The Longer Road

By Ben Towne, CPA

By now I hope everyone in the profession has heard about mandatory peer review. Starting as early as July 1, 2011, all practitioners performing attest services will be required to undergo a peer review process once every three years. For many CPAs, this process is old hat. But for some, this is a new compliance horse pill. If you are a newcomer to peer review, or just want to know more about the topic, visit the CalCPA website for resources, including local peer review firms. Peer review is designed to raise the level of quality and professionalism for all firms. In the long run, it should be an important part of the profession policing itself.

In July, our chapter held its first-ever Green Committee event. CJ Aberin from KBKG flew in from Southern California to talk about green building tax incentives. Attendees were reminded that “green business” is a popular and, in many circumstances, prudent and profitable business practice. Did you know that California’s stringent Title 24 building standards generally exceed federal tax credit standards for new buildings? My thanks go out to Bert Taube and the Green Committee for taking the first step in our chapter’s promotion of long-term, sustainable business practices.

It is a truism that a leader must have vision. After all, if not you as the leader, then who will think strategically for your team? Having vision is easy to say, but can be hard to implement. Most leaders seem to be able to get to step one and define a vision. Some will even be able to define goals and communicate the vision to their team. However, it is rare to maintain that vision effectively over time.

Many of us in public accounting are doers by nature. I believe that we find it easy and satisfying (and sometimes even necessary) to roll up our sleeves and dig into the work right alongside our team members. However, this attitude can also lead to our strategic undoing. How often do we forget to lift our heads from our task and think about that task’s fit with our long-term vision?

The vision we create reflects how we strive to conduct our lives and our businesses, so it is imperative that we occasionally take stock of what we are doing and why we are doing it. Can we, or should we, be doing something differently or simply spending our time doing something else? Do our goals need to be reset or altered to better fulfill the vision? Are there any short-term goals or tasks that are at odds with the long-term vision?

I believe the singular gift that a leader contributes to a team—the one thing that no one else has—is the ability to harness the power of a team’s individuals to fulfill a unified vision. It is on us then, as leaders, to always keep that vision in focus even in the midst of accomplishing daily miracles.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 2nd, 2010 at 3:24 pm and is filed under President's Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.