Rules Can be Counterproductive

Source: Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders

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

Do you sometimes feel like you have TOO MANY rules inside your firm?

While I am a huge advocate of processes, procedures, and systems to streamline repeatable tasks inside your firm, I also believe that being too rigid crushes creativity, continual improvement, and, sometimes, fun.

Do you use rules to hide behind and to avoid much-needed change inside your firm?

Dan Rockwell, on his blog – Leadership Freak – has a great post about How to Rule Out Rules.

In the CPA profession, you must work with a certain amount of rules. But you don't have to stifle your people and yourselves with rules, especially if you find that you are using rules because you are a weak leader.

Think about this comment from Rockwell:

Rules are a weak leader's first line of defense. Every time something goes wrong, weak leaders create new rules to prevent failures. Writing rules is a backward-facing attempt at solving past problems.

Organizations that rely on rules suggest weak leadership, organizational confusion, poor communication, and disengaged employees. Rules drain joy, quench motivation, stifle creativity, and choke productivity. Worse yet, rules create the wrong kind of work.

I find that some firms have not invested in the kind of training and coaching that helps their managers and partners set the proper example and become inspirational leaders. Many of the firm's highly productive, knowledgeable technicians, who have been promoted to manager or even partner, are actually poor leaders, and simply great enforcers (“Do it my way, the way we have always done it.”).

In conclusion, I urge you not to delay examining the inside health of your firm. If you identify a weakness, seek a solution.

For the complete article, read “Are You Over-Ruled?”

From Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders, Rita Keller's CPA Management Newsletter, www.ritakeller.com, April 13, 2011.