Culture Matters: Building the Wise Firm

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.

Recently, I participated in a couple trail races at Bogue Chitto State Park in Franklinton, LA. We were warned that there would be a stream crossing on the 10 mile course, and two crossings on the 13 mile course. Photos of said crossings, a log placed from bank to bank, had been posted in advance. The photos didn’t do justice to the way it looked in my mind's eye. We were alerted far enough in advance for me to obsess about how much I dislike narrow bridges and about how little trust I have in my balance. I also thought about how much time I would waste trying to talk myself across and about everything that could possibly go wrong.

HORNE was recently certified as a Great Place to Work®, with a 91 percent approval rating. One of the open-ended questions asked team members to describe one unique thing that makes HORNE such a great place to work. As I reviewed those comments, culture was the repeated theme throughout the list. More specifically, our flexibility philosophy was at the top of the list.  

I grew up in a diverse family—four sisters, one brother, three races, and a 75 year age span between the family members that still lived in my parent’s house in Tennessee. I’m so blessed to be part of a family with so many perspectives, learning to empathize with others’ positions rather than automatically becoming judgmental. As you might expect, getting along with everybody all the time wasn’t always easy. I remember one particular instance when my 5-year-old brother and 13-year-old sister were having a particularly difficult time refraining from killing each other. My mom, the wisest person in the world, pulled my sister aside and told her “I know your brother is hard to deal with and sometimes really hard to like. You know how the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second is to love others? Well, your brother was made in the image of God. You have to love him.” Mic drop.

Every day, I have the same question lingering in the back of my brain. How am I adding value and making a difference at HORNE—both internally and externally? This is a question I wrestle with regardless of self-evaluations and alignment conversations. Those just prompt us to quickly put pen to paper and formalize the question. But that constant lingering is why I’ve challenged myself to write this very blog. And, when I did, came to some very basic conclusions that I want to share with you.

Three years ago, an internal survey of our team members shined a spotlight on an area we realized we had to be intentional to overcome: Leadership Diversity. Without intent, the unconscious bias of our current leaders would most likely result in the growth and promotion of other team members who reminded them of themselves. We know our future relevancy depends on diversity of thought which comes from diversity of experiences. So, with the introduction of our Belonging at HORNE Sponsorship and Advocacy program, we set out to increase transparency around leadership development, create access and drive diversity in leadership across the firm.

The most read blogs from 2016 paint a clear picture that culture matters. Some are funny, some are heartwarming, but the most impactful were clearly the blogs where our team members didn't shy away from hard topics and felt empowered to share their personal stories. Here’s a look back on the best blogs from 2016. Enjoy!

Our Executive Partner Joey Havens presented “Creating a Culture of Innovation” at the Digital CPA Conference this week in Las Vegas.  Among other things, he shared our belief that a strong culture leads to innovation. It’s true, we didn’t specifically set out to be an innovative firm, instead we set out to create a culture with a strong sense of belonging, a place where team members felt safe to make mistakes and then learn from them, and mindset to challenge the status quo daily. Read more about our journey and HORNE’s Principles for a Culture of Innovation in Joey’s beBetter blog below.   

I had the opportunity to attend the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Global Women’s Conference in Boston in November. I left feeling energized as I watched a majority room of women seeking to understand what the workforce of the future looked like. A future full of companies who are actively working to create an environment where employees feel included and recognized for the contributions they make to their companies. There were a number of sessions with a wealth of information, but there were a few particular individuals that left their mark engraved in my mind as they represented the very culture we envision and are working together to build at HORNE. They were each unique in their own right, bringing fresh perspectives and challenging old conversations.