Moving from a Performance Culture to a Growth Culture

For years, the accounting profession has been focused on performance. The work we do is complex, and firms have a lot of competition to attract and retain quality clients, deliver engagements efficiently and effectively, remain profitable and grow. The irony is that focusing on performance doesn’t always deliver the desired results. The problem with performance…

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Cyberbullying. Social Bullying. Peer Pressure Bullying.

Cyberbullying. Social Bullying.  Peer Pressure Bullying.  The topic of youth bullying has gained a lot of attention over the past several years.  You have probably read the stories and watched the videos of organizations working to end this epidemic that has been plaguing our school systems.  You have probably talked to your children about bullying-…

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The Role of Effort Today

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” –       Thomas Jefferson If there is something that truly troubles me these days, it’s a nagging fear that our nation is losing its competitive edge and that, once lost, it will take a Herculean effort to regain.  While…

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Protecting Your BYOD Exposure

Bring your own device (BYOD) is becoming the standard in accounting firms as we not only allow our personnel to connect to firm data from their home computers, but also access email and other firm applications on personal tablets and smartphones.  When one of these devices gets lost or stolen, or if an employee is…

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Sponsors vs. Mentors? What’s all the Buzz?

I recently received important feedback from a client. John had been serving as a sponsor in a specific Sponsor-Protégé program we launched in his firm He is an owner and leader in a large regional, soon to be national, firm. He spoke about the profound experience of his journey to understanding exactly what sponsorship means.…

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Building Your Bench for Succession – A Few Ideas to Help You

Thousands of firms are working through the succession and retirement of senior partners and deciding along the way whether or not they can pull it off internally and stay independent. The single most important factor for success is what we see when we look over our shoulder – is the bench of people there to…

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Marketing is Not Just for Partners Anymore

Marketing in the accounting industry has an interesting, and fairly short, history. It is not unusual to find partners who still remember when it was against AICPA rules to advertise, market, directly solicit or even participate in competitive bidding. Virtually non-existent for most of the 20th century, accounting marketing has evolved at a rather slow…

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They Don’t Want to Be Owners!

In our ongoing series about bridging the gap between management and emerging leaders, we would be remiss in not addressing the topic of moving from emerging leader to owner.  The perception among many in our profession is that there are fewer individuals at the senior and manager levels who aspire to be an owner and,…

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6 Tips for Fostering Leadership in Your Organization

Leadership is one of the top issues facing accounting firms today. We often hear firms say they can’t find or don’t have good leaders in their organization. As most of us know, leaders don’t usually fall off trees. In any organization, fostering leadership takes time and intention. As a current leader, you have to be…

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Survey says… Using survey results to improve your business

Can you name the top two key factors to an accounting firm’s success? If you said Employee Satisfaction and Client Satisfaction, then you are exactly right. You have probably thought about it, some of you may have even tried to conduct a survey before, so why the hesitation and procrastination? The topic of surveying comes…

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