Rita Keller, an award-winning and widely respected voice to CPA firm management, is uniquely positioned to help CPAs and their teams face rapid and significant change.
“People prefer to say yes to those that they like.” Robert Cialdini
I hear stories, all kinds of stories.
Working and interacting with hundreds of accounting firms over the last thirty years I, of course, hear stories. I hear, from the partners, what a great firm they have, how progressive they are, and how they do so much for their people. I do believe most of this.
I hear from the professional support team and the accounting staff how, while it is a good firm, they struggle with getting questions answered, getting changes approved and dealing with some of the partners. I do believe most of this.
The question for you to ponder today, as a shareholder, is influenced by the above quotation. Do your people actually like you?
If you are friendly, smile often, show caring/concern for individual team members, and are approachable, they will like you. They will work harder for you and strive to meet your expectations. They will respect you.
I remember when I was new to a CPA firm. One CPA partner would occasionally ask how I was doing and would ALWAYS say thank-you when I completed various tasks for him. That partner’s tasks always ranked higher on my to-do list than the other three partners.
The old English proverb, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, means that it is much easier to get what you want by being polite rather than by being rude and insolent.
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
“The trouble with the world is not that people know too little; it’s that they know so many things that just aren’t so.” – Mark Twain
I was recently reading an article from National Geographic that explained how our mental maps of the world are probably wrong. I discovered that mine was! There are many common geographic misconceptions. For example, you might think that South America is directly south of North America.
Here’s an excerpt:
For instance, we all know that South America is south of North America, of course. But you may be surprised by the fact that virtually the entire South American continent is east of Florida. There are lots of possible reasons for geographical misconceptions like this one, says cartographer John Nelson. Mental maps are necessarily simplifications, and Nelson suspects the misplaced Americas may be partly a result of their names. After all, it’s not called Southeast America.
How does all this relate to managing your CPA firm? I believe there are many misconceptions flourishing inside accounting firms. Many of these misconceptions are quite large and often resistant to correction.
Partners don’t care about people they just want to make a lot of money.
Staff don’t care about the firm, they just want to put in 8 hours and then go home.
Non-CPAs working at the firm are not as smart as the CPAs.
The partners are stingy.
The staff are careless.
Our firm is the best one in our market.
Our firm is the worst one in our market.
I corrected my misconceptions about how countries and continents are aligned and how they appear on maps by education myself, by exploring and reading.
How are you going to battle the misconceptions swirling around inside your firm?
If you see a blatant error misconception about yourself, you really want to set it straight.
“Be spectacularly great at what you do. Wear your passion on your sleeve and hold your heart in the palm of your hand. And work hard. Really hard.” – Robin Sharma
If you have been keeping up with current trends in firm management, you probably know all too well that the annual performance review is on the verge of death.
Many firms have already abandoned this old-school method of providing team members with information that could help advance their careers. Today’s workforce wants feedback continually – every day – or more often. If your firm does away with the annual performance review, it means that managers and partners need to step up their game. They need to learn how to actually manage people and manage performance. It’s worth the effort.
You might think of it as conversation-based performance feedback. You will probably find that this method will help advance the skill level of your team much more rapidly. These performance conversations can focus on serving the clients, embracing the firm’s core values, and more.
Eliminating those old-fashioned performance rating sheets will create a sigh of relief from everyone involved!
If you can’t eliminate the more structured performance feedback process, at least simplify the one you have. Try the Keep, Stop, Start method and perhaps give this feedback monthly.
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.
“Don’t open a shop unless you know how to smile.” – Petteri Tarkkonen
Today’s quote certainly applies to accounting firms.
I have heard so many stories from CPA firm citizens about their partners. Here are a few:
Some of our partners never smile.
Partners don’t seem to have a sense of humor.
Some of our partners walk right by you in the hall and never even acknowledge you.
I wish all of our partners would simply say Good Morning.
I wish all of our partners would say thank-you more often.
When I was hired, they said they have an open-door policy but it seems like every time I need to talk to a partner they seem to be too busy.
I need to ask a partner a question but they never answer my emails.
Partners and managers, you may not have a lot to smile about during COVID, during tax season or when client expectations are unreasonable. Your team members don’t know what pressures you are under. That doesn’t mean you can’t smile and be congenial towards all of those people who are often suffering right along with you.
One of my favorite phrases, MBWA (Manage By Wandering Around) still applies. If some of your team are in the office, walk around and briefly check-in on them. The same applies to your remote workers. You can email, call or video chat with them and use the same words – – “How are you doing? Is there anything I can do to help?”
Did you know that people can tell when you smile when answering the phone?
Smiling is part of simply being polite. Maybe your firm needs a Courtesy Policy.
Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.
“Focus on being productive instead of busy.” – Tim Ferriss
I think we have all enjoyed browsing the hundreds.. thousands… of Bernie memes. I know I had a lot of laughs these past few days.
Of course, the most meaningful Bernie meme, for all of us working in the CPA profession, comes from Shayna Brooke, Founder & Chief Strategist at Shaynaco LLC in Gallipolis, Ohio.
Shayna kindly allowed me to use her recent Facebook post for this blog. Here it is:
Just a reminder that you don’t have to bring your paper tax documents into our Shaynaco LLC office. We have secure web portals available for you to upload any documents and also retrieve documents from us!
Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take are of themselves.
“Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity.” – Warren Bennis
Accountants, in general, are kind, caring, and sincere. They live their lives helping their clients become successful. They often have difficult conversations with their clients.
Inside their own CPA firm, they ignore conflict and avoid confrontation. Partners and managers often dodge conflict in the hopes that someone else will deal with it. Yet, they readily admit that there is way too much drama going on inside the firm.
Often the conflict is between two or more employees. However, the most troubling conflict is when employees actually fear one or more of the firm leaders, and other leaders hide from the drama, fear, and conflict.
“If there are performance problems, workplace drama, or disruptive behaviors in your workplace, it’s because it’s been allowed. Avoiding difficult conversations causes a culture of dysfunction that affects every aspect of business.” – Marlene Chism
Read that quote again. From the mildest conflict to actual fear of an individual continues because IT’S BEEN ALLOWED.
Some issues eventually go away on their own but most do not. YOU must deal with it. Here’s a helpful article from Chism.
“Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.” – Paul J. Meyer
Once again, Withum shares a great video. This one was shared with their entire team so that they continue to feel very connected to the firm and to each other.
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Holidays are over. It is the first “work” Friday in 2021. The holiday hassles are a distant memory and the trauma of the last few days has subsided some. So, again in 2021, I will offer you a flashback post on some Fridays. The following post is one to keep in mind as you enter another tax season. It is from January 31, 2020:
TAX SEASON IS NOT COMPLAINING SEASON
I saw the following tweet by Greg Bell and thought of CPA firms:
“Would you like to spend time with someone who is constantly complaining about life, their job, gossiping about friends and coworkers, or putting themselves and others down? Or would you rather spend time with someone who is upbeat despite the challenges they face?” – Greg Bell (@gregbellspeaks)
Sad, isn’t it, that I think of CPA firms after reading this?
I have observed that when you get deep inside many accounting firms there is a lot of this going on.
In my personal experience working inside a firm, I found tax season to be a time when the general population of the firm was too busy to complain much. Almost everyone was focused, dedicated and possessed a sense of urgency.
The sad part is that after April 15th the moaning and groaning returned! I hope you are doing surveys so you can address some of the relevant issues. If it turns out that you have people who match-up with the quote above, you have the wrong people.
Address the issues and work to develop a No Whining culture!
You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.
