High Impact Leadership Guiding Your Team and Your Clients Toward

Effective Results

Joe Woodard WoodardTM

Copyright 2016 All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

About Joe Woodard

• About WoodardTM

• Professional Education

• Professional Networks

• Professional Coaching

• Technology Consulting

• Authorship/Think Tank

• 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016 – Top 100 Most Influential People by Accounting Today

• 2008 Top 40 Under 40 Up and Coming Thought Leaders by CPA Practice Advisor

Learning Objectives

• Straightforward, high impact leadership principles you can quickly apply to your client relationships

• Strategies for transforming your client interactions from compliance to consulting

• Methods for managing teams and team dynamics – both within your firm and within your clients’ organizations

• Strategies for guiding your clients through intensive change – key principles of change leadership

Behaviors of Effective Leaders

• Effective Leaders Cast Vision

• Effective Leaders Establish Culture

• Effective Leaders Build Teams

• Effective Leaders Empower People

• Bonus Segment: Effective Accountants ______?________

Effective Leaders…

Cast Vision

“You Must Unlearn What You Have Learned.”

“You Must Un-learn What You Have Learned.”

“Un-learnings About Vision”

• Vision is a Solo Activity

• We Cannot Change the Way We Work Toward the Vision

• The Passion of our Vision is Always Shared by the Masses

• The Accomplishment of Our Vision is a Personal Accomplishment (i.e. the vision is about me)

“Un-learnings About Vision”

Being

Being

Doing

Vision is about being something.

Mission is about doing something.

Discovering Your Vision

The Adjectives that Describe You

Who You Are

The 3-Way Intersection of Your

Higher Principle, Who You Are and The

Impact on Others

Your Vision The Specific Way You

are Going to Work Toward Your Vision

The statement that defines every action you perform as part of your mission and

purpose Your Mission

Your Purpose

An Example

Vision

Mission

Purpose

Foster networking relationships Conduct the highest quality learning experiences

Provide in-depth, highly relevant resources Generate consulting & partnership opportunities

We empower small business advisors.

To transform small business through small business advisors

Vision Casting

• Vision Casting is the Responsibility of Everyone in the Organization The Most Important Question: What Are You Doing?

• Conduct a Vision Inventory. In a Group Setting ask, “Why Are We Here?”

• Leverage Social Media Don’t Shout Disconnected Points. Tell a Coherent Vision Story.

• Make It Daily. Ask Yourself as the Leader, “What Have I Done Today to Work Toward Our Vision?”

The Obstacles to Fulfilling Our Vision

Obstacles

The Efficient

The Mundane

The Noisy

The Busy

The Painful

The Egotistical

The Uncertain

“You Must Un-learn What You Have Learned.”

Un-learning

Healthy Culture is Optional

Effective Leaders…

Establish Culture

Establish Culture: Start with the Right Words

• Team… Not Staff or Employees

• Team Leader… Not Supervisor or Boss

• Support Team… Not Administrators

• Reports… Not Subordinates

• Alignment or Strategy Meeting… Not Evaluation

Establish Culture: Get the Right People on the Bus

“People are not your most important asset. The right people are.”

--Jim Collins in Good to Great

Establish Culture: Recruit the Right People for the Bus

• Personality Testing (Personality Plus by Florence Littauer)

• Leadership Testing (The Synergist by Les McKeown)

• DISC Assessment

• At Least Three Interviews Conducted by:

• The Hire’s Direct Report

• The Hire’s Peer/Fellow Team Member

• An Objective Team Member

• The CEO/Managing Partner (Final Interview Only)

• Cast the Vision in the Final Interview and Measure the Reaction

Establish Culture: Keep the Right People on the Bus

• Establish Clear, Measurable Goals

• Establish Goals that are both Ambitious and Sustainable

• Measure Performance Incrementally… and Often

• Celebrate Victories Enthusiastically

• Be Direct about Failures Performance

Interaction

Pattern of Failure • Select for Removal

• Self-Select for Removal (The Ideal Option)

Establish Culture: Setting the Example

• Does Your Vision Still Inspire You?

• Does Your Mission Compel You?

• Are you a Purpose-Driven Leader?

• Do You Choose Results Over Status?

Effective Leaders…

Build Teams

“You Must Un-learn What You Have Learned.”

Un-learning

Different People with the Same Goals and Same Information

are Naturally Aligned

Building Teams: The Players

The Visionary

• Operating in Active Mode

• Operating in Idle Mode

• Hyperlinking

• Chasing Shiny Objects

• Highly Relative (will entertain incompatible notions for extended periods of time)

Rushes in where angels fear to tread.

Building Teams: The Players

The Operator • Idle Mode… What is an Idle

Mode?

• Tendency to Overcommit

• Dump Rather than Delegate

• Black and White (with actions)

• Success is Measured Based on Three Key Measurement Points:

1. Getting the Task Done

2. Getting the Task Done

3. Getting the Task Done

Protects the Visionary’s Fearless Journey

Building Teams: The Players

The Processor

• Chaos = Cripple

• Risk Averse

• Data Driven

• Black and White (with information and interpretation)

• Function Trumps Form (… or in the extreme function dictates form)

Creates maps, paves roads and creates a requisition

process for the angels to have a safe journey in the future.

Building Teams: The Players

Different Motivations

Visionary

• Start & Solve (Future)

Operator

• Finish & Fix (Present)

Processor

• Systemize & Measure (Past)

Incompatibility of Daily

Interaction and Exchange

Building Teams: The Players

Different Goals

Visionary

• Talk & Think (Future)

Operator

• Decide & Do (Present)

Processor

• Analyze & Align (Past)

Lack of Alignment

Building Teams: The Players

Different Perspectives

Visionary

• Patterns & Perspective (Mountain Top)

Operator

• Opportunity & Obstacles (Base Camp)

Processor

• Compliance & Scale (Training Camp)

Individual Achievement Trumps Team Achievement

“You Must Un-learn What You Have Learned.”

Un-learning

A Group of Individuals Working Together is a Team

Building Teams: Avoiding Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions

Invulnerability

No Innovation

Inattention to Results

Status-Driven Low Standards Ambiguity Artificial Harmony

No Purpose Mediocrity Personal Ambition No Meta Energy

Absence of Accountability

Lack of Commitment

Fear of Conflict

Absence of Trust

Team Behaviors: Absence of Trust

• Conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another

• Hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive feedback

• Hesitate to offer help outside their own areas of responsibility

• Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others without attempted to clarify them

• Fail to recognize and tap into one another’s skills and experiences

• Waste time and energy managing their behaviors for effect

• Hold grudges

• Dread meetings and find reasons to avoid spending time together

The Solution

• Create exercises that drive relationships below the surface

• Run personality and behavior profiles

• Create interaction environments (e.g. lunch and learn, social outings, team retreats, etc.)

• Create a zero tolerance policy on personal attacks

Team Behaviors: Fear of Conflict

• Have boring meetings

• Create environments where back channel politics and personal attacks thrive

• Ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success

• Fail to tap into all the opinions and perspectives of team members

• Waste time and energy with posturing and interpersonal risk management

• Encourage… but manage… tension

• Let debates run… up to a point

• Read body language and translate to English

• Foster debates/conflicts that are not related to the business (e.g. sports teams, Star Wars vs. Star Trek)… anything

• Lead by example, be…

• Quick to confront

• Quick to move on

The Solution

Team Behaviors: Lack of Commitment

• Ambiguity among the team about direction and priorities

• Watches windows of opportunity close due to excessive analysis and unnecessary delay

• Breeds lack of confidence and fear of failure

• Revisits discussions and decisions again and again

• Encourages second-guessing among team members

• Clearly define next steps

• Create communication requirements to extended teams accountability by direct reports

• Establish deadlines… and make them goal oriented

• Finish pro/con analyses with worst case scenarios

• Exposure therapy – force decision and evaluate outcomes

The Solution

Team Behaviors: Absence of Accountability

• Creates resentment among team members who have different standards of performance

• Encourages mediocrity

• Misses deadlines and key deliverables

• Places an undue burden on the team leader as the sole source of discipline

• Make deadlines and goals clearly known throughout the organization

• Provide frequent alignment meetings (i.e. “evaluations”) of direct reports

• Create very specific rewards… and hold fast to the standards

• Celebrate victories

• Empathetically coach to failures

The Solution

Team Behaviors: Inattention to Results

• Stagnates/fails to grow

• Rarely defeats competitors

• Loses achievement-oriented employees

• Encourages team members to focus on their own careers and individual goals

• Is easily distracted

The 5 dysfunctions build on each other cumulatively… as do the 5 functions of a team.

The solutions for the first four dysfunctions will solve for the final dysfunction

The Solution

Effective Leaders…

Empower People

Three Practical Ways to Empower Your Team

“You Decide”

“How Can I Help?”

“Let’s Have Breakfast” Empty

Your Cup

Work for Your Team

Delegate Authority

“You Must Un-learn What You Have Learned.”

Un-learning

Change Leadership is a Category of Leadership

All Leadership is Change Leadership

• Address our natural “negative outlook” on change head on “yes if” model)

• Focus on the positive outcomes of the additional effort

• Create a roadmap for the change and get team-level buy in

• Establish an environment of trust As Defined in Five Dysfunctions of a Team

The dread of a thing is always worse than the thing itself.

Effective Accountants… ?

Effective Accountants…

Lead Their Clients

“You Must Un-learn What You Have Learned.”

Un-learning

Being an Accountant Means Being a Trusted Advisor

Our Core Value Proposition

We Speak the Language

Our Core Value

Accounting gives us the ability to measure, interpret, analyze, make the right decisions, solve problems… to “radically impact the way small businesses operate.”

Bookkeeping Grammar

and Syntax Everything

Listed Above Poetry

Imprecise measurements of the right things are infinitely more valuable than precise measures of the

wrong things. -- Ron Baker

The Customer and Value Connection

Step 1: Think about how you purchase Become the customer

Step 2: Sell reactions and get those reactions through knowledge (your product)

“Customers will exchange their hard-earned money for only two things: good feelings and solutions to problems.” -- Ron Baker

Step 3: Always ask the customer, “What do you expect from us?”

Step 4: Exceed the customer’s expectations by transforming the customer The customer is your product

Step 5: Create Adaptive Capacity in your firm

•Use it for VIP customers with time sensitive needs

•Use it to increase your firm’s IQ

Our Profession is Bigger, Broader and Bolder

than assurance, compliance and record keeping.

Group Interaction

Complete the sentence

“Don’t sell me accounting services, sell me _________________.

Resources for Further Study (and Inspiration for this Session)

• The Servant Leader by James Hunter

• Good to Great by Jim Collins

• The Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast

• The Synergist by Les McKeown

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

• The Five Temptations of a CEO by Patrick Lencioni

Thank you for Attending!

Joe Woodard Woodard.com @joewoodard