Culture Matters: Building the Wise Firm

A few years ago, my husband was offered a promotion in another state, in a location that did not have a HORNE office. This promotion was a wonderful opportunity for him, but not great news for me. Just a year before this news hit, I transitioned to a new director/performance advisor and I was just now hitting my stride. Moving was not in my plans, but I knew it was best for our family and that we had to take it. 

HORNE’s Growth Mindset Client Promises consists of four key commitments to our clients – DELIVER, COLLABORATE, ANTICIPATE, and CARE. It’s a cogwheel of promises that work in tandem with each other to ensure exceptional client service. Each gear contributes to our success as a firm and without strong elements from each present in our client interactions, the client experience will be diminished. Under the CARE attribute, we commit to first and foremost serve with a generous mindset. We accomplish this by committing to make every client interaction great, freely sharing our knowledge and experience, and proactively seeking client feedback to #beEvenBetter. We learn from our successes and failures with after-action reviews and aspire for clients to be our cheerleaders.

My husband and I live in New York and one morning on his routine walk to work he spotted a wallet that belonged to a young girl from Nebraska. It was fully intact with IDs, cash, credit cards, gift cards and stuffed with a variety of personal mementos that included a cruise key card.

Does collaboration really make a difference in the workplace? Does it make a difference for our clients? Does it make a difference in how everyone feels about their work family? Does it make a difference in how well they do their jobs?

Expanding your circle at work is extremely important to your career growth. Connecting with your peers and having additional sources of friendship and support will help improve overall job satisfaction and give you a stronger sense of belonging.

My family’s personal Fearless Unrivaled Flexibility (FUF) journey officially began about a year and a half ago. For the last 13 years, we’d been a family of three (or five if you count the dogs). During that time, the idea of expanding our family has been sporadically discussed. Commitments to our son, his sports, our relationship, our careers, and our family and friends were always excuses not to expand our family, but the thought always lingered in the back of our minds.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.”  - Proverbs 12:15

Here at HORNE, we are building the Wise Firm. That is our culture. We want to be like the wise man from the biblical parable who built his house on a strong foundation. When the great storms came, he was able to overcome because he had built his house on a solid foundation.