14 Oct Sprouting Partnership
Green Shoots Emerging Through the Ashes: Tragedy & Change | by Mark C. Cooke, Ph.D.
Over the years I have written a lot about change and transformation. A few of those articles have appeared here in The Audit Report. In my opinion this entire issue is about change. Tragedy necessitates it. But, then again, so does just the passing of time. The opportunity that change presents is the ability to be better, to build a stronger foundation, and to learn from the past to plan for the future.
This is where we find ourselves now. I personally like to see it as the opportunity to reassess. Where are we strongest? Weakest? Most and least in need? How do all of these qualities support each other, and how can we leverage the strong parts to influence the weak? Self-assessment isn’t always easy, but the advantages of being honest and forthright have an almost immediate effect. It allows you to see where change is needed most, so that the implementation is faster and the results emerge sooner.
A tragedy led to the change in TMA leadership. A year ago and a day, as I write this, my brother passed away unexpectedly. No one knew it was coming, and there were no plans in place to deal with it. The result was not unlike most sudden losses. There were months of reacting to the circumstances, thinking through what would come next, and dealing with the fallout. From it, new leadership was required, restructuring, and rectification from some of the inevitable consequences of the vacuum created when a leader is lost.
This new leadership had to make hard decisions, react quickly and decisively, and implement what was needed for a company with a long storied history to continue to be the best in the industry. Moreover, we needed to identify where the best opportunities were for TMA’s near term, but also create a vision for who we want to be in the future. We decided to double down on our core pillars: the best people making up the greatest team; unwavering service to our clients built on transparency; and operational excellence through a commitment to our technology infrastructure and information security.
Fortunately – and really not all that surprising given our close and long relationships – most of what Reason Consulting had been building was naturally synergistic with everything we wanted to achieve at TMA. We have been working on identifying the alignment between the two companies and how together we can drive more value for our community. TMA’s audit capabilities remain second to none, so the future lies in how we can digitally transform that expertise and create new opportunities for clients. We are in the midst of a full modernization overhaul with truly exciting outcomes.
People are the core of any business. A knowledgeable, well-trained, emotionally intelligent team – when given the ability to do so – will do amazing things. These are the people we want, and the skills we want to encourage. This builds a team that is capable of understanding what needs to be done, and is effective in creating the strategies to accomplish the goals that they set out for themselves.
People need processes and processes are best reinforced through effective infrastructure. For that reason, we are investing in the software systems, the data, and the refinement of these processes to help our people remain on top. It will also allow our clients to have greater insight into our workflow, and ensure that the data is protected. Data governance, including data security, is the method we use to design all of our internal systems and structures.
Lastly, we have also invested heavily in data and our ability to use it proactively. We are capable of providing efficiency and accuracy to our clients in a way that is industry leading. Using Reason Consulting’s technology, TMA has the ability to provide first of its kind services to our clients. We have simplified some of the most cumbersome and technically difficult processes to give our clients back what they need most, time. These systems and services also provide our clients with a level of visibility into their own environments that has otherwise been elusive.
Personally, where I find my validation is in our clients’ comments. Some of my favorite remarks come in the form of “you have a great company” or when I hear “we love your people.” Wearing the Reason Consulting hat, I also love those – but getting a “that’s really cool” about our tech is the best. My favorite yet was just a spontaneous “wow” during a demonstration. The reason I love these is that it reinforces what I believe about leadership. I believe that if you have the right people, the right tools, and give them ownership of the outcomes then they will do amazing things.
After the fire and the flood, you look for the green shoots of new growth. That is the world returning to balance, and those shoots offer hope that all destruction is only temporary. In our case, we are being more aggressive by planting those new shoots and cultivating them. Everyone wants to leave a legacy, and collectively we want to leave one for ourselves, but also in the face of tragedy. Holding up those new shoots is our way of claiming success afterwards. It’s also our way of showing that we as a company will be around for a long time, and we are prepared to change many times over.