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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

What Empowerment Can Do for Your Team

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Unlock intellect and innovation.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

“If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.” – Kobe Bryant

I do a lot of work with firms to help them improve their project management, where everything is color-coded as red, green or yellow, depending on how the project is going. Frequently what I initially see is that everything is green for weeks on end, but still no nearer completion.

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My instinct tells me that those projects that were green four weeks ago really weren’t green then. But out of fear of retribution, the staff were all afraid to tell the partner that something wasn’t going as well as expected. It takes about three to four weeks before people start being sincere about the job status.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

It’s Time for a New CPA Career Track

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How are you assessing your team?

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

I’m fortunate to have two great former auditors working with me in Accountability Plus – my son Tyler Anderson and Corey Schmidt, who met working together as auditors. But that firm – like most firms – was focused on total hours worked and realization rates, and had no tracks for auditors who didn’t fit in the normal staff to senior to supervisor to manager to partner progression.

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As Corey told me, “Tyler and I were good with workflow management and managing processes, and that’s what our firm should have had us focus on.” Corey demonstrated that when he was assigned the employee benefit plan practice at that firm, and through his leadership, improved fee realization from 60 percent to 100 percent.

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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

What Empowerment Does for Your Firm

two men talking across a table, one holding a sheet of paper, window and brick wall in background

Ten ways to get started.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

Empowerment seems like it would be the easiest attribute to build up in a firm, but it’s actually one of the hardest. Firms go to these Kumbaya events on leadership and trusting your team, but then when they go back to the office the next day, nothing has changed.

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Empowerment is last in my book because it’s the furthest from what clients value most. Clients look at What’s In It For Me – they value what’s relevant to them. But empowerment is the most important attribute in our framework. It’s the key to unlocking the power of your team.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Six Skills That Every Auditor Needs

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Empowerment is for the whole organization, not just the rookies.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

Empowerment means that teams feel like they have ownership over the outcome, outputs and the process of what they are doing. They need to feel it’s OK to try doing things differently and even to make a mistake – and learn from it. The quality of everyone’s work improves when they have the confidence to present new ideas, and to push back when they think there’s a better way to do something. And empowerment delivers results – especially when it is partnered with owned accountability.

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Unfortunately, most of us have a better idea of what an empowered team and empowering managers do not look like than what they do look like. Let’s look at a few of the ones you may have seen in your time working.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Is Your Staff Truly Empowered?

Three people having discussion at table over document and water glasses

This doesn’t overlook accountability. Quite the opposite.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

I don’t know if it was luck or by design, but when I started out at McGladrey, I landed on a team that was already doing the kinds of innovative work that I coach teams today to try out. I’ve never been a status quo type of person, so that resonated with me. I was always trying to find a better way to do things.

In my first six months, we were already working with data, using the primitive data software tools available back then, or, more likely, that we built ourselves. I was in an environment that created the art of what’s possible. We were willing to try new things. I didn’t have mentors or co-workers who would tell me “That’s not the way we do it here,” so I was able to actually do the things I thought about.

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Audit Has Become an Exercise in Filling Out Forms

Back then, at the beginning of my career, we weren’t under fee or time pressure. We were encouraged to talk to the client, to ask questions and to understand their business. But as fixed fee and fee pressures started to grow, the mindset of audit became focused on getting the work done quickly, not on providing insights or value to the clients. The empowerment mindset that I got from my team in those early days began to fade.
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