Anna Karenina and How We Cracked Accounting Education

Many consider it to be the greatest work of literature ever, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Its opening line stands out amongst famous opening lines:

"All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

So what does that have to do with accounting?, I hope you are asking. 

Color Accounting delivers Aha! moments for many managers who've previously tried to learn how to read balance sheets and income statements. The question becomes: what makes the learning outcome different?

This is where Ms Karenina enters the scene. The effectiveness is achieved by finding - and lining up - all the links in the "chain of understanding" that you need to make the language of business click. Learning accounting is about following a series of steps.

Everyone who gets how business finance works has stepped along the accounting chain. [The happy family]. Everyone who doesn't get it has their own missing link. This could be a confusion of terminology (e.g. thinking revenue means money received), a wrong point of view (confusing the company with its owners), or a misconception about increasing and decreasing accounts (thinking you need an entry on each side of the balance sheet). [The unhappy family.]

Every one of the hundred-plus Color Accounting educators around the world gets a thrill when they see the links fall into place for a happy learner, and when they hear that "Aha!"

If you'd like to talk about unchaining your people's business acumen, give us a call when you get back from your northern summer family holiday, or if you're sitting around a happy fire in the Southern Hemisphere.

With warm regards, Peter.