The Exuberant Accountant - Scott Heintzelman

Servant Leadership

One subject that I love to talk about is Servant Leadership.  I have read many books on the subject and have seen this modeled in my life - at home and here at McKonly & Asbury.  In order to put this in practice, it requires that I leave my comfortable office and go serve. One way I do that is serving on nonprofit boards. Since we’re a CPA firm with a large concentration of our clients in Dauphin and Lancaster County, we encourage our entire team to volunteer their time with causes that engage them to serve because we think it’s our charge to give back to others. I currently serve on the board of an organization called The Naaman Center.  This organization uses the 12-step program to help people overcome the horrible impact of drug and alcohol addiction.  I thought I would share the most recent newsletter so you can read firsthand about the impact they are making.

Best Practices related to Intellectual Capital and Technology

I spent the past 3 days in Kansas City attending The Boomer Consulting Circle Summit, an Accounting Industry Summit on Technology, Human Capital and trends in the world of Public Accounting.  This group represents approximately 50 of the largest 100 CPA firms in the country. This is a great way for McKonly & Asbury to challenge old assumptions, confirm we are on the right track and learn best practices and trends across the country and the world in general.

 

Some key topics related around:

•           Security - The project of securing McKonly & Asbury's data will never end.  We strive to keep up in a fast changing environment. According to the FBI, 80 percent of attacks come from internal sources.  That percentage may be low. All companies need to have security awareness training.

Strategic Leadership

I recently read a great post on leadership at the Leaders’ Log.   The post is written by Michael Keller of Keller Consulting Group.

Mission, vision, values, goals, objectives, and strategic planning are just some of the leadership buzzwords of the late 20th Century. Virtually all professional executives have attempted to understand what all the buzzwords mean and make them a reality. Few have succeeded and most continue to search for what bridges the gap between leadership theory and leadership reality. That bridge may well be the new buzzwords for the 21st Century. They are “Strategic Leadership”.

Strategic Leadership is a process that is simple in its basic form, easily applied, and has the potential of yielding significant results. Leading strategically means having a comprehensive strategy for the immediate future. Unlike strategic planning, which is long term for the whole organization, Strategic Leadership is short term designed for the executive and staff.

Eagle Scout

A good friend of mine, who knows that I am a proud Eagle Scout, sent me this great article. The article tells the heartfelt story of a 50 year old man who earned the rank of Eagle when he was a teenager, but due to various reasons never received the award. Only about 2% of all boys who join Boy Scouts obtain the rank of Eagle. While the Boy Scouts do a great job of building character in young men, there is something special about a young man that receives his Eagle (there is also a special feeling in the young man when he receives his Eagle).

The story then goes on to share how his family pursued the award (even after all those years) just to honor him. We all can only hope our kids love us as much as this gentlemen’s. What a great story of love and perseverance. Warning, the story has a very happy ending and may make you misty-eyed.

Introducing Shelfari

As any one who is familiar with me, they know I love to read. So recently several people have suggested I start a Shelfari.  A Shelfari is a resource that allows readers to share, discuss, rate, tag, and organize books onto your own bookshelf. It’s like standing in front of someone’s bookshelf in their office. If you are what you read, then your bookshelf can tell others a lot about you.

Since I am asked all the time what books I would recommend, Shelfari is a dynamic way anyone can keep up-to-date with what I am reading. If you find a book that looks interesting on someone’s shelf, it’s very easy to put it up on yours.

A great quote from the famous Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”  I believe this quote to my core as well as his other famous quote, “Leaders are Readers.”

Did You Bring Your “A” Game Today?

As a blogger, I enjoy reading other bloggers and one such blog is by a fellow CPA, Brenda Richter.  She had a great post this week regarding the Olympics and Good to Great.  She talks about why “Good is the Enemy of Great” and not bringing your “A” game. I hope you enjoy her post.

Cargas Systems

As summer draws to a close, one of the things we’re looking forward to in the fall is the list of Best Places to Work in PA.  I’ve mentioned before that McKonly & Asbury is hoping to once again make the list after 5 straight years among the rankings.  So my colleagues and I have spent a lot of time talking with organizations that get what it takes to be a talent magnet and an employer of choice.  One of those companies is Cargas Systems. Chip Cargas founded Cargas Systems, back in 1988 in a small bedroom corner using a Macintosh SE computer with a 9” screen (still on display in Chip’s office!), as a computer consulting firm.

Emergency Room Encounter

I was attending a picnic on Thursday afternoon with a bunch of CPA’s from various accounting firms. We do this annually and have some fun and play volleyball to see which firm is the best. Our team from McKonly & Asbury finished in 2nd place out of 16 teams. Not a bad day. However, I must be getting older because in the Championship game I landed hard and hurt my heel (but I did finish the game). It started to go numb and swell so I decided to go to the Emergency room for x-rays...

The interesting part was the ER, the employees and the many patients waiting with me for over 4 hours. For a person like me, that is a whole lot of thinking, people observing and time on my blackberry. The people in the waiting room are a strange group of people. I literally saw a 65 year old man threaten to hit another person, because they were staring at him.  That of course just made everyone stare even more.  I could go on with more strange people stories, but the really important story of the night was the staff at the Hospital. They mostly seemed engaged. I had many encounters with different hospital personnel and was impressed. I am sure the hospital works hard to engage the staff, but considering the many strange folks waiting with me, it takes a special person with a high empathy strength to care for all these people. I am thankful for that!!

My heel is healing nicely this weekend, although as any typical guy, I milked it for all it was worth at home. J  I am married to a very patient and loving woman, who thankfully tolerated my whining and limping around the house.

The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World

Are you an introvert? Only a quarter of the general population is, but more than half of accountants are. Some famous introverts include: Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Alfred Hitchcock, Bill Gates and Steve Martin. Although people associate introverts with geeks or nerds (and in the case of Bill Gates – a very wealthy nerd), introverts play an important role in advancing civilization. They are not the gregarious sales and marketing types, but tend to be the quiet analysts and designers who are happy being alone with their thoughts.

Introverts don’t “shoot from the lip.” They work more from long-term memory than from short-term. It takes them longer to find the right words to use in conversation, so they tend to be more taciturn than extroverts, choosing their words carefully and being good listeners. Because of the longer retrieval time for long-term memory, introverts tend to be the people who find that solutions to problems come to them after a good night’s sleep. The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World by Marti Olsen Laney, explores the characteristics of introverts and explains how introverts can use those characteristics to their benefit. Dr. Laney, an introvert herself, attempts to explain the sometimes puzzling behavior of introverts. Since extroverts have to deal with introverts (she is married to an extrovert), she wrote the book to be valuable to them, too. Her book includes a list of well-known personalities of both types: Katie Couric is an extrovert, for example, while Diane Sawyer is an introvert.

The Boston Red Sox Bus Stop

My post yesterday created some interesting discussion.  More than one person suggested the example of Manny Ramirez.  Here is a guy who might be the greatest right handed hitter in the league today – helped the Red Sox win two World Series – breaking the curse!  Yet the organization so wanted him off the team, that they are paying almost all of his salary remaining on his contact just to incent the Dodgers to take him.  Wow!  Talk about wanting to make a bus stop and get someone off!  Manny is a high performer who is now motivated to prove the Red Sox nation was wrong.  I imagine he will perform at a high level the rest of this season – besides the fact that his current contract expires at the end of this year.