Time for a Change?

Source: Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from a blog post by Rita Keller.

• How are you evaluating your accounting firm team members?
• How is your partner group evaluating each other?
• How are your team members evaluating you?

People inside your accounting firm are working hard right now. After all, it is March, one of the busiest months for most public accounting firms. Take a deep breath and ask yourself some questions.

Are you and your employees doing the same thing that you did in 2011? An even more interesting question is: Are you and your employees doing the same thing you were doing in 1999?

Reflect on the old saying, “If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you have always gotten.”

When you are evaluating performance this spring, try asking three questions. What should I keep doing? What should I start doing? What should I stop doing?

Then ask the big question: What are you doing this year that you were not able to do last year? This involves reflecting back on what you are reading, what continuing education classes you attended, what educational conferences you attended, what articles you have written.

When it is feedback time, your team members are thinking about their pay increases. Usually, they earn them because they are still in the learning-and-building-their-skills mode. They are actually doing things this year they were not able to do last year. Does this apply to your managers and partners?

With all of the rapid change, if you and your team do what you have always done, you'll actually get less done than you have always gotten done.

For the complete blog entry, read “Is Your Accounting Firm Suffering From the Same Old Thing?”

From Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders, the blog of Rita Keller, March 1, 2012. Visit http://ritakeller.com/blog/.