Latest / The Accounting Podcast / Leading with Empathy: Building Teams That Thrive (from The Earmark Podcast)
Transcript
- Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding! Lisa Gilreath: [00:00:00] Star performers aren't immune from accountability, and often they perform really high. But you're going to see the other half of your team suffer in terms of their performance. So you have to look at it holistically. And if you're truly running into a situation where somebody is running afoul to your core values and they're creating a toxic culture, you do have to take action. Blake Oliver: [00:00:21] Are you an accountant with a continuing education requirement? You can earn free Nasba approved CPE for listening to this episode. Just visit earmarked in your web browser, take a short quiz and get your certificate. Welcome to the earmark podcast. I'm Blake Oliver, coming to you from Atlanta on the Advisory Amplified tour recording in front of a live audience. Today we're talking about leading with empathy, what it really looks like inside an accounting firm when deadlines hit, and how culture and communication translate into retention and results I'm joined by Valerie Heckman, accountant community manager at Onp. Valerie Heckman: [00:01:06] Hello. Hello. Blake Oliver: [00:01:08] Thank you for joining us. And Lisa Gilreath, managing partner at acuity and CAS partner at Sorren. Welcome, Lisa. Lisa Gilreath: [00:01:15] Thank you. Thanks for having me. Blake Oliver: [00:01:17] So empathy is not exactly a word that we tend to associate with the accounting profession. When deadlines hit, uh, pressure mounts, often we lose sight of the people in our organizations. Lisa, what does it mean to you as a leader of a firm to lead with empathy in the accounting profession? Lisa Gilreath: [00:01:43] I think that where we are as an industry with a staffing shortage and just an overall trend where people are tired of working to 60 and 80 hour weeks, that we have to really step back and look at how we build a healthier workforce and how we set ourselves up for success in the future so we have deadlines. I can't get away from the deadlines. We have to know what they are. But I can help alleviate the stress. I can put processes in place throughout the year to balance workloads, open up communication channels with my managers and with my team members so that if they need support, they have a way to raise their hand and get it. Blake Oliver: [00:02:22] You mentioned the long hours. You're putting systems, you've put systems and processes in place to alleviate that. Tell us about that. Like what does that mean when you say long hours? How is how is what you're doing different? Lisa Gilreath: [00:02:35] Yeah, we try not to burn our people out. Um, obviously we have a tax team right now that is heads down trying to get through the last of the 1015 deadline. And, um, I would say throughout the course of the year, we really work on spreading our work out. So we do a significant amount of coursework. It's on recurring and we're focused on being proactive in those interactions all year long. So hopefully we don't get down to the point where we're in the last week that we need to do it, but things happen. I can't eliminate all of the stressors, I can't eliminate the deadlines. And so we just have to be mindful about the fact that our team are humans, and they have human needs and families that have to be respected. Blake Oliver: [00:03:15] Why don't you want to burn them out? Lisa Gilreath: [00:03:18] They're really hard to replace right now. Blake Oliver: [00:03:20] Hard to replace. Yeah. So that there's there's a huge element of retention there in what you're talking about. It's it's about keeping our people happy, healthy. I mean, how much do you think about mental health? Lisa Gilreath: [00:03:35] Oh, I think about it a lot. Um, there's not a week that goes by that I don't have an interaction with one of my team members that requires me to kind of step into that space of, of empathy, and they present a situation. And I really have to think like, is this accounting work the most important thing at this point? And it's usually not. So there's lots of places that we can give along the way to respect people's time and their families, so that when we do have to have them lean in, they lean in because you've given on the other side. And so, yeah, it's a constant struggle. I'm worried about our team making sure that they have balanced lives. I think right now with the pace of change, um, in the industry, you have to meet people where they are. Um, it can be really overwhelming for some of our people who are looking at industry transformation and are change resistant. Right? We liked that about them for a really long time, is that they followed the process and they didn't question the process, and they knew what they needed to do. They had their checklists. And now we are in the place of an entirely new industry with AI coming in, where we have to have people communicate. We're asking them to talk to clients, and they've never had to talk to clients. They just had to fill out the form. And so how do we bring those people along at their pace as well as the pace of the industry? Blake Oliver: [00:04:54] Valerie, you've been working with accountants for a long time now. Do you think that this empathy skill is something that leaders can learn, or is it just an innate quality? Valerie Heckman: [00:05:07] That's a really good question. And, uh, you know, I think my views on that have evolved. So when I first started in this profession, I came into a job interview and I didn't have experience with payroll and accounting technology, and I thought that was going to prevent me from getting the job. It was a customer success role, a support role. And I got told, well, we can teach you the software, we can teach you the tax law, but we can't teach you to care about other people. So I could exhibit that. And that came really naturally for me. And I kind of built my my personal life up and my, my career to that date around sales and relationships and those things. And so that tended to be really helpful for me. But I do think and we talked about this a little bit before, that the experiences that you, that you glean and the people that you work with. I do think that that can be taught or it can be improved. And if somebody doesn't kind of naturally have that tendency towards caring and nurturing, they can usually meet somebody where they where they need to be, right, and implement some things to help with that or find the right people to sort of sit in between. And you had a really great suggestion around that. I don't know if you're saving it for later around, like bringing in the right people when you need a more empathetic voice or another voice in the conversation. Lisa Gilreath: [00:06:31] Yeah, I would say, um, personal crisis, tragedy or challenges. Never check your calendar to see if you have time to deal with them. Never. And so I think as we build firms and we often run lean, we have to make sure that as firm leaders, we have a contingency plan for what happens if one of your people has one of these, um, personal tragedies. And, um, when you're thinking about leading with empathy. The counter to that is sometimes in small firms in particular, you build family relationships with your team members, right? You're very close to them. You hire people, you know. And so as these things happen, it's really hard to separate the business with the person. And so as you're entering into kind of some of those situations, I would encourage everybody to have their phone, a friend on speed dial, some sort of an HR expert or somebody that can help you be objective into this because, you know, can you afford to can you afford to have somebody on payroll that's not producing, you know, how do you work through those types of situations where you can give the person what they need in terms of support? So understanding your benefits packages and how your benefit benefit packages support an empathetic conversation is really important. But then also having that sounding board for you as a leader in a situation that can be really difficult. Blake Oliver: [00:08:02] So what I'm hearing here is that in order to support our people, when an emergency hits, you have to have the like, slack on the team or the capacity to pick up that work. How much do you think like in a traditional firm like is it is that the problem? I mean, I feel like a lot of times we, we plan out 100% capacity or 100% realization. That's that's what I mean. Like, all of our people have to be productive all the time. So there's no slack for when life happens. Lisa Gilreath: [00:08:40] Yeah, absolutely. I do think that we have to plan for, you know, less than 100%. Right. Realistically, somewhere between probably 75 to 80%. And that's where the AI tools, you know, start coming into play of like how much extra time can you bring back in so that you're not working people. Um, you know, to the absolute fringe. I think diamond mentioned that in her piece of like, hey, how do we get our time back that we've been been wanting? So, um, yeah, you have to build in the extra capacity. You can't you can't run the people to the absolute end and expect not to be in a crisis situation. If somebody has an issue. Blake Oliver: [00:09:20] Can you make this real for us? Do you have an example of a of a situation where like this happened and you had to and you had to take take care of it? Lisa Gilreath: [00:09:29] Yeah, I mean, acuity has been in business for 20 years and, and we've seen some stuff along the way and it's not um, it's not easy. We've had employees, um, unexpectedly pass away, and they were there one day and now they're not. We have had, um, team members who have lost a spouse or had medical emergencies with their families. And the most important thing that they needed to do that moment was to go be in the hospital with their family. And so I always encourage my team members to, um, you know, build our workflows and build our communication patterns so that if you need to leave unexpectedly, we've got your back. Like, help us help you. Um, it's not about micromanaging. It's not about, you know, over being overly burdensome, but it is about making sure that when you need to be with your family, there's a place for us to come in and respect the client relationships. I also think, you know, when we think about, um, empathy and and leading with empathy, we've got to have boundaries around our clients on what that looks like, um, so that we aren't putting unnecessary burdens on the clients. But your best clients will often, especially in the cast side of things, will often see you as an extension of their teams. And once you have that relationship and you've built that trust, they're usually pretty forgiving when something happens and you have to swap out staff, um, you know, to kind of work through those issues. Blake Oliver: [00:10:55] But sometimes clients aren't forgiving. Um, sometimes they can be really hard on our people. How do you handle when a client is is is being unreasonable with your team? Lisa Gilreath: [00:11:08] Yeah. They're probably not going to be a client for much longer. Valerie Heckman: [00:11:10] Yeah. Lisa Gilreath: [00:11:11] Um, yeah. No, I mean, we are a values based organization, so we hold our team members to values. We also hold our clients to values. Um, this is how we intend to operate. This is what it looks like. Um, you know, as part of the larger organization, we're starting this new, very structured client inventory process where we kind of look at the clients that we have and make sure that they're still a right fit for the client, for the firm, and what we're trying to do not to just call the bottom of the bottom, but to make sure that where we are out of alignment with values, that we have an opportunity to reset those expectations. Blake Oliver: [00:11:45] Valerie, you get to work with firms all across the country. Um, Lisa and Acuity. And now as part of Soarin, they really seem to be matching their actions with their words. Yeah. What do you see as the biggest gaps? Val, when it comes to what firms say and what they actually do? Valerie Heckman: [00:12:09] Sure. Yeah. You know, I, uh, I do get a behind the scenes peek at a lot of different firms and what they're doing. And there there's always signs, right. You can tell when you're working with a firm especially I did a session today where I was talking about client experience and onboarding. And onboarding is an area that I've been involved with in firms of all sizes over the last decade. And when the firm culture has challenges, when when people feel like they're not seen and heard, that there's sort of top down decisions that they're not involved in, I think that really impacts the overall approach to things and the relationships that they're able to even build with outside vendors. They might come across as cold and distant to the process because they're not bought into it. The firms that really, I think, have an easier time navigating change and navigating the change management are the ones that have a collaborative and, uh, I don't know, inclusive environment when it comes to making changes and making those decisions. Uh, so that's something I think I see as a gap is are you making top down decisions? Or then there's the opposite where the the client is completely driving the car. And you talked about that earlier, where things can get out of hand if the client is making all the decisions around the tools that you use or the services and what's included. Valerie Heckman: [00:13:34] And so it's finding that balance of being able to to say, hey, this is how we do things here. These are the values we're operating under. These are the tools we're using. But really getting the team's collaboration and revising that over time and figuring out what's what's causing them the most grief, what might be causing the clients the most confusion. Uh, and it's not easy to build that. There's no real magic wand to say, like, let's improve the culture around collaboration. But I think that we've got to take those empathetic steps. And then one of the things that is really interesting, kind of coming back with the innate empathy, is really figuring out the personalities that you have on your team and what might be missing to be able to look at all those things end to end, and be able to have the people who lean into the client experience that really lean into how people are going to feel about what's going on. And then the the doers, the tactical, the more like, hey, we're going to get into the nitty gritty details of what's happening, not just how people feel and finding ways to balance and sort of meet in the middle on that too, makes a big difference. Blake Oliver: [00:14:40] That's a really good point about identifying like the strengths, the traits of the people on your team and putting them in the right roles. I feel like a lot of times we we take high performers and we stick them in a particular role because that's traditionally where they go, but that may not be the right place. Lisa, how do you do that at acuity? How do you make sure that your people are are not just doing what they're good at, but doing what they like to do? Lisa Gilreath: [00:15:07] You have to talk to them first. We can't. Blake Oliver: [00:15:10] Just. That's easy. Lisa Gilreath: [00:15:11] I mean, we can't assume that the job that they came in at is the only job that they ever want to do. And so building those converse, those collaborative conversations into your goal setting and your performance management processes is the first step. But I think it goes even further in, um, as you're having ongoing work conversations and you're using metrics to measure people, you know, thinking about, like what's on track and what's off track and why is it off track, um, and opening space to have collaborative conversations, not just you're not meeting the goal, but like, why are you not meeting the goal? Um, and really then leaning into, oh, well, let's try it this way and see where we can expand people's skill set because you might open them to a new possibility and an interest that that drives great value for your firm. Right. Like, oh gosh, they're really great in sales and you need that or they're really great in marketing. Um, and I think, you know, going back to the skills that you need, the communication and the collaboration, like as we think about hiring profiles going forward, we have to be hiring for adaptability. Mhm. Um, because you know how people are curious how they engage in, um, kind of watching the landscape change and engaging with that will pay it forward so much more than those who are just going to be in their box. Blake Oliver: [00:16:42] So where do you find those adaptable people? Where do you look for. Lisa Gilreath: [00:16:48] I'm looking at the kids. Blake Oliver: [00:16:49] Yeah. Lisa Gilreath: [00:16:50] I'm really encouraged about the college kids right now. Um, because they're living in this world where now ChatGPT and AI is just part of the norm. You know, my kids, I've got older kids are 21 and 25. Um, you know, they've never lived in a world without a cell phone or an internet connection. And we thought that was a big deal then. But now they're coming into young adults and professional careers where fundamentally AI is expected to be part of the process. And so they're unafraid. They will just try anything. And so, um, I'm really encouraged to kind of watch the new grads that are coming out right now because I think they're going to be, um, change makers that, that we need. Blake Oliver: [00:17:31] And do you think that's like in, in accounting and accounting programs? Are you just saying in general, like coming out of college in general, what do you think of like how we are producing accountants right now? Lisa Gilreath: [00:17:43] Oh, we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. Um, no, I'm encouraged by seeing some of the programs and some of the changes that the programs at the university level are, are doing. But I think with all things in education, there's a leap from like general education and degree and actual experience. And so it's how we bring the experience to our new grads and really bring them along. Like, I think the days of just saying you're a staff one and you're just going to do this, I think those are limited. I think you're going to have to bring them into the conversations earlier and often, because you're going to need them to move up the, um, the development curve a lot faster than we have expected in the past. Blake Oliver: [00:18:30] So, Val, Lisa said, we know we need to talk to our people. Obviously that's very important, um, to to find out what's in their heads, what's going on. And it's funny, I it sounds like obvious when you say it, but it doesn't happen nearly enough. Right? Lisa. So, um, Val, I'm wondering, like from the perspective of payroll HR. Is there anything in the data that we can look to, to, uh, to like spot problems before they develop or, or figure out, like, what should we pay attention to when it comes to that? Valerie Heckman: [00:19:07] Yeah. Yeah, that's a big question. And before I lose it, I am going to say, I think it's really interesting seeing how some of the firms who who do have some of these challenges with either client experience or employee experience, bringing in people from like nontraditional accounting, uh, majors and career paths. Uh, that's, I think, really an interesting thing, which we can come back to. But to answer your question, you know, payroll data does indicate a lot of stuff. And I think a lot of firms think about that with their clients. Right. If you're involved in payroll, you might be seeing some patterns, seeing some trends along the way. Um, particularly I think, with, with your clients that have hourly employees. But I don't see a lot of firms doing this with their own payroll, is really looking at kind of the story that's told, and you don't necessarily have the the hours and the overtime to indicate that your people are working too much. And you probably you don't need that to tell you that your people are working too much. But what about PTO? I think PTO tells a big story because if people are using aren't using it, that's a sign, right? Are they afraid to use it? Do they feel like if they use it, they're not contributing enough to the team? Do they feel like they have too much of a workload to take those days off? Um, I know my my own mother would go years without using a single hour of vacation time because she was afraid to to step away from the work because she'd be so far behind that she would just spend the whole day off worrying anyway. Valerie Heckman: [00:20:39] Um, so people aren't using their PTO. And then there's also the like, if people are using it so much that they're disengaged, right? They're they're trying to get away from it. You kind of wonder, are they are they using PTO to look for another job or what are they doing, like the like last minute requests or the kind of feeling, feeling like they're quite quitting? Uh, I think the payroll data can show that as well. Um, and then benefits too. If you do have HR folks that can really kind of look, look at that and see what people are utilizing and not utilizing. I think that can tell a story as well. Blake Oliver: [00:21:16] That's such a good point about PTO. We often give it out as a benefit, and then we don't really pay attention to it other than if somebody, say, using I don't know too much of it, but we don't we don't think about our people using enough of it. Like people need a break. Valerie Heckman: [00:21:33] They do. Yeah, we have it for a reason. Uh, and, and I know that there are some firms that explore unlimited PTO and then people really have that, like, ooh, how much is too much? And well. Blake Oliver: [00:21:44] But people don't actually use their PTO as much when they have unlimited. Right? That's, that's that's a fact. So if you're going to have a policy like that, you have to do something to get them to take it. Do you, do you what do you do, Lisa? Lisa Gilreath: [00:21:58] We have a PTO policy, so we have a defined PTO plan for people. But I think what's interesting when we think about PTO is what I hear in my firm is I'm going to take PTO, but I'll check in every day. Valerie Heckman: [00:22:12] Mhm. Blake Oliver: [00:22:13] Yeah that's good. Lisa Gilreath: [00:22:14] But why like don't like you need to take the break. And so I do encourage people to make sure that they, they take the PTO. But there is this type a personality of the accountant who is always going to feel like the emails build up and I have to deal with it. Blake Oliver: [00:22:29] Right. Because when I come back, I'm going to have this giant workload to deal with. So how do I really take time off? Valerie Heckman: [00:22:35] And so can you triage like one of the best leaders I ever had. It was very much like everyone is going to use their vacation time, and there's going to be a buddy system so that you know who's going to check in on your stuff or have the email address that if this is truly an emergency, and I think that's a big deal in payroll teams, right to say like, again, kind of coming back to my mother who has spent her career in it and she has done provisioning and payroll and things inside of, um, big, big enterprise organizations. And she would never, ever take a day that payroll needed to be run or the day after in case there were mistakes off. And I respect that in some ways. But I'm also like, what? But what? You can't go on a family vacation because there's payroll. There's always payroll. There's payroll every week. So how can you say, okay, we've got somebody that has your back for this. They're going to monitor things. You've got the phone number. I mean, most pieces of accounting aren't emergencies. Payroll is kind of the rare exception. When there's an emergency, it really does trickle and impact a lot of lives. But still, how can you build those systems, those and build the trust that that's actually going to work that somebody is not going to drop the ball while someone is taking that much needed break. Lisa Gilreath: [00:23:55] And this is where standardization and standard scope of services come into play. Because if you do have standard scope of services for your transactional stuff, you can plug and play people paying bills is paying bills. Doing payroll is doing payroll. It's just a matter of where you get that source data. And so that's where your process is kind of lead into building balanced workflows for your team. Blake Oliver: [00:24:16] I love it. Technology and process makes our people not burn out and able to take a vacation. It all ties together. Um, let's let's let's pivot now to the the one issue that I have heard, uh, so much in our profession. And I hear it all the time. It's it's it's a high performer who is toxic, right? Toxic employees. Lisa, what do you do? How do you handle the situation where somebody who's, like, really good at their job is also not very good at making other people feel good. Lisa Gilreath: [00:24:55] Um, so in general, toxic workers will take you down. Um, and so, um, when I find myself in a situation where I have somebody who's kind of creating chaos. Um, I start from a place of curiosity. Um, how did we get here? What's going on with them? Maybe personally? Or is there a misaligned expectation in terms of their role, that they think that they don't have to play well with others? So that's kind of the first step of from my standpoint, let's let's start from the beginning. What did they know? How would they know what the rules were? What are the non-negotiables. Have we communicated all of that? You know, star performers aren't immune from accountability and often they perform really high. But you're going to see the other half of your team suffer in terms of their performance. So you have to look at it holistically. Um, and if you're truly running into a situation where somebody is running afoul to your core values, and they're creating a toxic culture. You do have to take action. And, um, empathy goes both ways. It's not just to the individual that we have the concern about, but it's also to the other team members that are having to pick up the slack and ultimately are potentially going to be resentful for you not taking action quick enough. Blake Oliver: [00:26:09] It's viewing that as a as a you're you're viewing the team overall the you're having empathy for the whole team, not just for individuals. Yeah, yeah. Valerie, do you have one practical step that our audience could take this week to lead with more empathy? If you had to choose one thing, what would it be? Valerie Heckman: [00:26:34] You know, I think that the biggest thing is pausing, you know, taking that time when something happens, when something comes up, when there's an experience with a worker or with a team dynamic and saying like, okay, we're going to we're going to pause, we're going to sleep on it. We're going to think through that, that plan versus immediately engaging, uh, and really setting that up for yourself. Because I think that that's one area where highly empathetic people tend to want to jump in and resolve the conflicts or come up with a solution right away. A lot of us are major problem solvers. We want to jump in and solve the problem. Sometimes letting something sit and then really taking an intentional step, reflecting on it, and coming up with a game plan can make a big difference. So and encouraging other people to pause too, especially if they are, um, are prone to like really wanting to jump in on things. Blake Oliver: [00:27:33] How about you, Lisa? If you had to give me or our audience one tip for being more empathetic as a leader, what would it be? Lisa Gilreath: [00:27:42] Um, I would engage your team in some sort of a Discussion around a problem or project and just listen to how they think. Um, because they will often lead with things that are coming from a place of fear or concern. Um, it's all about the what abouts piece of it rather than the solutions, and it really gives you insight on the underlying things that they're worried about and how you problem solve for those, and how you might need to fix those before you can actually fix the core problem. Because often what I find is really it's not what people say, it's what they don't say and what it looks like for them to disengage. So people who are normally really quick to respond, and then all of a sudden you see that their response times are getting slower, or people who are known to be really strong with clients. And then all of a sudden you see that their deliverables are getting slower. That's usually a sign to some underlying problem that needs to be addressed. And we want to protect people's privacy. Um, but you have to create some, some paths for them to be able to escalate and get support. Blake Oliver: [00:28:51] And going back to what you said about process and technology, if you don't have that in place, you can't really detect this. You can't see that things are slower. You don't have visibility. Lisa Gilreath: [00:29:04] Yes and no. Like I'm watching communication patterns. So noticing that I'm noticing when people are no longer engaging in slack conversations at the same pace that they once were, they're not showing up in meetings and being as talkative as they once were. So yeah, there is the like watching the deliverables from your practice management system and seeing the time. But, um, you know, earlier we called it soft skills and debated hard skills. It's really power skills, right, of what we're looking for. Like when are people, um, who used to be perceived or have been perceived as being really strong team members and all of a sudden, like their performance is declining, but you can't put your finger put your finger on exactly what's happening. Um, those are the team members you have to reach out to and potentially say, hey, this is what I'm seeing. Where do you need support? Because they just may not be comfortable asking for it. Blake Oliver: [00:30:00] I think that's a great way to end this. Unless, Valerie, I. Valerie Heckman: [00:30:03] Was going to say, and I think that when I talk about pausing and having those reflections, it's also that pausing so that you can ask the right questions and not make the assumptions about some of those things, because it could be, yeah, that they've got something going on that they're not comfortable bringing to the table yet. Right. Something going on personally some some professional challenge that they're facing with what's going on. Um, but yeah, having asking those good questions is a big piece of getting through that and not just making those those assumptions on it and looking for the patterns over time, I think is big, not just, oh, this person's having a bad day. And so we're assuming or we're kind of kind of run into that, um, that challenge of like, oh, this is a big problem. Can we back up? Backup, but. Blake Oliver: [00:30:48] You're making the space for them to have that conversation with you and and really dig into what is happening. Lisa Gilreath: [00:30:54] Yeah. I mean, I will say it time and time again for my people, but I am their number one advocate. Um, that is my role. Like, we are a professional services company and they are my engine and I know that. But my role is not just to drive them to production, it's really to advocate for their needs, um, across the firm. And so if I'm not the person that you can reach out to, I promise you, like, I have got paths for you to go raise your concern and get escalated. Blake Oliver: [00:31:21] Lisa, Valerie, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot, and I think our audience did too. Lisa Gilreath: [00:31:29] Thanks for having. Speaker4: [00:31:29] Me. Thank you.