By Dr. Pam Brill - "I'm burned out," "I've lost my drive," "I'm not interested," - these are words and images that sales pros have used to describe their falling motivation that accompanied their failing numbers. A sales pro in financial services, Chris had lost the passion and the spark that fueled him for making chilly cold calls and energy for the heated sprint to close the deal. With numbers down and still falling, Chris blamed the competition, the internal competitors, including the other sales pros in his division and the new kids on the block.

By Kenneth McCallEducation and training have always been an important part of the accounting profession. Beginning with the formal university curriculum required for a degree in accounting and followed by specialized study in preparation for taking the CPA exam, accountants are conditioned to view learning as a key to getting started in their chosen profession. After they've begun to work, they grow accustomed to the annual requirements for Continuing Professional Education (CPE) and annual tax, audit, and accounting updates.

The Change Management Group has benchmarked the best management processes in a number of organizations and has summarized twelve lessons in positive change management that have emerged from their research.Work With the GroupA senior manager has to work with the "natural ingredients" at hand, which requires careful study of the history of the group, and gives many clues to members‘ behavior. What has formed them in the past? How have they evolved and matured?

Subject matter experts from the national CPA firm, Reznick Group, will host a national webcast on Wed., Oct. 3, 2007, from 2-4:30 pm ET to present a detailed outline of new audit standards and explain new accounting requirements for implementing and maintaining internal controls within an organization.

"This is a very, very good time for the accounting profession," said Elaine Weiss, president and CEO of the Illinois CPA Society, kicking off the Society's 27th annual Business & Technology Solutions Show in the opening keynote address.Weiss's commentary on the state of the profession included descriptions of bulging accounting classrooms, professor shortages, professional challenges being addressed and met, and concerns about succession planning as the aging Baby Boom generation accountants approach retirement.After reminding her audience that they might be competing for business with a

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business and a leading tax and accounting information group, has launched a series of free podcasts for accounting practices. The series, entitled "7 Ways to Improve Your Practice," is aimed at accountants and will help them to improve business productivity and efficiency.

Adults can be ordered into a classroom and prodded into seats, but they can't be forced to learn. On the other hand, adults who see a need or have a desire to know something new are quite resourceful.

Businesses may claim they want new employees to hit the ground running, but many firms are not providing sufficient orientation, according to a Robert Half International survey.One-third of workers said their employers offered no formal orientation program when they joined the company, according to the suvey, which included responses from 492 full- or part-time workers 18 years of age or older and employed in office environments.Workers were asked, "Did your current employer provide a formal orientation program when you joined the organization?" Sixty-three percent responded "yes," 33 pe

By John StokdykWhen he recently asked in an AccountingWEB opinion article, Why aren't there more accountants in IT?, Microsoft's Tim Lennard began by suggesting there was a potential surplus of talent within the profession that could be more gainfully employed in the technology business. One of the reasons Lennard's article was so popular was that it managed to provoke reactions from both sides of the fence. Several IT industry veterans dropped into the conversation to describe their front-line experiences, while technophobes highlighted some of the reasons not to go into IT.