TheLeadershipNotebook

Cracking the Code

 

“It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before… to test your limits… to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

~ Anais Nin

 

Last week at the Winning Is Everything Conference, my former partner, Leslie Murphy of Plante & Moran, was inducted into the Advisory Board Hall of Fame. Leslie, also a former chairman of the AICPA, was the first woman honored with a Hall of Fame induction. It’s certainly an honor that is well deserved.

Leslie has paved the way for women leaders in the CPA profession throughout her career. When our firm merged into Plante & Moran in the late 1990’s, Leslie’s instrumental role in formulating many of the life/work policies at the Firm was very evident. She fought hard for flexible work policies in the profession that are now part of the fabric of firms across the country. In addition, she remains an outstanding role model for women leaders across all professions. Congratulations, Leslie!

During Leslie’s acceptance remarks, she was asked whether the CPA profession is where it needed to be with regard to the representation of women leaders at the partner/owner ranks as compared to the numbers of women entering the profession. Leslie indicated quite clearly that “No, we have not cracked the code.” Women represent over 40% of those entering firms and yet a significantly lower percentage of women actually find their way to the partnership or ownership ranks.  

Certainly, women have made progress. Back when I was practicing, I was the first woman partner in a major firm in our community. In 2010, the managing partner of one of the Big Four firms in Toledo is a woman! Great strides have been made but more work needs to be done by the profession to “crack the code.”

Continued work with both men and women leaders on building their leadership capabilities, creating a strong and productive firm culture and creating life/work solutions has never been more imperative. Let’s finally crack that code.

 

 

 

To your success,

Mary

 

 

W.I.N.

 

“Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing.

You don’t do things right once in a while…you do them right all the time.”

Vince Lombardi

 

W.I.N.  Those are the three letters that former Notre Dame head football coach Lou Holtz uses to remind himself “What’s Important Now?” I had the opportunity to hear Holtz speak yesterday and he was inspiring and motivating and pretty darn funny.

I’m out at the Winning is Everything Conference, an annual conference presented for CPAs by The Advisory Board. The Conference is a great mix of networking, practice management and continuing education for CPA firm leaders. I’ve met many tremendous professionals and listened intently to the presenters in order to keep a pulse on the hot buttons of the CPA profession. And I also got to hear Lou Holtz.

Of course, as a fellow CPA and now coach and consultant on the people side of leadership development and change, I’ve listened to gain perspective on how I can best be of service to CPA leaders and their firms. I’ve asked myself “What’s Important Now?” in the profession and answered myself in the context of Holtz’s three rules for living:

1. Do what’s right. (honesty, integrity, building trust)
2. Do everything to the best of my ability. (commitment to excellence)
3. Make sure people know you care. (establish connections with others)

Do What’s Right

In my role as a coach, I work with leaders to help them align their professional world with their own core values and for my CPA colleagues, honesty and integrity are integral values that they strive to live by. I’ve worked with leaders and their teams to build trust through team building, improving communication skills and creating healthy and productive dialogue among team members.

Lencioni’s model of dysfunctional teams cites lack of trust as a foundational stumbling block for effective teams. What’s important now is that firm leaders remember that productivity and ultimately profitability can be eroded without the foundation of honesty, integrity and a foundation of trust. And ultimately, trust is the foundation of success.

Do Everything to the Best of My Ability

Those CPAs who strive for excellence, not only in technical areas but in development of their own leadership skills, will be the winners down the road. I have many CPA client’s who are committed to their own excellence, to improving their self awareness, their strategic thinking skills, their ability to create a compelling vision for their firm or department or their team.

What’s important now, especially given the challenges facing the profession with the economy, technological explosion and rampant merger and acquisition activity is to provide outstanding executive coaching and consulting services to those clients who want to take their performance to the next level and make a difference in their firms. Coasting is not an option. It’s time to raise your game.

Make Sure People Know You Care

For CPAs, many who can be viewed as dispassionate or maybe even uncaring, establishing a genuine connection with others may take some minor tweaks in communication or behavior. Connecting through building simple (yet difficult) empathic listening skills may be all it takes to let someone know you care.

Many of my CPA clients love to solve problems for their own clients. Shifting the perspective of the relationship from an unnatural feeling of “schmoozing” to actual problem solving helps ease the focus off the “touchy feely” stuff to what may be a strength.

What’s important now is that client relationships and service are critical to CPAs to enable them to maintain their existing client base in this era of intense competition among firms. Working with CPAs to improve their skill in the area of emotional intelligence and interpersonal relationships is a key passion for me. And such skills are integral to becoming that “trusted advisor” to the client and great boss to your staff.

As I listened to the speakers yesterday, I reaffirmed my commitment to working with CPA leaders to help them accelerate their success. Whether its coaching a high potential professional or firm Partner, working with an audit or tax team to hone in on unproductive team dynamics or help a firm work through the human side of change and transition after a merger or significant change, the opportunities to partner with firms to help them achieve their desired vision remains exciting.

What’s Important Now? Your success!

To your success,

Mary

 

 

Happiness (Part 2) - Ten Tips for Finding Your Happiness

 

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.”
~Albert Schweitzer

 

Last week I wrote about happiness from a personal perspective. I covered the concept as experienced by a mom on a week-long vacation with her family. Where do you find happiness? I asked to close the post.

Now back at work, I can put my “coach” hat back on and provide you with some ideas to help you answer that question. And remember, happiness is not just important in your personal life. Happiness is a key component of our overall emotional intelligence. And as I’ve written before, our EQ has a direct impact on our leadership effectiveness.

According to Reuven BarOn, the architect of the BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQi), happiness is the ability to feel satisfied with one’s life, to enjoy oneself and others, and to have fun. It’s one of 15 EQ facets that make up our overall emotional quotient. Happiness is a skill, not a lucky break of birth or circumstance. Our happiness is not under the control of others or capricious events. We can learn how to make ourselves happy. And most important to remember: happiness comes from the inside out. Recognition of this fact is highly empowering.

Why should you care if you are happy?

Happy leaders get more done through their people. This is because people prefer to spend time with someone who is happy, and they avoid unhappy people. Leaders need time with people in order to influence their behavior, which is what leadership is about. Who wants to follow a sourpuss?

Therefore, the happier you are, the more your followers will want to spend time with you, giving you more opportunity to influence their behavior. You will be able to set the limits on how much contact you have with followers rather than having followers set the limits.

So here are 10 tips that you can use to help you discover where you find happiness.

1. List your favorite activities, the things that give you pleasure. Beside each one, record the date of the last time you were involved in that activity and how often you have done the activity over the past 6 months.

What do you think? Are you doing these things enough? If not, create a plan to do these things more often. Include a time line in your plan. You may think that you are too busy. If so, consider time invested in these pursuits as an investment in your productivity, because it is. Having things in your life that you enjoy will give you more energy to move through your responsibilities.

2. List the names of people with whom you enjoy spending time. Beside each one, record the date of the last time you saw or talked with that person and how often you have spent time with that person over the past 6 months.

Are you spending enough time with the people who matter to you most? If not, create a plan that will overcome that problem.

3. Examine the self-talk you have about happiness. You may have an old tape in your head that says something like “Life is serious. Don’t be frivolous.” This is bad advice. Based on what you have now read about the importance of happiness and fun, write an alternative piece of self-talk.

4. Identify role models. It may be that the people with whom you like to spend time are happy people. If so, they may be able to teach you something about increasing your own happiness. Ask them about their “habits of happiness” or just observe them more closely to see what you can learn.

5. How often do you laugh? List the kinds of things that you find funny or amusing such as jokes, particular movies, TV shows, books, and certain people who have a great sense of humor. Now go seek out the items on your list.

6. Take time off. When was the last time you took a vacation? Some time and distance from your responsibilities gives you a fresh perspective and, maybe even more important for you at this time, it’s fun.

What is your pattern of giving yourself breaks from your work during the day? Brief breaks during the day helps us to regroup, calm ourselves down, and better manage our body's resources, helping us to live longer. Such breaks also help us to rediscover the pleasure we have in our work.

7. Review the last month or two. Your day planner, a calendar, and even your checkbook can help you recall how you spent your time over the past few months. How often do you recall being “in flow”, i.e., when have you been so engrossed in challenging work or fun activity that you lost track of time? When were you in a creative mode? When did you have a joyful achievement? List those times. What were you doing?

8. Keep a happiness journal. Over the next six weeks, briefly record one or two events from the day from which you took pleasure. It may be a brief joke, a quiet lunch, a work assignment that left you feeling competent, or whatever gave you pleasure.

Focus on those events. This exercise, if repeated for daily for several weeks, will help you learn to look for happiness in the context of your own daily life. Record the self-talk you notice during these events. This is the kind of self-talk that supports your habit of happiness. Use it as often as possible.

 9. Make a list of situations and people who make you sad and unhappy. The list from some of the exercises above should help you spot them. Sometimes the best choice is to simply drop certain situations or people from your life.

10. Do you tend to feel sorry for yourself? It is an easy habit to get into. What’s the antidote? Count your blessings. List the things that are right and good about your life. Review that list everyday and then add items as you think of them. Entries need not be dramatic. Small blessings are good for counting.

So, there are ten tips to help you find your happiness. Take the opportunity in this New Year to craft a life for yourself that includes happiness as a priority. The result will make you smile.

 

To your success,

 

Mary

Happiness

 

“Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.”

~Margaret Lee Runbeck

 

It’s the last day of our family vacation in Florida. Unlike last year when we were holed up with unseasonably cold weather, this week was beautiful. Sunny and a warm 75 degrees made for perfect days on the beach. We enjoyed great meals together, cooking at the condo and also dining at a couple great restaurants. While the weather and the food were great, what truly made me happy was just being with my family.

But that didn’t mean the week was without its moments. I spent the first 24 hours in bed, socked by the stomach flu. Was I happy then? Absolutely not. But I was fortunate to be unattached to work or commitments that would have required any action. My flu passed and I was back into the swing of things by day 3. I know it could have been a lot worse…..That made me happy.

Then there was “The Decision.” Our oldest daughter, Sarah who will be completing her MBA in May at Notre Dame was facing her LeBron James moment. She received an excellent offer to work with IBM in Raleigh, North Carolina. What a fantastic and well deserved outcome after two years of hard work. The only problem is that she had hoped to return to Boston after graduation where her “special guy” lives. Thus, “The Decision.”  

As parents of a 28 year old and full adult, my husband and I knew this was completely her decision. We encouraged her to look at the decision from all sides but in the end it was up to her. She made her decision on Day 4 of the vacation and chose the IBM position. We celebrated her success while knowing the decision was bitter sweet. Life does not give you yes/no, black/white, easy decisions. This process taught her that.

Watching Sarah struggle with this major “life” decision absolutely did not make me happy, but what did make me happy and proud was the recognition of her efforts at ND and her outstanding opportunities at IBM.

Middle daughter, Lisa, was smack dab in the middle of her own MBA school applications, waiting for two final recommendations to come through. The application due date was on day 5 of the vacation and she just wanted to hit send! Of course her bosses had other things on their mind…

The recommendations finally came with a couple hours to spare and while they were glowing, the deadline added a bit of drama to the vacation atmosphere. What made me proud and happy were the wonderful comments made by Lisa’s bosses. They see the outstanding qualities that my husband and I witness in her on a regular basis.

The Decision made. Check. Applications submitted. Check. OK, we can relax now.

Not so fast. There’s more….

Yesterday, our youngest daughter, Emily (second year law student with a passion for International Law) received an offer to do a summer internship in Uganda! I know it was quite a compliment to be given this opportunity but after watching her head to The Hague last summer, The Terrorism Research Center the summer before and Cairo Egypt three summers ago, I was hoping she might land in the United States this summer!

She has lots of time to make that “Decision,” (how about 6 days) but I know she will thoroughly research the opportunity and evaluate it just like all the other great choices she has made. Just the other day it was Emily who commented that John Mayer’s “Waiting for the World to Change” was such a dumb song. “You can’t wait for the world to change. You have to go change it yourself.” She said. It’s watching Emily’s can-do attitude bubble up that makes me proud and happy.

One week. One family. Yes, sitting on a beach in 75 degree sunshine makes me happy. Being with my family makes me happy. But being a witness to each of our daughter’s continuing growth and maturity really makes me happy.

 

Where do you find happiness?

To your success,

Mary