Building Trust in Your Firm

Source: Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by Rita Keller.

I have been thinking about trust in CPA firms a lot lately. When preparing for partner retreats, it is almost always an issue that comes to light in the surveys I conduct.

I always take a few minutes each morning, as I drink my first cup of coffee, to sit quietly and THINK. Since the time changed last week, it is once again very dark as I do this. One recent morning, I was thinking about why people trust other people. What triggers trust? Then, I remembered an article about the Dalai Lama speaking a while back in Cincinnati. Some of his words were meaningful to me.

The Dalai Lama touched on cooperation among the people of the world, noting that such cooperation comes through trust and friendship.

He stated: “Trust – how can you build trust? Can you buy trust through money? No. Through power? No. Trust only comes by showing genuine concern for other people's well-being.”

Guess what? That's how it works in CPA firms. When you feel that someone is relying on you, trusts you to do your job and to do the right thing . . . you begin to trust them and from there it grows.

Bottom line, in my opinion, is that you work harder, longer and more conscientiously for, and with, people you trust.

Trust can be built (and rebuilt). Is it time to work on it inside your firm?

For the complete article, read “Who Do You Trust?”

From Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders, Rita Keller's CPA Management Newsletter, www.ritakeller.com, March 23, 2011.