I had lunch with a colleague recently who is a partner at a national accounting firm. The conversation turned to staff and he communicated how frustrated he was with his. Apparently he had just returned from vacation, reviewed timesheets and was very disappointed in the level of effort that they put in while he was away. He commented on how he needed to be on his people all of the time in order to get any work out of them. When I mentioned that I never feel that way, that our people are very focused on producing results and are even more so when I’m not there, he responded that we have different people and that his firm doesn’t have “those people”. So who are “those people” and how did our firm get them?

We only recruit from the top firms. Firms like his. We recruit high achievers who have a history of success in academics, career, and other aspects of life such as athletics and community service. Successes that require personal responsibility and accountability, hard work, discipline, and devotion. But we don’t have an HR department or recruiting staff to post positions, screen resumes or interview candidates like the national firms do. That can’t be our advantage. As a matter of fact, I am sure that they recruit the same people that we do and have an easier time doing it.

So how did his people, who are such high achievers, become so lazy and unmotivated that they won’t do any work unless someone is standing over them? I doubt that the people changed. I am positive that they are still out there achieving tremendous things in life and in the office. Maybe they are just being measured on, and held accountable to the wrong thing. Maybe when no one is looking, they feel like they can stop the charade and actually get something done. Maybe they should be held accountable for their results instead of activity and time. Maybe then, they would be viewed as one of “those people”.

It is with pleasure that we announce that Rebecca Godkin has joined TaxOps, LLC as a Director. Rebecca’s primary area of emphasis is accounting for income taxes, in accordance with both U.S. GAAP and IFRS. She has extensive experience preparing and reviewing income tax provisions and is intimately familiar with the income tax provision complexities associated with uncertain tax positions, business combinations, share-based compensation, foreign subsidiaries and affiliates, foreign currency transactions and translations, intraperiod and interperiod tax allocations, detailed tax planning strategies and the evaluation of valuation allowances. Rebecca has worked with some of the largest publicly-held companies in the world as well as local privately-held enterprises. Rebecca has developed and delivered training, nationally and locally, for both FAS 109 and IAS 12. Rebecca’s income tax provision expertise is built upon a strong foundation of technical tax compliance, including tax accounting for natural resources.  See Rebecca’s full bio at www.taxops.com/team

Please join us in welcoming Rebecca to the TaxOps team!

While the work environment in most CPA firms leads to bypass surgery, our environment recently allowed for a much different bypass experience.  On July 11th, I rode an organized bike ride called The Triple Bypass, a personal goal that I’ve had for some time.  The ride is 120 miles long from Evergreen to Avon, Colorado and covers three mountain passes; Squaw/Juniper Pass, Loveland Pass, and Vail Pass.  For me, the training that was required (I needed a lot of work) was significant and the schedule that I needed to keep was far from traditional.  This could only be accomplished in a work environment that is completely focused on results, not perceptions or meaningless statistics.  It’s in this environment that we can create our own balance, whatever that may be. 

Equally important, is a focus on personal goals and accomplishments outside of the workplace, whether it’s photography, running, scuba, book clubs, or killing yourself on mountain passes, and how the achievement of those goals fires up all aspects of our lives.  The day before my ride, I was scheduled to play in a client golf tournament.  Due to an injury that I had, I felt that playing would seriously jeapordize my ride, so I asked Dan DeLau, a Director at TaxOps (not a golfer), to play in my place.  And he did!  I know he ended up working over the weekend to catch up so that I could ride on Saturday and achieve my goal.  I don’t recall that focus at the Big 4.

To step back for a moment, the results that we are after are significant.  As we continue to build our world class tax team, we strive not only to compete with the largest firms in the world in the tax arena, but to simply be better.  However, we are significantly different in our methodologies as to how we will achieve those goals.  We feel, very simply, that it’s better.