Cultivating Success
In anticipation of the upcoming 5th anniversary of the Apollo Awards, Helios HR checked in with some of the previous winners to see what they have been doing to continue to foster a culture of continuous learning and development. Stay tuned each month as we highlight different organizations and count down to the annual awards breakfast ceremony at the McLean Hilton on June 1st, where we recognize the finalists and winners for 2011.
“It is important to sustain our culture with every new hire and with every project and client that we take on.” – Lynn Ann Casey, CEO, Arc Aspicio
At Arc Aspicio, there is an intentional focus on providing employees with mission-critical skills important to both organizational success and individual career development. Our culture today is innovative and entrepreneurial. Stewardship is a core value of the company. We make the employees responsible for the company’s success and for moving the organization forward. Two years ago, we made an intentional investment in hiring a Director of Talent and Operations because we knew that bringing in the best talent and keeping it would be our biggest challenge. Creating a role of that sort is unusual for a company our size, but it proved to be a great investment. We’re a 25-person company now, and we have two people focused exclusively on talent leadership. It is a big investment that has really paid off. We’ve grown revenue by 50 percent in 2010 without bringing on additional staff. We’re more efficient and productive. That’s due to the people we’ve hired and the resources we’ve invested in them.
Because we go for the best, it takes a bit more work on our part to find people that we want to be part of our organization for the long term. To find the people we want, we are using a social networking tool called Jobvite. Jobvite has been a huge part of our success. Everyone in the company participates in using that tool. We implemented it 18 months ago, and it helps us attract more people. It targets people who know the people that are already working for us. Since it is word-of-mouth and 100 percent employee referrals, it’s generating a very strong candidate pool. Today, 80 percent of our employees have been referred by other employees. Plus we have 1,800 qualified candidates in the pipeline. We have to have the right people on board and in the pipeline because we want to grow organically - by having our current clients asking us to do more work. If we hire the right people, organic growth occurs easily because clients are happy and our business grows due to word of mouth.
What Do Your Employees Need to Achieve Their Goals?
As we enter the last stretch of Q1 in 2011, your organization may be cementing performance goals and initiatives. However, setting the goals may seem much easier than achieving them.
Goal Alignment, cascading goals and the TOPS ideal (Tied to Organizational Priorities and Success) drives many companies to begin the goal setting process by announcing yearly goals and initiatives. Ideally, before goals can be aligned employees must be able to understand how their actions affect the organization’s success. It is a common practice for goal setting to align with the performance management process. Reviewing progress made towards individual goals no less than quarterly, and often monthly is common.
To make this clearer, managers must be able to translate the organization’s goals to their direct reports, making the connection from organization goals to employee goals more visible.
Once this vantage point is clear, employees can set their individual goals using the SMART formula (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound). We recommend that managers take the role of supporter and sponsor in this step. Encouraging employees to take ownership of setting the goals ultimately helps ensure their accountability for goal attainment. Ideally, identifying resources for goal attainment is a collaborative process that leaves the employee motivated and ready to take on the challenge of the goal.
As your organization gears up for Q2 and the remainder of 2011,points to consider include: align individual goals with organizational goals; identify resources for successful achievement; communicate the impact of ongoing changes to resources; and recognize the need to check in and provide feedback to all employees, including your high-performers. Building a high level of communication with employees allows them to feel supported during their successes, but more importantly, during times when obstacles may present themselves.
Harnessing the Power of Enterprising Women
Wow. As I travel back from the Enterprising Women conference and awards gala I realize how ill prepared I was. Not prepared for the level of camaraderie, support, creativity and excitement that I found in collective abundance. 49 female CEOs from around our nation and Canada were honored as award winners across multiple categories and represented incredible diversity. Diversity in products, in services, in cultures and in background. Yet these women were far more similar than different.
A differentiator of these women is that they don’t want to be just the ‘best’ in their industry. They want to ‘change’ their industry. Their vision is to have their company be seen as an employer of choice, all while ensuring philanthropy is a part of their corporate culture.
Giving back is integral to their leadership as they are personally involved in expanding and enhancing philanthropy in their community.
These women are gracious, authentic and supportive. They believe in ‘loving your mistakes’ as they’re the best learning tool you have. I encourage you to check out Enterprising Women magazine and consider nominating a deserving CEO for the 2012 award. Then come to the conference and awards gala. You’ll be very pleased you did. www.enterprisingwomen.com ~ Kathy Albarado
John Langan - Learning and Leading by Example
Astonished, the woman stared at him for a moment.
“You actually read this stuff?” she queried.
John Langan nodded the affirmative. Working an entry-level job at the prominent accounting firm Arthur Andersen, John was not particularly challenged in his position. “I put on a suit and make copies,” he had told his family when they inquired about the experience. He soon discovered, however, that though the job entailed largely menial tasks, he could learn much from reading the papers that passed through his hands, trying to understand the more detailed inner-workings of the enterprise. Now, after approaching the senior in charge to ask about the documents, the surprise at his initiative shone on her face. Of course, after the initial shock wore off, she was happy to detail the context for him.
Not only did John seize the opportunity as a chance to learn more about the business, but he also often observed his colleagues and managers to learn more about successful habits and practices. “I would watch how they managed their time and interfaced with the clients,” he remembers. “I would watch people who were good at what they did as they moved up the rungs, and I would watch those who were bad at what they did so I could learn what not to do.” Now the Principal in Charge of the Washington, DC office of LarsonAllen LLP and of the company’s Nonprofit and Government Services Group as well, he still recalls the lessons he learned through this careful observation and weaves such considerations into his own leadership style as he in turn strives to lead by example.
LarsonAllen is a public accounting firm established and headquartered in Minneapolis but currently boasting a strong national presence with offices in twelve states. It draws approximately $230 million in revenue a year, which can be subdivided into the various industries of healthcare, nonprofit and government, manufacturing, construction, financial institutions, and auto dealers. With eighty-five percent of their business concentrated in compliance expected service, they hope to strengthen their consultative opportunities in the future. The current state of the economy has also helped to shape their focus, challenging them to streamline efficiency through their Enterprise Excellence Initiative. Based on the Toyota Lean Model, the initiative focuses on eliminating waste and increasing value through process through modifications on how accounting services, tax returns, and audits are delivered.
Prior to his arrival at LarsonAllen in 2006, John had worked at Arthur Andersen as an auditor for three and a half years. Working in the commercial group at the company’s DC office afforded him an eclectic collection of clients that included accounts with Mars, Inc. and Marriot International, Inc. With experiencing spanning the spectrum from a large private company to the transparency and openness of a large public company, augmented with several nonprofit, governmental, and government contracting jobs, he considers his time there as an incredible education for someone just emerging from school. It was also here that he first met Cindy Parks, another auditor who caught his eye and captured his heart.
The company did not permit spouses to work at the same location, so upon his engagement to Cindy, John resigned his post and set about determining his next step. “I felt I could start my own initiative and do well and be more fulfilled,” John explains. He entertained a brief stint as a controller but knew after four short months that the highly technical nature of the position did not suit him. Self-identifying with the creative and human aspects of his industry over its quantitative nature, he readily admits that the technical side of the business has never been his passion.
“My passion is in the relationships,” he explains. “It’s in building a business and bringing skills like communication and time management to the table.” His future success stemmed in large part from this intuitive and honest understanding of his strengths and weaknesses, which allows him to embrace his fortes instead of attempting to force himself into a shape that just doesn’t fit. His flair and verve instead shine through his people skills, allowing him to forge strong connections and engender trust in others. “Public accounting is the language of business, and we are the translators for our clients,” he explains.
With this understanding in mind, he launched Langan Associates, PC, in 1988, which would develop a skilled specialization in nonprofit outsourcing long before the term “outsourcing” was even used. Observing how the nonprofit world was growing ever more complex and required competence in closing books, reporting, and auditing, he found his niche readily identifiable. “The disconnect between the level of competency in the financial management systems of nonprofits and the audit firms that came in to review the work was undeniable,” he recalls. “Outsourcing was a natural fit and solution.” Langan Associates thus built on its base competency in outsourcing by adding an audit and tax department in 1994, as the demand for those services had increased for local and regional firms when the Big 4 walked away from all but the largest national nonprofits. Overall, this platform was used to grow a $7 million revenue base over an eighteen-year period that included audit, tax and outsourcing service lines.
Despite its ranking in the top thirty of local DC outsourcing firms, the road was not always easy for Langan Associates. Competing for talent against firms that were three times their size presented considerable obstacles that were compounded by their nonprofit niche. “Working in a specific vertical like nonprofits does not make sense for everyone,” John concedes, “though it is a very fulfilling client base. So the ability to attract, retain, and develop talent was always our number one issue.”
This challenge was countered by the company’s introspective edge, which left them ever open to new and innovative opportunities to expand their processes. After doing an internal strategic plan to crystallize the firm’s next ten years, it became clear that, in terms of the opportunities enmeshed in their market niche, they were only scratching the surface. In an attempt to mine their prospects, they put together a firm profile in 2005 and met with other firms in the area to develop strategic alliances. LarsonAllen, which was little known on the East coast at the time, was one such firm, boasting strong potential because of its parallel specialization in the nonprofit industry. John appreciated that the firm’s employees felt that they had influence over the destiny and direction of the enterprise, lending them a sense of empowerment and commitment. Langan Associates operated with the mindset that outsourcing was a year-round business, demonstrating to LarsonAllen that that they couldn’t serve outsourcing with the same talent base reserved for audits.
While most entrepreneurs would say that pursuing their own business posed a considerable risk, John felt otherwise. With his CPA license, he was simply an individual out offering a professional service. However, he knew early on that he wanted to build a legitimate and scalable business rather than pursue a solo and boutique-style practice. “The risk, then, comes over the years as you grow and take on employees, office space, and management,” he explains. One risk was in turn followed by another, in which John transitioned over to LarsonAllen.
Fortunately, this risk was met with the most desirable of outcomes—reward. While other industries have suffered with the recent economic downturn, LarsonAllen was among the few national firms with any internal non-acquisition growth. “When times get tight, people can’t afford to maintain a status quo in which they aren’t getting timely and accurate information with which to make good decisions. The margins are too skinny; they can’t accept anything less than knowing exactly where they stand and where they’re going from a financial standpoint,” he describes.
John credits Susan Stevens, the former Principal in Charge, for her vision, which cultivated LarsonAllen’s Nonprofit & Government Group into the firm’s second largest industry group and effectively drove home how important and profitable the practice could be. While determining her replacement, she looked to John for both his inherent skill and his prior experience building a business of his own. Known throughout the company as a consensus builder among its leadership, John communicated the vision of the organization effectively and worked well with others.
John’s ability to connect people perhaps stem from his childhood, when he grow up as the youngest of four brothers and a sister. He was somewhat of a late bloomer, with his progress and focus stunted by low self-esteem. His brother, Rick, became a tax lawyer and was always very supportive of him, encouraging him to apply himself and achieve his potential before it was too late. After high school, he attended college at the College of Boca Raton for two years and decided to take Rick’s advice. After making the Dean’s List upon graduating with nineteen A’s and a C, he describes himself as a big fish in a small pond, finally willing to apply himself and do his part in achieving success. This newfound motivation landed him a scholarship to attend Florida Atlantic University, where he was drawn to accounting for its promise of flexible and professional prospects upon graduation. Though math was not his passion, Rick explained to him that he had the human skills necessary for the career and could still learn the language and use a calculator. “I liked the idea that it was the foundation of a business career,” he recalls. “I was passionate about building a business, so it was a discipline I really needed to know in order to thrive and survive.”
Of the challenging job market of today’s young entrepreneurs, John advises an expansive and well-rounded repertoire of skills to remain competitive. “You’ve got to be everything—technically competent, good at interpersonal relationships, with strong written and oral communication skills and a constant drive to deliver your services more efficiently,” he urges. He also details the fundamental importance of building a strong foundation in which you develop your core skills and perform an honest self-assessment to determine your ideal work path and work environments. “If you’re honest with yourself about what you’re good at and what you need to work on, you can thrive in an array of environments.” John’s advice stems not only from his own success, but also from applying his learn-by-example mentality to his own father. Amidst serving in World War II as well as raising and educating six children through professional programs, he maintained a lucrative career as a businessman and remained largely debt-free. The obstacles along our path may seem considerable, but John reminds us of the tremendous support we can derive from others, either through direct collaboration or through the indirect lessons we can learn from simply observing them. “Nobody does it on their own,” he stresses. “Look for help, because it’s there.”
For additional information about this profile and case study, please contact:
Gordon J. Bernhardt, CPA, PFS, CFP®, AIF®
Bernhardt Wealth Management, Inc.
2010 Corporate Ridge, Suite 210
McLean, Virginia 22102
(703) 356-4380
www.BernhardtWealth.com
Dean Matt - Designing Your Destiny
Throughout grade school, Matthew Dean had always excelled effortlessly at mathematics. One can thus imagine his surprise and horror when his ninth grade math teacher recommended him for the second best math class instead of the best. High school had raised the bar somewhat in terms of demand and standards, and the boy’s diligence had not yet escalated along with it. Though the packs of football pencils given out as prizes for elementary school math competitions were a thing of the past, Matt found a brand new source of motivation—his own willpower, and his own destiny. Determined, he asked Mr. Burns what he could do to maintain his status in the highest class. “You must ace the second half of this school year,” the teacher said. Matt rose to the challenge and excelled with flying colors, and true to his word, Mr. Burns changed his recommendation.
From this experience, Matt drew so much more than just a renewed drive for math, which carried him through to receive his master’s degree in engineering later on. Beyond the specific skill, the challenge cemented in him something he had always known in his soul but hadn’t actually firmed into a concrete guiding principle. “Nobody’s going to give you anything or carry you. You’ve got to get out there and do it yourself,” he confirms. Now the President of MARKON Inc, a government contracting and consulting company specializing in management solutions, Matt could not have gotten to where he is today without this revolutionizing conviction in personal agency.
MARKON is a spinoff of MKI Systems, which has since been purchased by L-3’s Command & Control Systems and Software (C2S2) Division. Matt assumed employment at MKI, a full-service professional organization focusing in the needs of the Marine Corps, in 2005 to help diversify the company into the intelligence community market. He started his division as a one-man show which grew to nine team members by 2007 when L-3 decided to purchase the enterprise. The new ownership wasn’t interested in an intelligence division, and Matt was not interested in the new ownership, so MARKON was born. When they first spun off, they specialized in providing consultant services to the intelligence community and were earning $1.2 million in revenues. Just a few short years later, they are now over forty employees strong and have amplified revenues to $7 million, fanning out across industries through the translatability of their knowledge base.
Being the professional services company that it is, MARKON essentially sells time and manpower to federal government organizations with the goal of improving functionality through the use of professional resources. The feature tool in this arsenal is project management, and MARKON’s ability to capture key processes and replicate them across subjects has played a vital role in its success. “Our business model has been to serve across government agencies because our method is translatable,” Matt explains. “The Army, Marine Corps, CIA, NSI, DIA, DNI, etcetera—the same types of skills are valuable across all these markets.”
MARKON’s real value lies not in its method, however, but in its matter. “The motivation of our people to succeed is what truly makes us unique,” Matt acknowledges. His team, which is monitored by seven managers, understands the intricacies and nuance of the business that allow them to play the game with unparalleled expertise and offer exceptional service while still balancing the business aspects of the work.
The fascinating thing about Matt’s success is that it doesn’t stem from outside influence, but rather from a strong internal locus of control that marked his comportment even at an early age. Throughout his youth, he doesn’t remember being pushed or micromanaged when it came to academics or athletics. It was always expected that he and his three brothers should maintain good grades and attend college, but his parents, who divorced when he was ten, did not actively talk about the future. Matt’s mother had chosen to focus on her family and her children instead of pursuing her career, and this fact serves as a strong source of motivation in his life and work today. “My mom chose not to take her career into her own hands as a sacrifice for us kids,” he remarks. “If I don’t take full advantage of the opportunities in my life, I’m wasting what she gave me.”
Matt’s first handful of jobs were acquired throughout his high school years and revolved around construction, most notably for Cates Electric. The manual labor was intensive, with one particular instance standing out in his mind in which he was required to dig holes and insert grounding rods for a major electrical system. His first rod took him eight hours of backbreaking labor to install due to the ground’s impenetrable quality—a disheartening end product that only hinted at the effort required to obtain it. When he reported his single accomplishment to a coworker later that day, the man shrugged his shoulders knowingly. “Yes, you will work hard, but it never really amounts to anything,” the laborer told Matt. This remark emblazoned into his mind a strong resolve to do well in college, taking pains to ensure that he set himself up for a professional journey instead of a professional dead-end.
After starting college at Virginia Tech, Matt acquired a job in database building assistance at the World Bank’s Facilities Group. “I wore a shirt and tie to work for the first time,” he remembers. “It was my first chance to experience a real office job.” When he graduated in 1991 with an Industrial Engineering Degree, he found the job market somewhat barren. After a slew of interviews, he was finally offered a government position with the Department of the Navy as a program analyst in a cost analysis shop. In this capacity, he served to assist different Navy programs in mapping out current costs and predicting future expenses. This was essentially his entrance into the government acquisition and support world while also giving him first-hand training in the client service environment as he worked to develop relationships with different customers.
Though he would receive frequent accolades on his performance excellence, Matt was barred from promotion because he didn’t have seniority, and he was turned off by the lack of control over one’s own destiny that the atmosphere engendered. Not only had he reached the kind of dead end he had vowed to avoid, but his personal learning and evolution had come to a standstill. “I realized I wasn’t going to be gaining any additional skills after the first five years, and I didn’t like the resigned attitude that the system is the system,” he recalls. “Realistically, I knew I couldn’t change the system, so my only option was to take my career into my own hands.”
With that, he left to enter the Big Six management consulting world through employment at KPMG Consulting, which became BearingPoint in 2002. Throughout his nine years of employment there, Matt served as a management consultant in a wide variety of industries. The experience allowed him to see how many skills can be translated to different markets and environments, honing his insight for his later leadership with MARKON. BearingPoint’s decrescendo commenced in the early 2000’s with its transition from a partnership model to a public company model. Aware of the writing on the wall, Matt left for MKI Systems in 2005 before BearingPoint’s collapse and eventual merger with Deloitte Consulting.
Despite its impressive evolution and diversification, MARKON’s story is far from complete. “We’re still a new company and haven’t finished setting the foundation yet,” Matt says. True to his upbringing, which focused on a general striving for accomplishment rather than a specific micromanaged path toward success, he remarks, “I don’t feel like I have to hit a certain figure in revenue to accomplish a given goal. Rather, I just focus on making good, smart decisions.” Not only does this approach lead to reasoned judgments and solid returns, but it heightens team morale by instilling sound confidence within MARKON’s employees.
Now, as the company’s past performance record and reference list grows, Matt and his team are working on building the company’s accounting system and overhead infrastructure as they begin to aim their targets on bigger fish. “The sky’s the limit,” Matt says lightheartedly. “I’m particularly excited because it gives opportunities to our employees to expand their skills, almost as if they’re running mini MARKONs themselves.” This mindset showcases the leadership philosophy that drives the enterprise—one of interconnected fates and genuine interest in the success of others. “It’s all about the team approach,” Matt explains. “I truly believe that the best way for me to be more successful is for my employees to enjoy this success as well.”
In advising others along this quest for collective success, Matt urges the kind of openness and awareness that has kept him in perpetual evolution over the years, both personally and professionally. His method echoes what seems to be a current trend in American society toward life-long personal skill strengthening and diversification. “I remember reading an article that explained how, for generations, people thought it was risky to change jobs,” Matt recalls. “But now, at least in our industry, staying in the same job allows your skills to get stale.” So, where his role was once in contracts, security, finance, business development, and recruiting, he has incrementally yet steadily shape-shifted into the strategist and broad-scale leader he serves as today.
It is safe to assume, then, that the future of Matt’s role as President of MARKON is far from set or static. In this light, he also emphasizes the crucial part that long-term planning and vision plays in success. “The big thing I’ve learned recently is that I’m in this for the long haul, and my decisions are reflecting this realization,” Matt remarks. “Investment in training, going out of our way to hire good people, getting into new markets even though they may not make money this year—all these are an automatic yes for me now. Maximizing my 2010 income would be at the expense of my 2015 income, so I’m not going to do that,” he explains.
Inherent in this recipe success, however, is a certain fascination and will of character. “Be a sponge. Soak up everything,” Matt insists. It’s how we keep life fresh. It’s how we stave off stagnation, keeping the self on a perpetual journey toward betterment. And it’s how we put our future back in our own hands, molding something truly remarkable and unique from the raw material of status quo.
For additional information about this profile and case study, please contact:
Gordon J. Bernhardt, CPA, PFS, CFP®, AIF®
Bernhardt Wealth Management, Inc.
2010 Corporate Ridge, Suite 210
McLean, Virginia 22102
(703) 356-4380
www.BernhardtWealth.com