Tony Frost: Leadership Lessons for Tax Professionals

In this episode of TaxVibe, Julie Abdalla, FTI, Head of Tax & Legal at The Tax Institute talks with Tony Frost, a seasoned tax professional turned leadership coach, exploring leadership, management, and career development in the tax industry. Discover practical insights on humility, communication, time management, and building a personal brand to excel in your career.

 About Tony 

Tony Frost in his first, 34-year career was one of Australia’s leading corporate tax advisers. He was, and still is, a lawyer and a Chartered Accountant. His clients included BHP Billiton, Macquarie Bank, Westpac Banking Corporation and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Before joining Greenwoods in 2003, he had been a tax partner at PwC for seven years. Prior to that, Tony spent five years working in-house at Westpac Banking Corporation. Throughout his tax career, Tony was a regular speaker at TTI events. Tony finished his tax career in 2018, after being Managing Partner, for seven years, of tax advisory firm Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills, one of Australia’s most lauded professional service firms. Since 2019, and after completing a Master of Science in Coaching Psychology degree at the University of Sydney, Tony has been having a second career as an executive coach, mentor, leadership consultant, facilitator and trainer. He holds a number of non-executive company directorships, and is the non-executive Chairman of the Leadenhall Valuation Services group. Tony is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and now teaches the AICD’s prestigious Company Directors’ Course. Tony is also the author of The Professional: A Playbook to Unleash Your Potential and Futureproof Your Success.                      

Tony has been a proud member of The Tax Institute for close to 40 years.

Resources

LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/tonyfrost

Website - https://frostleadership.com

Buy a copy of Tony's book today

For more information about The Tax Institute: https://www.taxinstitute.com.au/

Transcript

Julie Abdalla: 0:08

Hello, and welcome to TaxVibe, the podcast by The Tax Institute where we peel back the layers of the Australian tax world. I'm Julie Abdalla, head of tax and legal at The Tax Institute, and host for today's episode. Today I'm joined by Tony Frost, principal of Frost Consulting. His career trajectory has been quite extraordinary. Tony, welcome to TaxVibe . I've been very much looking forward to this episode with you. Your career has had a very interesting journey. I'm really keen to explore this. I've read your book, and I would highly recommend it. It's something that I wish I had as a resource when I had started out in my career earlier on, very much recommend it. I'm sure many of our listeners are just as excited as I am to hear about your journey and your advice. So let's get into it. Now, I'd like to start by asking you about your career transition. So after 34 years in tax and law, you decided to embark on a very different journey, and you studied a Master's of Science in coaching psychology at the University of Sydney, and you now run Frost Leadership Consulting, where you coach Australia's next generation of leaders. Have you always been passionate about supporting aspiring leaders, helping them to grow? And when was it that you realise that this is something that you wanted to

Tony Frost: 1:21

Well, thank you, Julie for having me on the pursue? podcast. I've been a member of The Tax Institute for almost 40 years now, and marvelous to be here. I've always been interested in leadership, but it wasn't really an aha moment particular. In 2018 I was turning 58 and I've been doing tax for 34 years. And I thought, why keep working well into my 70s, health permitting, and I thought had a great run in tax. I pretty much done what I wanted to do, and I thought, I'll do something different. I found I was really enjoying the coaching

Julie Abdalla: 1:46

Amazing and let's talk a bit about leadership and and mentoring of young associates, both in my own firm, and also some of the pro bono mentoring I was doing for The Tax Institute and Chartered Accountants Australia, New Zealand. So I thought, I'll make a career of that. And went back to uni to do a Master of Science in coaching psychology to kick off that part of my career. management. So what exactly is a leader and what's the difference between being a leader and being a manager? How do you know if you're acting as one or the other?

Tony Frost: 2:19

So I've brought a book here. It's called 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins, and it's got my favorite definition of leadership. And Jim Collins said the art of getting people to want to do what must be done, that's leadership, the art of getting people to want to do what must be done. So that's leadership. So that's what a leader does. And of course, traditionally, people have distinguished leaders from managers. And leadership was meant to be about vision and setting strategy, the light on the hill, and management was more about nitty gritty of getting things done.

Julie Abdalla: 2:49

The operation, day to day.

Tony Frost: 2:50

I think it's a bit of a false distinction. A manager, by definition, is managing not just tasks, but typically people and managers need to manage with with a leader's mindset. So all managers should be leaders.

Julie Abdalla: 3:03

So you need to do a bit of both. How do you pivot from being a leader to a manager or back?

Tony Frost: 3:09

Typically, people, I guess, are badged as managers, and then at some point, are told to lead, lead a team, lead a firm. And you have to do it intentionally. And you want to get training. You want to give some I mean, research suggests there are some natural born leaders, but most people need training, coaching and mentoring in- leadership. And firms are wise to make sure that when they put people into leadership positions, that they they give them the right training, coaching and mentoring so they can succeed as leaders. It's an intentional thing that should be supported by the organisation.

Julie Abdalla: 3:39

Yes, it's a different skill set. I mean, it can be very daunting for somebody to take on leadership where they haven't otherwise had that sort of experience. They might have the great skills in the technical area that they're working in, but not have had those experiences before. What do you think it takes to be a good leader?

Tony Frost: 3:58

Yes,

Julie Abdalla: 3:59

Particularly in the tax profession.

Tony Frost: 4:01

Okay, I mean, fundamentally, leadership is leadership, and I'll come back the tax profession, but in terms of the core aspects of leadership, it's things like emotional intelligence, self awareness and humility. And in my book The Professional, David Gonski, AC not only wrote the Foreward, but I quote him in here. And so David Gonski, one of Australia's leading businessman. I interviewed him for my Master's course at the HSM three years back. I asked David what he judged to be the most important attributes of a leader, and this is where he told my class, the first thing a leader must have, an absolute must, is humility. I've absolutely seen people destroyed, mainly men, I have to say, by the inability to keep humble. They lost their humbleness and thought they could do incredible things. Vanity doesn't allow you to hear what's going on. Doesn't allow you to listen to what others are saying. It doesn't allow you to value people. And most important thing, if somebody is vain, it is so easy to win in any battle with them. I love tennis, and it's the same as not having a backhand. Just put the ball on the backhand side in an negotiation, and a vain person falls for it every time. And I have to say, in my professional life, I came across many professionals, and many people in bank and finance who didn't seem to be born with any gent of humility. And I mean, yeah, as I say in my book, I could probably do with a dose of it myself. But many, in the 1970s and 80s Australia's by far in a way a leading tax professional, a chap called Tom Magney. He was a partner at Allen's, and he's long since dead, but I knew Tom, and he was a lovely man. He was the smartest guy in tax, there's no doubt about it. Or him and Ross, Professor Ross Parsons, and they both had humility, taught by Ross Parsons. And I occasionally would work with Tom Magney. And these two men had humility. So not everyone in the tax world has humility. So if that's a first, that's a first, that's an absolute first.

Julie Abdalla: 5:43

That was one of the things that I found really refreshing in your book, the discussion on humility and the importance of it, and I think that's so important in the way we interact with each other. It's not a matter of self confidence. One can still have self confidence and be able to advocate for your skills, but I thought that was a really interesting and important characteristic to build on.

Tony Frost: 6:05

Should we talk about the tax profession specifically?

Julie Abdalla: 6:08

Yes, please, and tell me some of the key leadership skills that you think are important in the tax profession and the sort of things that you try to develop.

Tony Frost: 6:16

So tax professionals come in all stripes and flavors and work in all sorts of different places. Many work in house, in governments and corporations, and not for profits, and I guess, typically, their traditional hierarchical structures. Yep. So if you pick up a leadership role in tax inside a company or a government body, you've got, I guess, to be frank, the old fashioned, traditional leadership model of hierarchy. That doesn't mean that you should lead with command or control, that, to be frank, typically in organisations like governments and corporations, there is a more rigid leadership structure. Then when you go to professional service firms like accounting and law firms, it's a whole new ball of wax for leadership. And my favorite books in this regard, 'Hearding the professional cats', and then'Leading Professional' by Laura Empson, and she talks about power, politics and prima donnas and leadership. So the thing about if you are trying to lead in a professional service firm, you have to understand that partners and senior people in professional service firms, you know, they they're pretty autonomous. They want to do what they want to do. So leadership is much more an empathetic part of negotiation, persuasion and pulling people along with you than might be the case in a corporation,

Julie Abdalla: 7:25

bringing them on a journey rather than pushing them in directions.

Tony Frost: 7:28

Then in tax in particular. I mean, there are many complicated professions, but if we think about tax, it's an astonishing, complicated world. The law is complicated, the clients are complicated, the transactions are complicated. So leaders need to recognise the complexity of the subject matter, and therefore ensure that people are trained and coached and mentored to make sure that they can do their jobs properly. And the final thing I'd say about tax in particular, is that there's huge risk. Not often tax advisors end up in court or in litigation, but things can go wrong, and the amounts are huge. I mean, typically people don't die, but there's big risk on tax, so leaders need to be aware of the risk in the business and giving advice and ensuring that there's four eyes review and proper processes to ensure that advice to clients is sound.

Julie Abdalla: 8:15

It's that exercising of sound judgment that's a very valuable human skill. Being able to communicate complex topics on on the topic of tax legislation, being able to communicate complex concepts and ideas in plain English, really accessible language, is required in many professions, but especially in an area like tax, as you say. As you become more senior in your career, it becomes even more important to be an effective communicator. What are some of the do's or don'ts, in your opinion, that you frequently see happening when it when it comes to communication skills?

Tony Frost: 8:53

Let's start with tax in particular, and as you already hit on them in plain English. So I mean, hopefully once people have been in the game for a while, they realize in both their verbal and written communication what works and what doesn't with clients. And okay, there are some areas which are so insanely complicated, like thin capitalisation, where you're going to end up using some I guess, technical term. As far as possible, people need to have self awareness that when they're speaking to clients, particularly those without any tax background, they need to just get the message across in plain English. And it's hopefully something that younger professionals have got good mentors, or people in firms that the partners or the more senior people in that organisation, they can learn and watch from those more senior people to make sure that they are, in fact, getting a gift of the gab and being able to communicate in plain English. Next thing, I'd say, particularly for tax professionals, is actually give an opinion. Yep, you may not be able to give an opinion in the first meeting. You want to have all your ducks in a row. At the end of the day, the client is looking for some assurance. The client wants to know, what should we do? And they want to trust you. They want as much certainty as possible. Tax we know that the certainties in life are death and taxes. But tax isn't always certain, and as a tax advisor, you need to be clear at the end of the day what you're saying to clients, is it a short opinion, or is it a better view? And I mean, things will be accessible, but they should be deductible or better view they're deductible or better view, that part 4A doesn't apply. So be clear about the words you're using, and typically, most sophisticated firms have house views or sort of ways to approach opinions on certain areas. So make sure you're clear about your opinion and that it's not in behind all sorts of weasel words that the client really doesn't understand. And the final thing I would say, in relation to communication, once again, particularly verbal, is humility. If you are the smartest person in the room, or you think you are, don't show it that the client wants to trust you. The client wants to be respected. They don't want to sit there and be lectured to you or have you pontificate. You want the client to go away feeling good if you've had a verbal.

Julie Abdalla: 10:50

Uplifted and empowered.

Tony Frost: 10:52

That's right, yes, exactly. And that means communicating with as much humility as you can master.

Julie Abdalla: 10:56

It's great advice. I'd like to talk to you a bit about something that I and I'm sure many other professionals, at whatever stage of their career they're at struggle with, and it's time management. So we see it in all kinds of professionals, from the very junior to the very senior, people that are leading teams, people that are managing other kinds of workloads. What are your top tips for managing time in a very busy schedule.

Tony Frost: 11:21

First thing I would say is try to avoid multitasking. Yeah,

Julie Abdalla: 11:25

No one can multitask.

Tony Frost: 11:26

They can't. They really can't. I mean, people think they can, but there's all sorts of solid empirical evidence based research that we if you put something down and pick something else up, it can take between five and 15, up to 20 minutes to get your head back into what you're doing before, and tax is so mind numbly complicated that it's probably, you know, many minutes. So if you're juggling different things, it's impossible. In my first career, I would often ring fellow partners in other firms, and I'd be frustrated I couldn't get hold of them, and you get the Secretary on the phone. That's because a partner was sitting there and doing, doing something. He wasn't necessarily in a meeting, but he was time boxing. He is He was saying this for the next two hours. I'm doing this and only, only that. Yeah, the world won't collapse if I don't answer my phone or respond to emails within a two or three hour block. So there's been lots of evidence research based that time boxing actually, setting aside time in your calendar to do a particular task is the single most effective way to manage your time. So I recommend that, and I think you can generally do that in tax, yeah. I mean, imagine you're, if you're a surgeon, having deliver babies. I mean, the baby won't wait. So you in certain fields, you've got to be there, right? And, of course, you want to be on time for meetings, but if you've got a day where you're essentially working on on client opinions, well then block it, just put your phone on silent and don't answer emails for two or three hours. Which brings me to my next key tip, which is to try and not be addicted to phones and emails. Now, it's easier said than done, and we've had email now for some decades, and we've had text messaging and social media more recently, there's a huge number of people who are just addicted to their phones and they want to check them every few minutes. It's just, it's crazy. You need to get out of your phone and email addiction.

Julie Abdalla: 13:07

You know what, one thing that I did that I found really useful was turning my notifications off,

Tony Frost: 13:12

Yes, that's right,

Julie Abdalla: 13:13

because it didn't actually stop how often I would check the emails, which that was a separate piece of work. But it doesn't stop them coming in, or it doesn't make them come faster or slower, but the constant destruction of the notifications, you might not even realise it at the time. That is the switching between different things, and blocking that out helps.

Tony Frost: 13:34

Julie, it's completely destructive productivity, checking your phone and emails

Julie Abdalla: 13:37

Time blocking is the way to go. And you have to be intentional about this. I mean, if you have to decide, I'm going to spend my time in a certain way and and just decide, if you are addicted to your phone, to do something about lots of tips out there. And, of course, the big thing now is artificial intelligence. Yeah, and imagine today, if you're a tax professional, and there's still some barristers that don't like to use email or use a telephone, imagine today, even before AI, imagine trying to operate in the world today without access to internet, telephone and emails. Yeah, so artificial intelligence is now rapidly encroaching into all fields of life. And if you're a young tax professional, if your organization hasn't provided you with some really cool artificial intelligence tools, already, find a new job because you want to be left behind. So AI can be used in all sorts of fantastic ways, both to help research and time management. Of course, it can hallucinate, get all sorts of things wrong, so you need to check. There are some spectacular failures of AI. But it's no doubt it is changing the world, and it can be used from time management some simple things like CoPilot, even before we get to Harvey and legora, sort of more sophisticated tools used for research. AI has to be part of your time management toolkit now. Absolutely. I mean, it is changing so rapidly, and it can be overwhelming that there are so many different AI tools out there, and you talk in your book about curiosity and the connection with innovation. I think it's really important to have that curiosity about what is available and how this can help. We talk about it in our team. You know, what can we use AI for to do the busy work, or the things that we don't need to have a human intervention so intricately. Yes, so we can do the higher level thinking, the, you know, the human elements that you can't quite at this stage use AI for, not yet, not yet. Now, there is really a fine balance between being exceptionally productive and being overwhelmed. I know, as a leader, we've talked about this. When I get a bit overwhelmed, or I've got lots of competing deadlines, some of the first things that go are the exercise, the time for myself, those self care rituals, which you also talk about in the book. I've found that actually when I spend time on those things, I make time for prayer, make time for exercise, spending time with my family. It actually makes me better at what I'm doing at work. It makes me more productive and efficient and better for your well being, but it's really hard to do. What do you do when productivity becomes burnout, being busy starts to impact our lives more broadly. What are your tips for managing?

Tony Frost: 16:17

Yes, you've asked me two questions. What do I do and what do I say others should Yes, and I'm not especially proud, to be honest, for my first career, I don't think I ever felt burnt out, in a sense, but I did work too many hours. I'm still happily married, still got two daughters who love me and I love them, but I devoted too many hours too it. I don't think it was burnout. It was just manic, sort of so not burned out. So what I say to people about burnout is to be conscious, to be intentional, to decide what are my boundaries? Now, I guess it's easy. I'm at the other end of my career and ambitious 24,25 year olds probably want to say yes to everything to get asked to do in the workplace. You don't have to. I coach and mentor many young professionals across tax, legal, accounting, and it's a new world. I mean, people are saying, I want boundaries. It's different from when I started 40years ago, and that's that's great, yeah.

Julie Abdalla: 17:05

Do you think that's a generational shift? Do you find that the younger generations coming through the workforce now are better at that? I felt like I was not very good at setting boundaries, especially early on in my career, and I was someone that said yes to a lot of things, but do you see a generational sort of shift in it, or what do you atribute it to?

Tony Frost: 17:24

Well, it's anecdotal because, but I have seen many examples. I think back to when I start, and I think the young professionals I'm coaching and mentoring today, I think most of them have got their heads screwed on much better than than me and my my generation of 40 years ago. So I think I think there is a generational change. And of course, I also coach and mentor senior associates and partners, and they're they're frustrated with the younger generation that they won't, they won't work to midnight.

Julie Abdalla: 17:48

Where does the work go then?

Tony Frost: 17:49

Well, that's right, it's challenging, but having a conscious approach to this and deciding your boundaries and when you will work on weekends and what time, if at all, and how long it might you'll work and all the rest. But I would like to promote the book of my friend Melo Calarco, who has written a book called 'Beating burnout, finding balance'. And it's terrific book, identifying when burnout occurs and how to prevent it. Banding skills of self regulation and in resillance, so in the time available here, I won't say much more, but I can certainly recommend that, I talk a bit about burnout in my book, but that's there's a fantastic resource 'Beating burnout, finding balance'.

Julie Abdalla: 18:27

For aspiring tax experts out there. What do you say to somebody who is at the beginning of their career journey and they want to become an influential, really productive and confident leader? Where should our listeners

Tony Frost: 18:41

What they do, of course, is they should buy and start? read my book 'Professional' and I actually have a chapter in there called the seven accelerants . I have a framework, a model to tell professionals get ahead. But probably the bit of the framework that's particularly relevant to the question you've asked truly is what I call the seven accelerants, to get ahead and be successful and to be leaders in your career. I'll talk briefly about each of the seven. The first one is planning, and actually be conscious. I mean, plan your development. And there'll be many professionals watching, listening this podcast roll on their eyes, because typically, most professionals, I found don't like planning, unless it's planning a client, billable assignment, creating their own personal plan or partner development plan, or manager development plan. Most people don't like doing, I'm a bit of a convert, so I think it is important. I have my own one man business. I still do planning. So my first acclerant is plan, plan your development, in particular, plan what you can do apart from your technical skills. Plan how you can develop a broad range of skills. I don't call them soft skills in my book, but I call them enables, enablers. Yes, I have prime paid belief in enablers, and so you can read the book to find out more about that. The second accelerant is getting feedback or advice and actually seeking it out. There's plenty of evidence that professionals who actually seek out feedback on how they're going, and not just to be given a pat on the back, but actually ask for feedback, and sometimes people don't like to give feedback, its a bit of a loaded term, so sometimes young professionals should ask for advice, and they might find other people more willing to give them the commentary they actually need to get ahead. And of course, if you're going to ask for feedback, you need to be non defensive when you receive it, even if you think it sucks or it's wrong, but at least suck it up for the time being and go and go and reflect on it, because maybe it was good feedback, and thank the person who gave you the feedback. My third accelerant is what I call deliberate practice. You might think, what's that? Think about what happens in your private life, if, if you had a skill or outside of tax Julie, maybe was dancing or horse riding or running, riding a horse or playing guitar. How did you get good at what you're doing? It was typically, unless you're an absolute born natural, and think about the Winter Olympics on at the moment, most of those people had to practice. Yeah, and it's deliberate. They're practicing deliberately. There's particular aspects of their skill set they want to improve. They typically get coaching and feedback, and we don't typically do that, funny enough in our professional lives, it's very interesting. I didn't to be frank, and there's a lot of evidence now that professionals of the sort we're talking about, tax professionals, lawyers and accountants, if they try and develop not just their technical skills, but their other capabilities, including business development in deliberate style, the way that you would learning an instrument or or learning to play the guitar makes a huge difference. You talked about the having a growth mindset in your your book, and I thought that was really useful. That is something I felt like back then, they didn't call it a growth mindset, but I felt like I got that from my parents. It's not that you had inherent skills. Some things. There are people that are natural, have a natural gift, but there are many skills that, if you try and keep trying you practice, and you get better at it, you can develop them at not having that fear of failure, yes, but you're absolutely right. If I think about my own life, you do consciously, deliberately, as you say, practice those other sorts of sports, hobbies, skills, more so than in your professional career. It's odd. Hopefully things will change.

Julie Abdalla: 22:03

Yes. Please continue.

Tony Frost: 22:04

Yes. My fourth accelerant, I want to help develop careers, and particularly leadership, is mentors, always having at least, ideally, two mentors, one inside your organisation and someone outside your organisation, people who who you trust, people who know you, people you can ask for frank and feel as feedback and advice around how to get ahead. So a mentor inside an organisation is great, but they may not always give you exactly what you need to know, because they may have their own vested interest. So having some trusted, confident who ideally knows a bit about your profession outside the organisation can be helpful as well. So I had some terrific mentors throughout my first career and and I tried to be mentor to others. And so mentors is a huge part of getting ahead and becoming a good leader in due course. My fifth accelerant is emotion intelligence. Emotion intelligence became a thing at least of those that expression in the 1990s when Daniel Goleman wrote a book of that name, and it became a hugely best selling book. And we've always had a notion of emotion intelligence, even animals have it. It's just that that's the current buzzword. What does it mean? Well it means actually being self aware of how I'm coming across to others, being empathetic for others, making sound decisions which take emotions into account, but don't that emotions run wild and being able to control emotions, and this is absolutely no doubt that with the advent of artificial intelligence, emotion intelligence will help professionals and clearly tax professionals to stand out and to be able to differentiate themselves from others. I've seen a great variety of emotion intelligence displayed by professionals, and I'm not I'm not, I'm not saying I'm the most, most emotion intelligent person, but I'm still working on it. But I think that's a key part of leadership.

Julie Abdalla: 23:46

I like that you've said that you're still working on it, because it's not a finite skill or an end. There is a bit of a journey to it. It is something that you can continue to build on.

Tony Frost: 23:56

And once again, it's, it's being intentional. And there are plenty of tools out there, great free things online. We could do tests to self assess your level of emotion intelligence and particularly your self awareness. And I've got lots of tips in my book about as well. My sixth accelerant is executive presence, the X Factor, the it factor. It's hard. You sort of know it. It's bit like it's hard to define. But when you've been in in the presence of someone with executive presence, you can identify it. Yeah, and hopefully young professionals are in an organisation where there are people around them or senior people who seem to have the X Factor. To role model, role model, exactly. That's right. And then get some coaching and mentoring. Now, it's sometimes said that executive presence is over stated or overplayed. I mean, clients love it. I mean, if, if you have executive presence, it's going to help you come across as more trusting, and the client's probably going to warm to you.

Julie Abdalla: 24:48

Build the rapport with you, yeah.

Tony Frost: 24:49

And certainly your fellow professionals, people more senior in the organisation to you, they'll see it, and it'll help your leadership characteristics. It's different from Charisma. It's charisma can be seen. It's a bit more sort of surface. Executive presence is deeper. It's more profound. I described in detail in my book what it is, and I certainly recommend that young professionals think consciously about their executive presence and try and make sure that they're building it from the get go and not leave it and suddenly realise when they've been passed over for partner or the head of tax and inside a corporation, they get told, you're lacking executive presence, you won't have to learn. My seventh and final accelerant is personal brand. What is personal brand? To be frank, as I say in the book, I think it's just a sort of a fancy term for deliberate reputation. You always have reputation. It may be good, ba d or different, but personal branding is deliberately trying to present yourself to the world in a certain way, and it's what others think of you. It's not what you think of yourself.

Julie Abdalla: 25:48

Yes, I remember hearing that a long time ago, when we first started talking about what is your personal brand, and how do you establish your personal brand? It is very much what others think of you, how you present yourself to the world, to people that you're dealing with, but how they interpret that, which is interesting, and it does take quite a bit of self awareness and seeking feedback to see if you're you know on the hit the mark.

Tony Frost: 26:11

Yes, of course, in theory, the way to do it is to be a fly on the wall, listening to a group of people who know you well, a group of people sitting they haven't had too much, too much to drink. They're sitting there talking about you, Julie, or about me, Tony, and they're describing your character, describing how you present yourself, the technical skills, your marketing skills, and what do you hear, and so the collection of everything you're hearing that's your personal brand. Now, of course, you can't be a fly in the world to hear that. So what you need to do need to go and ask for feedback from people you know and trust inside your organisation, or even, quite frankly, competitors, people, people you trust, I mean, people often develop good relationships with, with clients, of course, and competitors. So try and get a sense from asking others. And if people look blankly at you when you ask about personal brand, ask about reputation or how you come across.

Julie Abdalla: 26:59

Yeah, you might frame it differently, but tax is a very small world, so so your competitors might be your allies one day,

Tony Frost: 27:05

That's, right? Yeah, at the very least, ask people you trust inside your organisation. Of course, people who you think seem to have a good personal brand themselves. And then once you've figured out what you could do, there's endless things you can do to promote that. One way, of course, is to talk for The Tax Institute, as I did for many years in technical matters.

Julie Abdalla: 27:24

Well, actually, I do want to ask you a bit, so we're really looking forward to having you speak at our Next Gen Masterclass, New South Wales Tax Forum and our Tax Summit, which is in September this year. Our events are the perfect place for tax professionals to gain knowledge and also to network. What advice would you give to our guests for confident and successful networking when they're at these sort of events, or even in their day to day lives?

Tony Frost: 27:50

Okay, I should say I love networking. I'm quite shameless about it, and so I'm strategic. So what I recommend is, if you're going to an event, I mean, try and find out who's going to be there. I mean, not always, but many organisations will give the list of attendees. Have a look. Or if you don't have the list, get there early and look at the name tags on the table and try and find out who's who you want to meet. Ideally, go with a friend. Go with a colleague, yeah. And of course, if you go with a colleague, don't stand there, but agree in advance with the colleague who you're going to be, yep. And so split up and you have commitments to each other, hold each other accountable for your networking at the event. And of course, you can also have, it's like clandestine, a bit like a spy. You have sort of secret winks. If you get stuck in a boring conversation with someone, then your colleague can come and rescue you and take you away. But have fun, whether you're introvert or an extrovert, realise that networking is important part of the game. Go with the mindset of having fun. Don't drink too much. And I recommend one more fantastic book. It's called'Rainmaking made simple' by a chap called Mark. Maria, M, A, R, A, I, A 'Rainmaker made simple. Julie, can you see how well? Thumb, this is yes, yes. This is astonishing book. This book is a single best Bible for business development, and it's got a whole part in here on Network. So it's just absolute gold,

Julie Abdalla: 29:09

and useful for anyone at any stage. Really. There's something to take from it.

Tony Frost: 29:13

When I was at Greenwoods, every time we had a new professional join, I'd have a little chat to each new professional. I'd give them a copy of this book so it serves you well. You can still get it. In face, you can get it for free online, but I won't tell you where, but it's hard to get in hard copy these days, but it's gold, and it's got all sorts of really cool tips on business development and network, in particular.

Julie Abdalla: 29:36

I could sit and talk to you for hours. Tony, thank you so much for being here, for sharing your thoughts and your advice about leadership in the tax profession and more broadly. And thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of TaxVibe. I've been chatting with Tony Frost, principal of Frost Leadership Consulting. If you've enjoyed today's discussion, there's more just like it coming to tax five this year, and if you haven't registered yet to attend our Next Generation Masterclass. New South Wales Tax Forum, or Tax Summit 2026, we'd encourage you to do so soon to hear more of Tony's insights. If you're interested in being at the center of the tax conversation, membership with The Tax Institute is just what you need. Stay current and connected with tangible and real world benefits. Learn more@taxinstitute.com.au I'm Julie Abdalla, head of tax and legal at The Tax Institute. Please join us for the next TaxVibe soon.