A recurring theme that’s reflected by the questions I have been asked to respond to in this year’s Q&A web conferences that I’ve been presenting has been how to get more engagement from team members. This issue is not just related to the accounting profession which may give you some comfort.
It’s an issue that’s on the mind of everyone leading organizations that rely heavily of knowledge workers – i.e. virtually all businesses.
I came across a very interesting PowerPoint presentation created by Daniel Cook that you can download for free called The Rules of Productivity that was created by a game designer. It relates to software engineers but the point he’s making is just as relevant to team members in accounting firms especially in the context of the massive demands made on people during the February-April tax season in the US and the January tax crunch in the UK.
In the last of my presentations I referred to a book written by Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey called The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. If I was still teaching Entrepreneurship it would be required pre-reading. If I were working with startups, it would be required pre-reading and then I’d tell them to read Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth. I’d set the E-Myth as the second assignment because after reading barefoot some of them would go back to work for the man and Gerber’s point of “working for an idiot – you” would make sense. Barefoot illustrates just how hard it is but also how hustle and heart leads to the exhilaration of success.
Hopefully that little rant will inspire you to make a $16 investment in the book and set aside some time to read it. In the meantime, also take a look at an article Michael & Bonnie wrote called How to Create Real Employee Engagement that was recently published in the Journal of Quality & Participation (I’ve never heard of it but it has an interesting title!). You might also be interested in visiting Michael and Bonnie’s website – lots to learn here.