This is the last post in the 12 week series titled How To Develop A Leading And Productive Tax Team. Originally the #12 post was titled Time To Get Your Tax Team Offsite For The day- Why You Should Do It. Although I have now changed the title to A Wonderful Opportunity For Your Tax Team the purpose is the same. Leading a tax organization requires a lot of time, effort and understanding of how your team thinks and interacts. Knowing if your tax team is operating effectively is essential to your management success. Anyone who sits in front of the computer monitor each day knows that our minds get fixated on the screen, next email, next report, etc.. If you have more than 25 years of experience in the tax profession, you will be very aware of having the same experience I am about to describe for you. Years ago, our phones would ring incessantly and people would communicate in full sentences; however, the phone does not ring as much as before because everyone is now emailing, texting in short bursts of expressions and acronym’s, twittering in 140 characters or less, facebook and linking up in a variety of different ways on the web. If you stay away from your desk for a day, you arrive back to your computer screen to see you have 200-300 emails (I know I do). Whether you realize it or not your communication with others has been altered dramatically as you spend your day responding to emails and text messages and tweets. Give your tax team a wonderful opportunity to grow professionally by communicating offsite for a day or away from the distractions of their computers and cell phones.
There is an exercise I recommend you do once a month with your team and you do not need to go offsite. You will be surprised at the progress your tax team makes implementing this one idea once a month. Situate everyone away from their desks and distractions of any kind. Make certain they all have a notebook and pen when they meet with you so they can write down notes and ideas from the encounters. If you can put them in a circle are around a table facing each other it is best. Ask each of your team members to explain the 3 primary projects they are working on this month. Ask them what problems they have run into on this project or information they found interesting. You will uncover a great deal of valuable information about how your team is operating when you hear these responses. You will even uncover people who do not know what they should be doing. As you uncover what everyone thinks is a priority and learn about the projects they are working on, you can make more informed decisions in managing them and the tax reams priorities. Knowing this enables you to help them refocus on the most important tax department priorities, and enables the more experienced team members to assist less experienced members focus on what is important. Everyone has more projects than they can handle these days so prioritizing them is essential to your overall management success.
Managing your entire team in a way that keeps them in step with the rest of the team responsibilities is a wonderful skill. Engaging two, three or more minds on any particular problem usually turns up great ideas and solutions fast. When you are constantly facing tax deadlines, saving time is a valuable asset to your entire team. Taking the time to take a time out, so team members understand the priorities and the goals, makes it so much easier for the team to be more productive and successful together. Your ability to get your team offsite, away from their desks and computer screens, and communicating effectively their projects and ideas, is a very powerful management tool. It is a wonderful opportunity for you and your tax team to grow professionally together.
THIS IS #12 OF A SPECIAL 12 WEEK BLOG SERIES: HOW TO DEVELOP A LEADING AND PRODUCTIVE TAX ORGANIZATION IN 2016. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE A PDF OF ALL POSTS IN THIS 12 POST SERIES, PLEASE REGISTER HERE
—We Recommend You Read The Previous Blogs In This Series—
Kat Jennings, TaxConnections, CEO and Founder and Advisory Team provides three areas of services: 1) Internationally recognized, retained executive search services for multinational corporations, public accounting firms, and law firms; 2) Introductions of sellers to buyers of small and medium size accounting firms; and 3) Provide brand building and education services that support and prepare accounting firm owners to buy/sell an accounting practice. We focus on educating the journey to sell a practice and how to increase firm revenue prior to any sale. Our program ensures you start years prior to a sale by learning what is expected of you during the selling process, and introducing firm Partners to cross selling opportunities that are easy to implement and reduce your workload at the same time. We introduce you to value added connections to smartly grow revenue in your accounting practice.
Kat Jennings has been retained by organizations worldwide to locate tax professionals with highly specialized tax knowledge and expertise. She has a thorough understanding of the tax business community, with a proven record of stellar performances matching professionals with organizations. Bringing two parties together to work successfully is the art of understanding personalities, cultural fit, expectations by both parties, flexible or inflexible work environments, understanding what drives and motivates each party, and revolves around the personality and ethics of each executive team.
Kat is a widely recognized expert in high level, tax executive search, as well as connecting buyers and sellers of accounting firms. TaxConnections provides and educates small to medium size accounting firms owners and Partners how to prepare and sell their firms so they can build a succession plan for their retirement. With larger firms seeking to acquire smaller accounting practices, there is a real need to help firm owners prepare to be acquired. Most firm owners are unaware they are not ready to sell when they decide to retire. TaxConnections educates firm owners’ what they need to do years in advance of selling an accounting firm practice.
Senior tax executives expect the utmost privacy when being introduced to multinational organizations about a new tax opportunity under consideration. Having said that, companies searching for a new head of tax expecting tax executive candidates to submit their resume through a resume portal, will never see a full slate of outstanding tax executives available due to a candidates’ desire for greater privacy. This is why privacy focused Uber Tax Recruiters consistently outperform in-house recruiters on tax executive searches.
We offer our clients a Performance Retainer Agreement arrangement so their HR department can still recruit and compete with the tax candidates we present on Head of Tax searches. The client pays us a partial fee upfront, and if they find a candidate they deem better than we introduce to them, we forfeit the final fee. Most of the time, they love and prefer our private introductions to tax executive candidates better than what they source through their own resume portals.
When we represent selling/buying small to medium-sized firms, firm owners/partners also demand greater privacy when considering the sale of their practice. TaxConnections provides a safe place to discuss their business needs, elevate their practices’ online reputation, and increase revenue through new streams of business development by outsourcing work and partnering with other firms. Over three decades, we have worked tirelessly to build relationships between firm owners most organizations rarely have access to in the world of tax. There are numerous possibilities you may never have considered previously to bolster the value of your practice and service offerings.
As a globally recognized consultant to multinational organizations, accounting firms, and law firms searching for tax expertise, Kat has been retained by public accounting firms, law firms, and corporations worldwide including Apple Computer, AC Neilson, Accenture, Agilent Technologies, Allergan, Alza, American Express, American Media, Aon, Baker & McKenzie, Barclays Bank, Bechtel, Cargill, Carl Zieuss Vision, Century Aluminum, Chevron, Clorox, Citigroup, Commercials Metals, Constellation Energy, Countrywide, Del Monte, Deloitte Touche, DFS, DLA Piper, E&J Gallo Winery, Electronic Arts, Ernst &Young, Fox Entertainment, Fremont Investments, General Electric,General Motors, Herbalife, Hewlett Packard, Hyatt, Intel, Jones Lang LaSalle, Kimco Realty, KLA Tencor, Koch Industries, KPMG, Levi Strauss, Liberty Mutual, LKQ, Loews, Logitech, Lucas Film, Maersk, McKesson, Nalco, Newell Rubbermaid, Nissan, Oracle, Orbitax, Pacific Gas & Electric, PwC, QAD, SAIC, SanDisk, Sanmina, Sempra Energy, SONY, Synopsys, Ticketmaster, Trimble Navigation, Toyota, Univar, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo, Vertex, Yahoo, Xilinx, and many more not listed here.
Contact Kat at 858,999.0053 Office/858.232.4415 Cell or kat@taxconnections.com to request a private consultation regarding the sale of your practice, adding top talent to your organization, or merging your practice with another firm owner with a book of business. The possibilities are endless; if you have a dream of a new vision for your professional life; we will scout opportunities throughout the market to make it happen.
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