Culture Matters: Building the Wise Firm

A few months ago, our HORNE team launched a feedback movement designed to help us capitalize on our greatest opportunity, GROWTH.  As we all work together to build the Wise Firm, the most critical component to each of our building blocks is the growth of our team members. That means being fully engaged in our personal growth and development while helping our fellow team members grow and develop. This is the only way we will all reach our full potential.  Feedback helps us accelerate this growth. And accelerating the growth of our team members is vital to our firm’s success. 

As Partner Rusty Butcher shared in last week’s blog, advancing women into leadership roles is a critical focus for both HORNE and the profession.  At the same AICPA women’s summit that Rusty attended, Executive Partner Joey Havens and I served on the panel that addressed sponsorship and advocacy in the profession—which, unfortunately, for most can be a check-the-box exercise unless our mindsets change along with our methods. 

I’ll never forget my first job after college. I had co-workers that felt like family, and a true sense of belonging. Though happy, I began to question the growth opportunities in my position.

I was young in the workforce and eager for more. So, I began the job search again and landed a position with a national company. I got the chance to learn more, do more and grow more. Yet, at the end of the day, I still wasn’t happy. I was simply just a blip on an 80,000+ employee radar and lacked a sense of belonging.

“Creative accounting”… When you search Wikipedia for “cooking the books,” you are cross referenced to creative accounting. It’s interesting to me that this euphemistic term has such a negative connotation. It has long been a way of referencing accounting practices that may literally uphold the laws and regs under which we practice, but often practices that miss the intent, or spirit, of the law. I want to challenge this way of thinking about creative accounting.  Why? Because I know that creativity in the accounting profession is a requirement—we’re not compromising ethical standards, not at all. But the concept of creativity means understanding that business as usual is not at all the business of the future. Or, as we say at HORNE, status quo is not an option!