IMPROVING ACCOUNTABILITY IN YOUR FIRM Articles, Management & Governance, Profitability & Performance Improving partner and staff

accountability is essential in these economic times. I think many partners associate accountability with increased conflict and typic ally shy away from addressing the issues. As a result most accountability discus sions take place after the fact when there is no possible chance of changing the results. These conversations usually focus on fault and blame and in most cases are not p roductive and in some instances have had a very negative impact on partner and s taff relationships. There is a very clear and simple way to improve accountabili ty at every level of your firm and all you have to do is follow a proven process . MOTIVATION In Abraham Maslows book, Motivation and Personality, he discusses two types of be havior, coping and expressive. Coping behavior is where an individual is reacting to the behavior of others, wh ile expressive behavior is doing what is important to you. He further states tha t an individual cannot be motivated when they are coping with another persons beh avior and will only be motivated when they are in an expressive mode of behavior . Of course it is impossible for us to avoid both of these behaviors every day o f our lives, but what we do want to focus on as effective leaders is to make sur e our people are in the expressive mode as often as possible, to improve their m otivation. In public accounting, the work and, in most cases, the feedback concerning that work is given after the fact -review notes about the job, annual performance rev iews and, in many cases, discussions concerning why a promotion or a raise is no t going to happen because some unknown expectation has not been met. The one excuse given to most staff when they are not getting a promotion is Youre just not ready yet, but in most cases they have not been told what it takes to be ready. In effect we place most of our employees, and sometimes even partners, i n the coping mode much too often. If you want your employees more accountable yo u have to have to define success in advance of the task or period of time by usi ng what I call success plans. SUCCESS PLANNING Smart, younger individuals joining the accounting profession have often been ver y successful in their educational pursuits and are not used to failing. This typ ically is not the case in their first few years of public accounting, as its not uncommon to feel a little inadequate at the beginning of the profession. I know I felt like I didnt know much when I first joined the profession and was r eminded of it constantly by those above me. Everyone wants to be successful but to do so they have to know how to achieve that success in advance of their perfo rmance. Our profession, in general, does a very poor job of communicating performance ex pectationsaccording to a national survey of non-owner accountants I conducted sev eral years ago. A significant number of the respondants replied that they did no t know exactly what was required to get a raise or get promoted, nor did they ge t the feedback they felt they needed to be successful. What is needed is a formalized process to communicate the requirements for a spe cific task or position and how success will be measured. If improved accountabil ity is the goal all parties need to know what is required in advance. Review not es and backward looking evaluations might well have some influence on future per formance but do not have any impact on what has already taken place. There is a better way to get to get your partners and staff to take ownership and agree to be accountable. THE CYCLE OF ACCOUNTABILITY, PERFORMANCE AND SUCCESS To begin the cycle of accountability, performance and success (CAPS) the person i n the supervisory roll must clearly communicate the ultimate goal and help devel op a plan to achieve that goal. Whether the task is doing a tax return, auditing cash, responsibility for an entire client engagement or annual job performance

the time needed to complete the cycle will vary significantly but the CAPS proces s follows the same flow.