportunities; and designing pathways that transform vision into reality.”
The book uses the letters of the Sid Kess’ legion of devotees who Kess has personally helped in often extraordinary ways. These letters supplement the narrative broken into the five groups that characterize The Sid Kess Approach. They are 1) Truly Put People First, 2) Build and Maintain Core Knowledge and Expertise, 3) Be Imaginative & Act on Your Ideas, 4) Maximize Your Potential, and 5) Find and Connect With People.
In the Truly Put People First chapter, several people extol the merits of The Sid Kess Approach to treating people well, whether they are the doorman, Russian immigrants on a subway, charities, fellow CPAs or students.
“I had gained an insight into Sid’s greatness—he treats everyone he meets as if that person were the most important person he’d ever met.”
- Houston Smith, Jr., CPA, Atlanta
“Sid Kess is a mensch! He is a dream maker for all those who are lucky to have met him.”
- Inky Kim, Albuquerque, NM
“Mr. Kess is the Einstein of tax law.”
- Dina Reznichenko
In the Build and Maintain Core Knowledge chapter, the Kess CPA career and CPE lecturer history is detailed in charts. His CPE expertise is summed up by Professor Paden Neely, PhD, CPA, a former VP of the AICPA, when he wrote, “Sid is, without question, the all-time number one developer, writer, and presenter in the world of CPE for CPAs, not only for the AICPA but the accounting profession as a whole.” CPA Cecil Nazareth, managing partner of IFRS Partners in New York wrote that Sid helped him re-invent himself, and told him, “if you focus on the growth area, you could be one of its leading experts, a thought leader and compete with professionals who have been in the field for 25 years.” CPA Karen Koch, who Kess helped establish as an expert in cost segregation studies, referred to Kess as a pillar in the profession. She advised, “To follow his example means we never stop learning and we never stop giving back.”
To grow a CPA practice, Kess provided several tips including scheduling year-end tax meetings with clients using checklists available from the AICPA to assist with tax reviews and planning. Jonathan Gassman said that Sid was always ready to share practice management tips, and suggested “simple single doable things” (SSDTs) the firm could quickly implement. A table provides 36 ideas on additional services for CPA firms broken down by Advisory, Audit, Tax and Transaction services.
CPA Clark Blackman from Kingwood, Texas said that Sid Kess is “an iconic figure in the CPA community,” and, “a veritable font of ideas and enthusiasm,” which leads into Chapter 3, Be Imaginative & Act onPut Your Ideas. Chapter 4 gives workable advice on speaking, writing and collaborating to Maximize Your Potential. The book concludes with Chapter 5, Find and Connect with People, wherein Kess describes how to be a talent hunter and how to give back by speaking, teaching and mentoring in the profession and in your community.
After 112 pages of ideas from Kess, and letters about Kess, 18 more pages are needed to list the published output of this extraordinary man and CPA. I remember a May meeting with Sid at his office in Rockefeller Center. We chatted, we had lunch. Every person in New York City we came in contact with seemed to know him. He was cordial to everyone. Sidney produced a list of ideas, along with phone numbers on who to contact on how to implement the ideas. Before we parted, Kess mentioned a couple of people who were looking for work. The meeting seemed to encapsulate the Sid Kess Approach. Everyone should be so lucky to know this amazing CPA. As with each terrific idea filled phone conversation, Sid parted the same way he always does. It’s part of who he is, that he never says, “Good bye; he says, “So long.”
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