joey havens: how culture makes or breaks your future | gear up for growth

what you think you know about your firm’s culture is probably all wrong.

listen, stream, download, subscribe to 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 podcasts anywhere: apple, google/youtube, spotify, iheart, deezer, amazon music and audible, player fm, audacy.

gear up for growth
with jean caragher
for 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

gear up for growth is tailored specifically for public accounting firms with up to 100 team members looking to expand their practices intelligently and efficiently. each episode focuses on a topic crucial for accounting firms aiming for smart growth in today’s competitive landscape. find more episodes here, including:

• mark koziel: transforming the cpa firm business model | gear up for growth
• allan koltin: how small firms can thrive against pe-powered competitors | gear up for growth

follow jean caragher on 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 here. | get her best-selling handbook, the 90-day marketing plan for cpa firms, here | and watch for jean caragher’s other show, capstone conversations, with leading growth strategists from the nation’s most dynamic firms, also available on 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

jean: hello. thank you for joining us for gear up for growth powered by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间. i’m jean caragher, president of capstone marketing and your host. this episode is focused on the role culture plays in firm growth. our guest is joey havens, a frequent presenter, teacher and facilitator on creating a culture of belonging, strategic planning, leadership development, and loves to teach young professionals the abcs to outstanding. i just love that title, joey, by the way. he is the author of the amazon number one bestseller, “leading with significance: how to create a magnetic people-first culture,” and his weekly blog “be better.” joey recently retired from horne llp after 37 years, including 9 years as the executive partner. joey, welcome to gear up for growth.

joey: thank you so much, jean. it’s such a pleasure to be here with you today.

jean: well, i appreciate your time and i’m so excited about this conversation because, you know, we were chatting a little bit before we started recording about how culture is just at the crux of everything when you’re thinking about firm growth, because it impacts so many different areas of a firm.

joey: yeah. i think it’s probably impossible to have exponential growth without a strong culture.

jean: absolutely. so, let’s start there. so, describe for us what a magnetic people-first culture looks like.

joey: you know, a magnetic people-first culture is one that’s full of leadership that is aligned with the core values that are connected to people. it’s one where there’s a strong sense of belonging and team members help each other have a sense of belonging. in other words, they see that as part of their role, and in all of that, there’s a clear and compelling vision of what you’re building together. and i would say that even on the strategic plan, culture is at the front of the plan, not at the back of the plan, like an afterthought. and so when you see a real magnetic people-first culture, it begins that energy. what it’s about is the energy, the discretionary effort that people begin to contribute, the increased focus, the increased creativity, the increased innovation that starts to happen.

jean: right. it’s amazing. and i did read your book and i just… i mean, you put a lot of work into that and thank you for sharing, you know, that whole experience, because you dealt with some challenges, like, that’s probably minimizing it because this required a lot of change and changing people’s minds in the way you do things in a firm, and that’s not easy.

joey: yeah, it’s not easy. in fact, you can’t change someone else’s mind. that mindset shift has to occur, and you do that in a number of different ways, and part of it is celebrating the wins and continuing to educate and encourage, and also challenge each other. and it takes a group of leaders to change a culture, not one person. now, every voice counts and any person can be that spark that gets you headed in the right direction, but it does take a team.

jean: right. now, that’s interesting because i’m gonna skip around a little bit here with the questions that i’ve written for you. so, i read an article that you wrote for the journal of accountancy, and one of your thoughts on changing mindsets is by building meaning, that people wanna be inspired and their searching for more purpose and meaning at work. and of course, your book, you know, is all about how you built this wise, firm vision. what are your thoughts for managing partners who questioned the need for a firm vision?

joey: ooh, i’m gonna relate it to this. if you ask a managing partner generally if they were a good parent, they would say, “yes, i’m a good parent.” but we also know, especially as our kids get a little older, this is certainly true for me, jean, is that we fail our kids in so many ways because we’re imperfect, and a lot of times we try to push on them what we wanted it to be like. and so that’s the thing that’s difficult when you’re talking to, especially a managing partner, but to any partner or leader in any organization, that’s part of their identity. and so, if i ask you if you were a good parent, you’re gonna immediately say yes, because that’s part of your identity.

and so, i think the challenge for managing partners especially is to step back from that and realize, “yes, you’re a good parent, but there are a lot of things here that we can do better.” and the reason that is so important is because then you can develop a compelling vision. people need a vision for what you’re trying to build and why you’re trying to build that. and then something that’s visual that they can connect to that’s compelling, allows them to attach their personal purpose, their personal dreams, their personal desire to build something bigger than themselves. so, that’s why it’s so important and it’s hard to do because you have to step back from, “hey, i’m a good parent.”

jean: right. and i would think that in order to do that, that managing partner would need to show vulnerability to his or her partner group and team, because in essence you’re saying, “i don’t know everything about this, but this is something that’s important for us that we need to explore and execute, and i need your help to make that happen.”

joey: that is well stated. i don’t know that i would even add anything to that because really, and some of the things that i talk about now in the keynotes and some of the podcasts is that the key to this is leaders trusting first. trust in the inherent good in people. and part of that is, and we were very open about that, like flexibility, when we attack flexibility, we don’t know how to fix this. we don’t know how to make this work for us, the clients, and you, and so we had a big collaboration around that. so, it’s less about showing up with all the answers and more about creating an environment and a culture where the sense of belonging is so strong that people will contribute their ideas, they’ll contribute their feedback, and you have to support that with some confidential loops that allow people to also provide input in a confidential way.

jean: so, i think maybe that’s one of the ways, because we know in any firm partnership or any business in general for that matter, you’re not always gonna get your leadership on board. i think with my experience with cpa firm partners, you know, there’s always a couple who really just would rather you not show up, you know, on the zoom or in the door. so, is having those confidential meetings a way to get perhaps some of those naysayers to provide their feedback without spoiling everyone else?

joey: well, the power of the confidential loops and the confidential feedback is to hear what you’re not hearing as a parent, as a leader in the organization. and you have some people that might be working under a partner that is very much controlling or very disrespectful of the team members. and every firm knows this. i don’t care whether you have 1 partner and 2 managers, or you have 10 partners, everybody knows who doesn’t wanna work for who. and so, i mean, it’s like that’s the water cooler. everybody knows it. even the managing partner knows, “hey, nobody wants to work with joey.” they know that. and so, the thing to remember here is that it’s back to the compelling vision, your culture will never rise to your vision. never. it always falls to the level of behaviors that you accept.

jean: right. absolutely. it’s that accountability, right? david maestri used to talk about that a lot too, about the importance of people being accountable to each other. yeah. so, i read a study that the illinois society conducted. it was called writing retention, and it had a very interesting disconnect between employers, meaning partners in public accounting firms and employees. so, their results were that 67% of employers assumed that when an employee left their public accounting firm, they left public accounting. and another third thought that they just left the profession altogether. but what they did find was that 62% of accountants in public accounting firms, when they left their firm, went to another public accounting firm. so, there was a disconnect between what the partners, you know, the employers were thinking and what the employees were thinking. and then add to that, that 36% of the employees named workplace culture as a top reason for leaving, but only 10% of employers thought culture was a major reason why employees left. what are your thoughts about that disconnect?

joey: well, it’s back to, and i think it shows you the relevance of the story i used about being a good parent, right? you’re sitting around thinking, “we have good culture. i’m a good parent.” and because we have that legacy belief, we are not open to some of the feedback and some of the things that happen that says, “hey, not everybody’s having the same experience here at this firm.” and because we don’t do the due diligence to really understand that, it’s a huge disconnect, because we want it in the closet. the reason you want it in the closet, because you have to be vulnerable and you have to say, “hey, we missed the boat. we’re getting it wrong. we’ve got to do something to be better.” that takes a lot of courage. it takes a lot of discipline.

so, the easy thing is leave it in the closet and “hey, people are leaving because of money. people are leaving because of the hours we work. people are leaving…” it’s always something else just like when you don’t get the clients you wanted, “well, we are too expensive.” it’s never about being too expensive. it’s about the story and the connection that you’re making to what that client needs, it’s the same thing on the employee side. the truth of the matter is those surveys also show they would work, and i hate to tell accountants this, by the way. this is not good, but people would work for less money if they were in a culture where they had a strong sense of belonging and they could see the opportunity in front of them. and…

jean: yeah, they wanna know what their contribution is, right? about the role that they’re playing, you know, not only in the success of the firm, but in local communities, you know, and to contribute to society, if you will.

joey: yeah. it’s that and it’s also being connected to leadership, to where leadership understands, “what are your goals for your life, jean? what do you want to accomplish and how can i help you do that? and let’s do this together.” so, there’s a connection and a demonstrating that you care. every book that i’ve signed i write two words in it and that’s be intentional, because leaders have gotta be more intentional about connecting and showing that they care. and when you do that, then your team members do that with each other and then they do it with clients, and all of a sudden clients turn into real raving cheerleaders, and all of a sudden this firm has double digit growth every year.

jean: right. and there’re some personalities that that doesn’t come naturally, that you really need to work at it.

joey: absolutely, and i’m an introvert. look, you know, i sit down at the airport by somebody and they’ll just be just wanting to talk, and then they’ve told me everything about their family, their marriage, and i’m thinking, “this is really crazy.” you know, if you sit by me at the airport, unless you bump me or something, i’m probably not going to just start talking to you, and it’s the same…i have to learn. and it’s simple things too as getting on the elevator and not introducing yourself if you don’t know that person, because i mean, obviously some of the firms, even if you get 100 people in a firm, there’s people coming and going, it’s hard to know everybody. and really connecting and making sure that you see people as a person, that you help them understand and show respect to them and that their role is important.

jean: right. right. so, in your book, you wrote that culture change required a new approach to onboarding new hires. can you tell us a bit about how that came about and what you did differently?

joey: well, we did a lot of things differently. one is we made it mandatory, where even if we had to start somebody because of something that was going on within a certain time period, they participated in an onboarding process. we preferred that the earlier in that we could. we generally bring, even though we do some onboarding, we evolved into doing some onboarding remotely. there are key components to that, which means that leadership needs to be involved. sometimes that is recorded messages, but a lot of times we always want some level of leadership involved in that.

there’s a real genuine effort to help people understand what the firm is about, what the vision is, why we do things. it’s about building connections, it’s about setting up a buddy system, getting people attached and connected to somebody that, you know, they’re not gonna feel comfortable asking every question to their team or their supervisor, so who’s their buddy? who can they go see and ask, “hey, how do i turn this help desk ticket in? what do i do with this?” it goes on and on and on. so, the onboarding needs to be more extensive and really just reinforce and reinforce and reinforce who you are and where you’re going.

jean: wonderful. so, when we look at all of the mergers happening in the profession, and now we’ve had, you know, private equity come in to invest in cpa firms, how is all this impacting or perhaps making more difficult in creating this people-first culture?

joey: well, i mean, that’s scary. i don’t want to be debbie downer, but when you’re doing big transactions like that, people get focused on growth, the bottom line, the cost of the merger, the whole new we’ve got new partners, new people on our board from the private equity side looking at, you know, streamlining and certainly, i mean, the private equity play is always about what’s gonna be the turn in 5 years or 10 years. and so, yes, it does for a group of leaders and owners that already favor, and that’s true in really any profession. it’s natural to focus too much on the smart side. patrick lencioni talks about this in his book “the advantage,” people focus too much on the smart side, which is all about the numbers and the marketing and the strategy, and they spend very little of their time on the people side because it’s hard and it’s complex, and it changes.

and so, that’s a real danger because our profession right now, we’re losing the talent battle. and if i had an overall message for the profession is one is that we have to create a better story and we have to tell a better story. and part of that is we have to quit measuring legacy things that hold us back, and that’s things like the chargeable hour. and people don’t like to hear that because the business model is built on a chargeable hour. and again, we’ve gotta get away from that, that is not a people-first strategy. it’s not an innovative strategy, not a creative strategy.

jean: right. and i do chuckle sometimes because when i read about these mergers there’s always some quote about how our cultures are so similar, like we’re so alike, and i don’t believe that it’s always that way. you know, i think those people issues, you’re right. it’s not a finite thing. people are, you know, living human beings with personalities and feelings and all of these untouchable things, if you will, that i would think you’d really have to double down on this effort in creating a people-first culture if you are in a firm who’s using mergers, for example, as part of your growth strategy, and understand how private equity investment may change a firm’s culture because the pressures on performance may be different. and it is just going to have some impact, some changes on a firm.

joey: yeah. so, let’s look at it like this. so, you quoted the survey from the illinois society about the gap.

jean: yes.

joey: and there’s a gap in every firm, every organization, what the leaders think about culture and what culture really is. and the leader’s always quoting what’s up on the wall. you know, always remember enron had some great virtues up on the wall, but here we are. so you got that gap. so, when you merge two companies, immediately the gap is wider, okay? because this leadership team showed up and said, “we’re here.” this leadership team said, “hey, we’re here.” both of them are not there. i mean, you’re never exactly where you’re at, and so now the gap is bigger with the merged organization. so, there’s more confusion, more mixed roles, and it takes a very intentional effort to pull out of that to where you really get a magnetic culture going, where you’re getting that extra effort, that focus, that creativity.

jean: right. wonderful. okay. so, i just have a couple more questions. so put yourself in the shoes of a managing partner of a firm with less than 100 employees. what would be your first step in creating that magnetic people-first culture? and does the size of the firm matter?

joey: well, that, i’ll take the second part of the question. that’s the easy one. no, the size of the firm doesn’t matter. i mean, even if you’re a small bookkeeping operation in the small town in north mississippi and you’ve got three employees, your culture matters, and your culture affects how they treat your clients, and your culture matters how long people stay there and whether you’ll be able to get employee number four and number five. and it affects the quality of your work. and so, size doesn’t matter. culture is extremely important for every organization.

if i was working in a firm and i’d just been elected the managing partner of a 60-person firm, there’s 2 or 3 things that i think are really important. i would want to assess the sense of belonging throughout that organization through a confidential survey. i’d want to know what experiences people are having. i’d also make sure that i knew everybody on a first name basis, because 60 people, you’re not gonna have a personal connection with 60 people, but i can know 60 people in their name. and so, i think that’s important because that helps connect leadership, leadership showing. in a small firm like that, you’re able to do those kind of things, and it’ll move things along faster as you introduce change into the process.

and then the third thing is really aligning the partner group. let’s just say it might be two partners, three partners, four partners, getting them aligned on what the vision is, and then sharing that very transparently across the organization. so, that’s kind of base level what i think i would try to do initially.

jean: right. well, because you’d have to have those foundational things completed before you could take those next steps, which and there’s lots of next steps, right?

joey: right. lots and lots of next steps, but that’s a great start. and the reason it’s so important is if people see you lean into the people side of it, they’re gonna lean into the growth strategies. they’re gonna lean into the change that you need to make. you’re gonna get things done faster. but i always caution people about this, you’re not seeking perfection, and culture change is one conversation at a time, so make sure you’re having good conversations.

jean: that’s wonderful. okay. one more question. this is your bonus question. i understand that you’re a big fan of crappie fishing. what has been the biggest catch?

joey: okay.

jean: and i had to look this up joey, to tell you, crappie fish, like, what is that?

joey: it can be called white perch, crappie fishing. my favorite time is in the spring in march and april we have some of the greatest crappie lakes in the world are in mississippi, sardis, grenada, enid, arkabutla, and even ross barnett reservoir, eagle lake. i mean, it’s just tremendous. but anyway, in the spring, crappie come out of deep water, 15, 18, 20, 30-feet deep water, and they actually spawn their eggs in 2 foot of water or 1 foot of water. and so in the spring when the reservoirs and we get flood water, the flood water gets up into the woods and off the creek banks and things, and so my favorite thing is to wade fish for those crappies so that you’re in the water with them, you’re catching them about 5 feet from you. and my biggest catch doing that, because it is harder to catch crappie if you get out of the boat, i promise you that, is 2.8 pounds. so, i still have not caught a 3-pound crappie but i have caught one weighing 2.8.

jean: okay. i’ve just got a little education there. not to say the least that it’s crappie fishing. right. so, i could pronounce that right.

joey: that’s okay.

jean: wonderful. well, i’ve been speaking with joey havens author of “leading with significance: how to create a magnetic people-first culture.” thank you, joey, for your time today.

joey: thank you, jean. it has been a tremendous pleasure.

jean: wonderful. thank you for tuning into gear up for growth. be sure to check us out the next time when we focus on another topic crucial for accounting firms aiming for smart growth in today’s competitive landscape. i’ll see you then.

 

posted on september 10, 2024