Sent to Coventry! Creatively (re)capturing accounting’s purpose

The post-pandemic accounting profession is encountering numerous challenges that question the potency of its relevance and purpose amongst young people. Grand challenges facing the profession include the advent of artificial intelligence and digital technologies (Dinh and O’Leary, 2024), the increasing urgency of climate change and related sustainability assurance (Atkins et al., 2023), and the need to attract diverse future talent that is currently drawn elsewhere (Carnegie et al., 2021; Carnegie and Parker, 2023). Indeed, if the world of business is increasingly characterised by perma- or poly-crisis, then it can be argued that the greatest challenge will be to achieve a change in attitudes, values and beliefs towards mindsets that are both more holistic and support thinking and acting in interdisciplinary ways to comprehend and solve societal complexities. This is no more evident than in the challenges of global sustainability, which, as argued by Brand and Mink (2022), requires disrupting current mindsets and interacting and intervening with human and non-human systems for accountancy to make an impactful transformation.Accountants can be slow to act, often constrained by current mindsets working in competition with each other, unable to value collaboration on such grand challenges – remaining uncertain about how to address these complex issues. In response, we have been experimenting with an innovative approach that challenges conventional business practices, opens new ways of seeing and drives forward collaborative discussion towards new forms of accounting solutions. This creative approach to accounting integrates arts-based interventions within the accounting profession to playfully nudge, provoke and disrupt conventional accounting mindsets, enhance adaptability in uncertain and complex business environments, and promote more integrated approaches to accounting (Merendino et al., 2023).“Sent to Coventry!”, a creative collaboration in the form of a professional networking dinner for senior accounting professionals hosted between an interdisciplinary group of researchers and Talking Birds, an artist-based organisation known for their provocative, nature-inspired art projects (Vaughan, 2023), is one such example. “Sent to Coventry!” nudgingly plays on the well-established English idiom “Sent to Coventry!” to place accounting’s relevance in a post-pandemic environment front and centre within the minds of leading accounting professional associations. Coventry as a city was chosen as an informative place-based location due to its creative potential as the UK’s 2021 City of Culture, its historical wealth, its industrial and enterprising prowess, and its continued economic precarity following its bombing in the Second World War. The unique networking dinner event brought together top accounting professionals from ICAEW, ACCA, AICPA and CIMA to seek to challenge, discuss and unlock accounting mindsets in the face of the sector’s current challenges. The event combined a formal business dinner with artistic interventions, featuring performative provocations, narrative storytelling and metaphorical sustainability discussions inspired by an interactive mycelium display (see Plate 1).Entering the venue through an impressive Greek Revival-style portico, crossing the threshold into the sound of local birdsong and natural vines entwined through staircase bannisters, participants were invited to shed the outside streetscape and mentally prepare for the evening to come. Dinner guests were subsequently invited to immerse themselves in an audio experience akin to a “Silent Disco”, donning personal headphones to engage with intimate storytelling. The audio experience, titled “The Accountant”, was written and recited by Janet Vaughan of Talking Birds in the form of narrative storytelling. The narrative was created after intensive collaborative discussion with a group of interdisciplinary researchers, modelling themes of collaboration, connectivity, integration and symbiosis and valuing the natural world in and of itself rather than purely as a monetisable commodity ripe for extraction.This spoken narrative explores the journey of an accountant who finds solace and a deeper understanding of life through an unexpected encounter with a bird. The accountant, who thrives on order and making sense of numbers, experiences a surreal moment on the underground when a robin appears and transports him to a lush woodland. This encounter prompts the accountant to reflect on the values – and valuing – of modern society and the (possible) importance of nature, community and empathy in accountants’ daily jobs. It questions one’s role and provokes the seeking of a deeper purpose.He is a man that likes order. He has always needed order. And he has a talent for making sense of things, especially figures.He sees beauty and possibility in a spaghetti-jumble of numbers – and comes alive in the challenge of disentangling them, pulling apart spreadsheet threads to make sense of the story, and then weaving numbers into an ordered and competent narrative.He looks upon his accounting work as a way of achieving balance. He is a translator, organiser, systematiser, problem-solver and story-teller. People depend on him to understand and make sense of the past, to give an accurate assessment of the present, and to imagine or predict the future with some sense of authority and persuasion.He is at the top of his game. He is in demand. And he is very, very good at his job.So, for a moment, when it first happens, he assumes he must be asleep. Dreaming. Because, after all, it is not unknown for him to doze off on the tube while checking the quarterly report. He feels a gentle, but insistent, tapping on his knee and half opens his eyes to find a small brown bird perched on the armrest. Seeing his eyes open, the bird pauses and regards him curiously with one, strangely knowing, black eye.Its head is cocked to one side over a reddish chest. He notices the bird’s legs are as thin and delicate as a pencil line, and, although his eyes are fixed on the robin’s, he has a vague feeling that, around them, the carriage feels somehow unfamiliar. Maybe some of the lights have gone out, or perhaps he has slept all the way to the end of the line …He blinks, and the robin is gone. He feels strangely bereft, in the way he has often felt when waking from a dream. But also relieved. Guiltily, he remembers forcing a colleague to take “gardening leave” for hallucinating. And then, just for a moment, prompted by the shame of his own wrongdoing, he is overwhelmed by a melancholic homesickness and nostalgia, like he has lost something so very important. His heart aches, and he suddenly wonders where he belongs. Where, even, is home?Then the bird is back. It hops from the armrest to a nearby twig, and before he can wonder about how there is a twig in a tube carriage, the melancholy is gone. Absorbed by the bird’s song, so rich and musical – like liquid gold – and with the freedom and energy of a mountain stream. So comforting, spacious and filling. Like warm water and loving kindness. He drinks it in.The robin moves to a tree further away, and its song draws him forwards. He rises to his feet and is somehow not surprised that it is a mossy stump that he has been sitting on. The odd light he had wondered about is, of course, early morning sunlight filtered through layers of overhead foliage. The tube train is completely gone now. He is in a spring woodland, and it is just – unbelievably – shockingly – beautifully – green. In places, arms of frothy blossom are caught in narrow shafts of sunlight, which illuminate the woodland like theatre spotlights. Here are years–counted out in layers of leaf mould; in purposeful communities of ants, beetles, millipedes finding food, building homes, raising families. Early butterflies feel the sun on their new wings as they test out what it is to be airborne for the first time. He sees such abundance – such riches – here.He finds himself thinking about value. About power, wealth creation and currency. He thinks about naming things, imposing order, colonialism, believing that there is only one right way of doing things. He thinks about the urge to itemise, categorise and put a price on things. About capital, exploitation, selling the family silver (and where the silver came from in the first place). And he thinks about how Economic Man values the timber, but not the woodland, sees the trees purely for the wood and puts no value at all on the robin’s song.He thinks about how he had always believed that the Industrial Revolution was proof of the exceptional intelligence, courage and imagination of English men. He thinks about how obvious it is, really, that people can only make imaginative leaps or shape new systems if they are given the time and space to do so. And he thinks of the sacrifices that are made by, or forced upon, some humans to allow other humans to exercise their imaginations and reap the financial rewards. He wonders what it would take to let everyone stretch their imaginations. He wonders whether it is possible to make a profit without exploiting someone or something. He wonders whether growth can ever be sustainable.He does not understand why the woodland is making him think these things. Or how he can be at once so calm and content, and at the same time so very angry. He thinks about the early days of the pandemic. When he was on furlough – and felt so worthless without work. He could not believe that people would be paid to do nothing. Could not fathom how it would be accounted for. Was glad he would not have to work out a system to balance that budget.He remembers how, as that spring wore on, he had time to think. To dream. The feeling of deficit faded. Green shoots of recovery stretched and grew his imagination – and life felt unaccountably richer. He remembers how he began to recognise his neighbours and to speak with them. How everyone on his floor helped each other out with shopping or dog walking. Just little things. How he even made a rainbow to stick in his window. And how this small change made life less taxing. Less isolated. More human.In the end, things went back to normal almost too quickly for him. At first he didn’t mind being back at work – that was a novelty and, if he stretched his mind back to the beginning of the lockdown, he had to admit that he had found it pretty difficult to adjust to living without order or systems. But what shocked him was just how distanced and–transactional – everything had become. How transactional he became. And, in quiet moments, he realised that he really missed the sense of community with his neighbours, which had seemed to fall away when things got “back to normal”. He missed that slower, kinder pace of life where he had begun to understand his worth in relation to other people. Back in the “real world”, he felt strangely devalued.With a start, he remembers his neighbour Irina, only a few weeks before she died, telling him that woodlands, culture, songs and plays are valuable gifts from the past that outlive us all. She had told him proudly that she often cried when reading, and that this was her proof that – in all of creation – humans have the capacity to be the kindest of species because only they can feel empathy and love for fictional characters.He sees that the robin has led him to the edge of the woodland and that there is a meadow beyond–the tall grass peppered with red campion and plantain. An abundance of insects buzz and flutter in the air just above it. To his great surprise, all at once he knows – no, he is absolutely certain – that he has a place in all of this – and that it has a place in him. This realisation feels important – a deep truth – and he wills himself to remember it, to keep hold of it – this easy, contented belonging. This wholeness is so different from his detached, transactional daily life.He thinks that the warmth – this sense of contentment, love and belonging – may be what he has always sought, what he has always felt to be missing.He wonders if it is as fragile as the neighbourhood pandemic bonds – broken by work commitments, time differences and grief – and he hopes not.Such a feeling cannot be bought or sold, he thinks. It is something that no one can make a profit from. But it could profit everyone – human and (he tries the unfamiliar phrase in his mouth) more-than-human.And when he imagines the gifts his generation might leave for the future, he thinks that this should be the first.Janet Vaughan | Talking BirdsFor Creative Accounting ‘Sent to Coventry’ Event May 2023“The Accountant” serves as a poignant illustration of how art can challenge traditional metrics and recognise the intrinsic value of nature and human connections. Subsequent reflections have highlighted how this immersive creative experience enlightened the audience and provoked sometimes profound action. Opening more creative approaches in accounting can prompt accountants to actively consider their surroundings and reflect on alternative perspectives and mindsets about pressing issues, such as the role of sustainability and digital technologies in the modern world. When considering the challenges presented – the accounting and art worlds – often positioned as complete opposites, when combined and engaged deeply, can work to powerfully complement each other. Creative Accounting demonstrates how creative methodologies and arts-based interventions can open accountants up to new ways of engaging, assist them in rethinking practices and encourage the consideration of broader, more integrative mindsets, shifting the profession towards new possibilities of accountability, measurement and value creation. By embracing creativity, accountants can redefine their roles, contribute to sustainable practices and cultivate a deeper sense of purpose and (global) community in their work. As we look to the future, the fusion of art and accounting holds great potential to encourage systemic change to meet the grand challenges of our time.