Practical ideas, lessons learned and shared experiences for those in the world of CPA firm management, human resources, administration, marketing and technology.
Inside CPA firms, the word “manager” is not very clearly defined.
For many firms it is a name they give a person who has developed solid technical accounting, auditing or tax skills over a period of time. I believe the term “manager” applies to partners, managers, supervisors and even seniors inside an accounting firm. After all, they are expected to manage the client engagement and the work of people who are more junior than themselves. They are the boss in many situations.
Google, inside their own organization, decided to explore the question, “What makes a good boss?” and called the the study Project Oxygen.
They discovered that what you might think would be the top characteristic, the ability to write computer code in your sleep, came in last. I imagine that inside an accounting firm, being a great tax mind or having extremely advanced auditing skills would also come in last as an indicator of being a great boss.
Here’s Project Oxygen‘s findings, Google’s “Eight Good Behaviors” of top managers, ranked in order of importance:
Be a good coach. Provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing the negative and the positive. Have regular one-on-ones, presenting solutions to problems tailored to your employees’ specific strengths.
Empower your team and don’t micromanage. Balance giving freedom to your employees, while still being available for advice. Make “stretch” assignments to help the team tackle big problems.
Express interest in team members’ success and personal well-being.Get to know your employees as people, with lives outside of work. Make new members of your team feel welcome and help ease their transition.
Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented.Focus on what employees want the team to achieve and how they can help achieve it. Help the team prioritize work and use seniority to remove roadblocks.
Be a good communicator and listen to your team.Communication is two-way: you both listen and share information. Hold all-hands meetings and be straightforward about the messages and goals of the team. Help the team connect the dots. Encourage open dialogue and listen to the issues and concerns of your employees.
Help your employees with career development.
Have a clear vision and strategy for the team. Even in the midst of turmoil, keep the team focused on goals and strategy. Involve the team in setting and evolving the team’s vision and making progress toward it.
Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team. Roll up your sleeves and conduct work side by side with the team, when needed. Understand the specific challenges of the work.
CPA firms focus so much time and so many dollars on training their youngest team members. They are sent to Level I, II, III and maybe more for audit training. The firm funds their education in “beginning tax,” “advanced tax” and more. Managers and partners review their work and critique their skills in tax preparation, auditing and accounting. Why not invest in helping accountants become better bosses?
An idea: Firm owners, why not consider devoting this year’s partner retreat to the topic of how you are going to spend dollars and time training yourselves, your managers and even your seniors on how to be better managers of people? Develop an action plan outlining steps you need to take to become better leaders, as partners, and how you will develop future leaders inside your firm. Some call it succession planning; I call it running a good firm.
In public accounting firms, true leadership training rarely happens. I strongly urge you, plead with you, even beg you – begin leadership training from Day One – just like you do with tax and accounting training. Contact me if you need help.
No man goes before his time; unless the boss leaves early.
One of the comments I often hear goes something like this….“I can’t attend that conference this year. I’m going to the (fill-in a name) conference and that’s all that is in the budget for me.”
Okay, that might be true. Have you ever considered changing your mind and going to something different than the usual technical (tax and audit) track or to the MAP conference you always attend?
CPA owners sometimes wonder why their managers and staff don’t show any interest in firm management or marketing. Perhaps it is because partners do not mandate that these “younger” CPAs attend CPE that has a management focus. It is important that managers and staff always get to hear an “update on the CPA profession” every year.
Managers and staff – - I’m talking to you in this paragraph. Have you ever considered spending you own money (and time) to attend a career- and mind-broadening conference or workshop? After all, it’s your career and ultimately your responsibility to move your career toward greater success. Or, you can remain average (mediocre) for your entire career.
The same thing applies to CPA firm administrators, marketing directors, human resource directors, and IT managers. I also hear you say, “the firm won’t pay for me to attend.” Why not set aside some of your own money and invest in your own future?
Think about it and unleash your entrepreneurial spirit!
Here’s some opportunities:
The Texas Chapter of AAA and the Dallas Area Administrators May meeting in Dallas – May 4, 2012. I’ll be speaking on The Key Role of the Firm Administrator in Succession and A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything.
The Tennessee Society of CPAs Women’s Career Summit - May 8, 2012 in Brentwood. Attend my session titled, A Woman’s National Changes Everything.
If you are in New England, here’s two sessions I am doing for the Massachusetts Society of CPAs. Climb the Ladder of Success – Engage Your Staff and Make Your Firm More Successful: The Importance of Professional Management and Administration – May 23 & 24 – for more information click here.
AICPA PractitionersTECH+ - June 11-13 in Las Vegas. I’ll be speaking on How A Firm Administrator Can Make Your Firm More Successful.
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
It is becoming more and more important every day for CPAs to actively engage the bright, young and talented people working inside their firm. Futurists and researchers continue to stress how important it is to focus on your people.
There is a lot of great information in the new AICPA Top Talent Survey. Yasmine EL-Ramly, CPA/CITP, Project Manager at AICPA PCPS, gives us highlights via the Journal of Accountancy:
Foster a culture of trust and open access to management – The survey reported decreased trust in firm leadership among 40% of high-potential CPAs.
Make work/life balance a firm priority. – The brightest young CPAs are much more focused on successfully integrating their professional and personal lives than their predecessors were.
Provide a competitive compensation package. – Salary is the top factor in retaining high-potential CPAs and the second most important factor in attracting them, the survey found.
Transform each engagement into a training opportunity. – Involve top young talent from start to finish, ensuring they grasp the breadth and complexity of each engagement.
Implement diversity initiatives for women and minorities. – Such programs can have a substantial effect on attracting and retaining women and minorities by enhancing their sense of belonging and recognition.
Identify emerging partners as early as possible. – With career growth high on the high potentials’ priority list, it is important to establish a career road map with top talent.
The respondents, as profiled, are an ambitious, experienced and well-educated bunch. The top talent studied represent all staff/seniors/managers who have been identified, either formally or informally, as future leaders.
On average, high potential CPAs:
Have nearly 14 years of experience as a CPA.
Have been with the current employer for more than 10 years.
Are committed to the profession; two-thirds say they would make the same career choice – to be a CPA – all over again.
Believe they are being groomed for leadership in their firm (63.7%).
Would like to be partners or senior leaders in their firms (62%).
I often hear from owners, “Our managers don’t want to be partner.” Do you know this for sure at your firm? What kinds of communication and conversations are happening in relation to future leaders?
Be sure to explore the survey results. The full report is available online.
For firm leaders and future leaders, I hope you adopt the following quote as something to live by.
Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.
Working inside CPA firms, you are often pressured into thinking that you MUST multi-task in order to get everything done that’s on your plate.
Here are three policies suggested in the article that I think you should consider:
Maintain meeting discipline. Schedule meetings for 45 minutes, rather than an hour or longer, so participants can stay focused, take time afterward to reflect on what’s been discussed, and recover before the next obligation. Start all meetings at a precise time, end at a precise time, and insist that all digital devices be turned off throughout the meeting.
Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day. It forces your people into reactive mode, fractures their attention, and makes it difficult for them to sustain attention on the priorities. Let them turn off their email at certain times. If it’s urgent, you can call them – but that won’t happen very often.
Encourage renewal. Create at least one time during the day when you encourage your people to stop working and take a break. Offer a mid afternoon class in yoga, or meditation, organize a group walk or workout, or consider creating a renewal room where people can relax, or take a nap.
My message to you today: Try new approaches to solve old problems.
Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.
In public accounting for CPAs, as far as I can see and assess, it’s still about the volume of time you can work.
I’m not talking about how or if you track time or how you price your services. I’m talking about the number of hours you spend “at the office” and, include the number of hours you work away from the office at home and even on vacation. Most experienced CPAs can tell you immediately even in a casual conversation – “I worked 3,012 hours last year.” – as if it is a badge of honor.
Those of you who are baby boomers (or those of you trying to understand baby boomers), remember when (about 15 or 20 years ago) you all took official time management courses or went through formal time management training? How are you doing with that?
Maybe it’s time to update your thinking about time management. After all, it’s a whole different world than it was 15 years ago – things are moving at a lightning pace and inside your accounting firm the mood is changing. The old badge of glory – working unreasonable and unhealthy hours is not something to be admired.
Rather than younger accountants thinking: Wow, he/she worked 3,000 hours. I wonder how he/she did it? I need to get more productive.
They will be thinking: Wow, he/she worked 3,000 hours. I certainly don’t want to spend that many of my precious hours at work – I’m outta here.
There are a lot of accelerator programs out there for startups. They teach wannabe entrepreneurs time management skills. For startups, managing time is a matter of sink or swim and young companies can only succeed if they stay on task. I think the same applies to accounting firms going forward. Here’s some great tips from these programs as featured by FAST Company:
Avoid the email time suck – only check it three times a day.
Choose your most important goal each week – focus on the biggest and most important thing.
Know your productivity limits – more hours doesn’t mean productive hours.
Take breaks to prevent burnout – it’s better to average 8 solid hours of productivity a day than it is to output 12 hours of mediocre ones.
Skip some meetings – watch out for meetings with no goal.
Say “no” when you need to – whether it is too many meetings or actually talking too much to your team, you need to make decisions fast about when to say no.
Look around your office during the next few weeks. Are you and your people spending too much time on email? Are you in the office 12 hours and only really working 8 or 9?
After April 15th, will you be able to clearly focus on your number one priority to make your firm a winner or will procrastination set-in for at least a couple of months?
In a CPA firm, the partners and managers are the bosses.
As I mentioned on Tuesday’s blog, every accounting firm has it’s cast of characters and your firm might have one of those partners who is absolutely great at delegation and thus has plenty of time to chat with those staffers working on his/her accounts. Perhaps this partner is more comfortable hanging-around with the team members and even eating lunch almost every day with them rather than eating with bankers, attorneys, prospects and even his/her best clients.
Maybe it is to the point where team members even dread seeing the partner coming down the hallway. I often hear team members complain about the partners/managers who tend to hover over them all the time.
Help is on the way! Share this post with team members and bosses in your firm. It’s from Bruce Tulgan (who I often refer to on this blog and in my presentations). He’s the author of It’s Okay To Be The Boss and most recently, a book that looks the opposite direction – It’s Okay To Manage Your Boss.
Watch this short video from Tulgan who offers some great advice to solve the “boss that talks too much” issue.
No man goes before his time; unless the boss leaves early
Hundreds of studies have found that the most engaged employees – those who report they’re fully invested in their jobs and committed to their employers – are significantly more productive, drive higher customer satisfaction and outperform those who are less engaged.
However, only 20% of employees around the world report that they’re fully engaged at work.
The recommendation made to employers certainly applies to accounting firms. You must shift the focus from trying to get more out of people, to investing more in them.
The last few years, many firms have been running lean and mean when it comes to staffing. Cuts needed to be made back in 2008/09 and maybe even 2010. Your people are now looking to you, firm leaders, to provide relief and appreciation for the extra effort many of them have contributed recently.
Here’s what the studies show as the things employees need.
Commit to paying every employee a living wage
Give all employees a stake in the company’s success.
Design working environments that are safe, comfortable and appealing.
Provide healthy, high-quality food.
Create places for employees to rest and renew during the course of the working day.
Offer a well equipped gym and other facilities that encourage employees to move physically and stay fit.
Define clear and specific expectations.
Institute two-way performance reviews so that employees not only receive regular feedback but they are able to give feedback, too.
Hold leaders and managers accountable.
Create policies that encourage employees to set aside time to focus without interruption on their most important priorities.
Provide employees with ongoing opportunities and incentives to learn, develop and grow.
Stand for something beyond simply increasing profits.
I believe that CPA firms measure-up pretty well in many of these but still lack in others. How’s your firm doing?
You got to like your work. You have got to like what you are doing, you have got to be doing something worthwhile so you can like it.. because it is worthwhile, that it makes a difference, don't you see?
Inside CPA firms, people with authority often avoid difficult conversations. You can call them crucial conversations, critical confrontations or even honest performance feedback. If there is something unflattering to say, people often choose to simply avoid it or ask someone else to do it.
An example might be that the firm has a very clearly defined dress appropriate policy, however, Julie constantly ignores it and everyone notices. Bill, a manager, stops the firm administrator in the hall and says, “Did you see what Julie has on today? Could you please talk to her about it?”
I usually find this happens to firm administrators in CPA firms and sometimes to managing partners. It happens to some managers but not all, because there are select people in a firm who seem to have a natural ability to actually talk about the tough issues with people.
What do you do when a “messenger” discusses a performance problem they are having with someone or uses you to complain about another person in the firm?
Delivering unflattering feedback and becoming a problem-addresser rather than a problem-bearer is a skill that can be learned.
If you are working in a CPA firm and you are a managing partner, firm administrator, HR Director, Marketing Director/Coordinator, Training & Development Manager, partner, administrative assistant, senior manager, manager, senior or associate you need information on best practices and how to propel your firm forward in 2011 and 2012. In other words, if you are working in a CPA firm and are breathing, you play a role in helping your firm Thrive in Challenging Times.
Inside CPA firms, the word “manager” is not very clearly defined.
