The backstory:

With the college football playoffs set and the NFL season coming down the home stretch, there have been countless close games going down to the final seconds. The difference between winning and losing often has more to do with a team’s culture and preparation than it does with their pure talent. In the same way, most accounting firms have smart, conscientious, talented people at all levels of the organization. The difference between high performing firms and mediocre firms is that the high performers have the ability to stay in alignment and hold their composure when the pressure is on. While it’s easy to put your organization’s core values on the wall of your lobby or locker room, you don’t find out who has really bought into those values until the you-know-what hits the fan. Like elite sports teams and military units, high-performing firms stay together and stick to the game plan when faced with a big client loss, departure of a key employee, or busy season fire drills. Under the same circumstances, lesser firms throw in the towel, point fingers, and watch staff head for the exits. Sound familiar? Sun Tsu, the legendary general and philosopher of ancient times said, “Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.” In the heat of battle, I’ve found, you must think like a triage unit in combat. Casualties are all around you and coming in fast; you must treat the most serious life-threatening injuries before the ones that are merely painful – no matter how anguished the victim. In the heat of battle, you’re not going to get perfection. You must do the best you can with the people, resources and time you have to work with. As a leadership coach, I’ve noticed that firms with a strong culture and governance model are particularly well equipped to handle “battlefield” conditions. They tend to have four characteristics in common: