I recently watched a webinar led by a successful and brilliantly straight-talking accountant. Though the conversation was wide-ranging, it regularly looped back to his team and the fact that each person was doing their job to a very high standard. Having encountered lots of businesses, I can say that this is unusual – though many practices have good teams, it’s rare to find one that’s entirely composed of consistently successful members.
So, I wondered, what’s the secret formula here? Where is the book I can read to replicate his achievement?
His answer was both surprising and obvious, in that it’s not about bonus schemes, appraisal structures, or any other HR magic. It’s instead that he gives feedback, both positive and negative, in real time.
This simple truth echoes a concept in the book ‘Traction’ by Gino Wickman, called ‘watering the plant’. Imagine your close friend goes away on holiday for two weeks and asks you to water their plant while they’re gone. In an ideal world, this means giving the plant a small amount of water every day. In reality (if you’re anything like me), it often means forgetting all about it until day 13 and then overwatering to make up for it. Unsurprisingly, the plant dies.
It’s the same in business. Too often, we fail to provide constructive “little and often” feedback, instead overcompensating with one big flood. This isn’t always due to neglect or forgetfulness – often, we choose not to provide real-time feedback for real reasons. We might argue that it’s better to wait for an upcoming appraisal or tell ourselves that if someone is failing to hit their targets, they won’t have time for a quick chat.
The problem here is that delaying feedback rarely sparks a positive outcome. If you wait weeks for an appraisal to roll around, the issue will probably have dissolved, and you’ll have missed the chance to help and teach that person. Or, more often, the issue will have become chronic, which makes the inevitable conversation more likely to be antagonistic. In contrast, a five-minute catch-up as things arise can nip future stress in the bud. This isn’t to say that formal feedback routes such as appraisals aren’t valuable (they definitely are) – but they shouldn’t be the only times you’re sharing your thoughts.
And of course, not all feedback is negative. It’s equally important to pick up on the positives – as leaders we should all be looking for opportunities to say, ‘well done’. This is something that almost all workplaces are lacking; it’s simply not part of our collective business vocabulary. For this reason, it can even be jarring to hear positive reinforcement. My advice would be to stick with it; it’s very easy to find opportunities to say something nice. Often, it’s only when someone tells a manager that they feel undervalued that the manager can contradict them. If you don’t tell an employee that you appreciate them, they’ll never know.
By regularly talking and correcting course when we veer off track, we can avoid letting things fester. This in turn prevents situations where we’re at loggerheads or in an antagonistic position.
The importance of regular communication is something we’ve learned over the course of many years at Hive. Today, our objective is to be the experts to drive your financial breakthrough. We aim to actively help our clients play a role in their own success – and we’ve reached this position based on a keen understanding of how we don’t want to handle things.
The way that accountancy traditionally works (and the way that Hive used to work) is to deliver a service as efficiently as possible, often at the cost of effectiveness. In this set-up, most of the work takes place at the end of the year and is based on the expectation that clients will do everything they’ve previously agreed to. An accountant may have chased records, and they may have reminded the client once or twice to update their bookkeeping, but they’ll still be the one working late when the deadline looms. This not only leads to a bad relationship with the client, but it also doesn’t help them gain control of their own finances.
Across each of our teams, and in our own processes, we place a strong emphasis on communication. Our goal is that clients always know when we need information or input. We’ll do everything to stay in touch, to avoid a scenario where a client feels blamed or caught out by an expectation. As with a team dynamic, delayed feedback can only lead to bad feeling, which is a lose-lose situation.
This all comes back to watering the plant, building the relationship, and seizing opportunities to learn. We really believe in education and helping clients to understand what’s going on, so that the process becomes less painful and far more beneficial. Of course, efficiency is still important to us, as this means we can pass savings on to our clients, but our primary focus will always be effectiveness. This ultimately makes for a much more fruitful relationship and greater success for you. If we can water the plant throughout the year, with regular meetings and a good flow of information, it’s inevitably going to be far healthier.
If you’d like to talk about getting your practice set up for success, get in touch.
