[TA27] Weathering the Storm with a Solid Strategy

Yesterday I faced the wrath of my very distraught and angry daughter.

Picking my daughter up from school at the scheduled time, I arrived right on time. Unfortunately, a storm hit that cause rain to fall in bucket loads that absolutely drench everything. She had waited 2 1/2 minutes in that storm saturated and looking for someone to let go at, I got both barrels.. for what I felt like 5 minutes, everything she had was off loaded at me. All I could do was wait, biting my tongue, assuming an appearance of calm and composure.

When she had finished, I calmly turned to her and followed a step by step approach I had learnt from a parenting book. Without this process, the situation would have most likely not been pretty for either of us, and probably involved me yelling back, etc. Thankfully, the platform approach resulted in handling the situation in a more constructive way and achieved an outcome both of us appreciated and we were able to move on with our day.

Often I run into accountants that are faced with factors they cannot control. Many are not responding well to the situation; they, like my daughter, are looking to offload and blame rather than dealing with the issues with a more constructive approach.

Before we implemented the foundations for growth in our practice, I found we didn’t address many external factors. Sometimes we didn’t even have time to deal with internal ones. This often lead to circumstance which forced us into action. I’m sure, looking back now, that this even created situation that seemed out of control when confronted with them.

However, through installing a ‘strategic platform’ we became experts at dealing with these issues and other seasonal fluctuation. Our Strategic platform is a structured way to ensure a practice moves with the market and perhaps more importantly, guarantees the partners implement ideas that accelerate growth.

How is your strategic platform? Do you feel that it is dealing proactively with issues that arise? Both external and internal ones. This approach was so important in my experience, that is now a non-negotiable for all firms I work with.