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When Disaster StrikesTo Our Clients and Friends: Business Disaster & Recovery This will be very hard to write. Thinking back over these past few months is painful. Disasters are Catastrophic. Disasters affect every aspect of your business and personal life. They are big, frightening, and dangerous, threatening many lives and livelihoods. Planning to manage a disaster requires both personal and professional plans. Disasters Happen to Everyone It is the speed and quality of your recovery that matters most. Is it a Business or Personal Disaster? Does it matter? Our Disaster Everything froze. Time slowed to a crawl and every other important thing became a secondary issue. This diagnosis began an ordeal that is, hopefully, over. David recently finished his chemo and is regaining his strength. Cancer is a horrifying disease. In March, we thought we might lose him; not to cancer, but to complications related to chemo. Even a month removed from chemo, these powerful lifesaving drugs still have brutal lingering side effects. We believe that David will recover from these and return to his hobbies of running marathons and hitting the gym hard and heavy, but not today. The Personal Costs of Disaster It was not all bad. There were good things that happened directly related to David’s illness. Our family grew closer. We were amazed to see David’s core group of friends rally around his family in love and support. This was a long-term commitment by David’s cohorts; I am deeply humbled by the commitment and quality of David’s friends. There seemed to be nothing these dear people would not do to support David, Nikki, and the four “Rowdy Richardson” children. Including providing childcare, food, transportation, supervision of sporting events and complex schedules, and even grabbing a kid or two for short vacation trips. The larger cancer community also stepped up. I have often heard about how cancer professionals and survivors rally around cancer victims, but now I know for myself how remarkable this community truly is! These people are amazing, providing literally lifesaving advice. Unanticipated Friendships The Business Costs of Disaster Internal Controls Staffing One of our junior staff members stepped up in a big way and got a post-tax season promotion. Another Junior staff member was invited to seek employment elsewhere. A disaster will showcase strengths and weaknesses in your personnel. Efficiency Workplace Environment We have always enjoyed a low stress, pleasant work environment. Structural inequities built into our environment never became issues until the disaster. Disasters introduce stress into a workplace not accustomed to managing stress. Fractures occurred! The costs of workplace stress are high. We lost a junior staff member we did not want to lose, I think, in part, because of the increased stress levels in our work environment. That was unfair to our CPA firm and to that young person. We are going to reestablish that low stress environment – soon. Our internal work environment is already much improved. More importantly, we are addressing strategic inequities that fractured under stress. This next year will be important. The Real Issue: Disaster Recovery Todd His opinion carries a lot of authority in our firm, and he rarely receives any push back from me. These anomalies occur when I think Todd is trying to change the firm’s unique culture. Our culture evolved in a small firm environment, but we are not a small firm anymore. Our Firm is Very Personal The issue for us is how to keep a high level of personal care when faced with the inevitability of disease, disability, and death. These three “d’s” often equal disaster. Reviewing Work We are already seeing the benefits of having accounts evaluated from multiple perspectives. As a result of this change, our staff can discuss various tax and other preparation ideas and techniques that improve the quality of work produced for more of our clients. This is becoming a tax and financial planning incubator. We are learning. This week, Amy has taught me a few things about S-Corp returns that I needed to know. This level of intellectual cross breeding will keep us sharp. (As iron sharpens iron.) Internal Controls But he is getting push back from me of all people. “My problems” are that I like to:
Even I see that this is ‘bad behavior’. The two most obvious problems are:
Increasing Capacity and Staff Training If you look at that short list of “my problems” above and based on our review of other internal control structures, you can easily see how bringing new staff up to operating speed could be hard. If new staff must adopt “my work procedures”, I can see that as being a bit daunting. We have a long history of doing exactly this. We make jokes about it: “Steve will just toss you in the deep end and tell you to get it done!” Todd, Amy, Rachel, Liz, David, etc., were all trained this way. It works when you are a really small firm and when the boss (that would be me) is really patient and can work one-on-one with the staff. But we’re not a small firm anymore and we have more than one boss. Looking at it now, this is unfair to our junior staff people. We need to change how we train our staff. We cannot burden our junior staff with all the junk that I do (administrative overhead) when they really need to learn how to service clients. Newsletters Should be About Helping You I do not want you to read this newsletter and hear:
There is a lot you can do to prepare for a disaster. Todd Again! Todd has a strategic picture for our firm that I did not allow him to implement. I was wrong. I was afraid of losing our small-firm culture. Disaster Plan Step One: Draw a Strategic Picture
You have completed step one of your disaster plan. Disaster Plan Step Two: Get Professional Help Call us. We can help or, in your unique case, we know who can. We have recent experience. Is Your Business Too Small to Have a Disaster Plan? Sincerely, Steve Richardson, CPA
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