Project Description
Customer Profile Information
Borchardt Senger & Associates, LLC is a certified public accounting firm located in Denver, CO. The firm specializes in tax consulting for small businesses and high net worth individuals. Melinda Borchardt, partner in Borchardt Senger, and her team pride themselves in providing their clients exceptional value with integrity & professionalism.
Situation
Although her team works closely together, Melinda found they were experiencing a lack of alignment and a true understanding behind why the company was making decisions a certain way. They lacked standardized processes on reoccurring tasks, such as billing and scheduling meetings. Melinda previously had taken McGhee Productivity Solutions’ individual productivity course, Take Back Your Life! and called it ‘revolutionary’ so she reached out to MPS to find a solution for her new challenge at a team level.
Solution
McGhee Productivity Solutions identified their Objective Accountability Program (OAP) as a fit for Borchardt Senger. This program is completed in two parts. The Strategic Team Plan (STP) involves a thorough SWOT analysis of the company’s current state, and focuses on understanding future goals that main stakeholders seek. The STP is culminated with a staff retreat in which the past year is evaluated for celebrations and course corrections, and goals are set and aligned upon for the coming year. The second part of the OAP is the Team Accountability Program (TAP); which creates standards for team accountability, documentations, and tracking of goals and projects.
Benefits
Standardizing Recurring Processes
The TAP offered solutions to standardizing recurring processes. For example, prior to working with MPS, billing was a dreaded task. The team lacked processes to track the hours worked for each client and standardization. Clients were not billed on a consistent basis and the company found itself scrambling to produce what was needed related to billing. The worst part was that the firm feared it was losing billable hours. After working with MPS, Borchardt Senger implemented standardized processes for billing. Melinda and her team now have expectations they are accountable to for billing and experience a greater sense of peace within the process.
Team Dynamics
After the OAP program, Melinda and her team experienced a greater degree of understanding of each other. The Borchardt Senger team completed the DiSC profile assessment and now understand each other’s preferences and work styles on a deeper level. Melinda was validated knowing her team understood her reasoning behind decisions. Borchardt Senger evolved as a place where everyone truly understood how they fit and could best contribute to unifying goals. As a result of the Strategic Team Plan, Melinda was able to make necessary role changes as her team learned how they fit together. Now the team feels that they are thriving. The firm has developed a clear path for business development goals, and each team member understands their contribution.
Alignment & Accountability
After working with MPS, Borchardt Senger experiences a higher degree of alignment. Each person on the team understands the overarching goals and the purpose of these goals. They each have objectives that cascade from the company goals. Melinda feels more approachable and there is less resistance to change and meeting goals now that her team works from alignment instead of agreement.
As a result of the STP and TAP programs, Melinda’s team is more accountable to each other. Melinda now understands how to make realistic requests. Her team has increased accountability to their clients and each other. Melinda has embraced delegation and trusting her team more. She even accomplished a personal goal of taking every Friday off in the summer to spend time with family. The firm greatly benefited from the goal setting and business coaching aspects of the programs.
Net Income Up 23%
Borchardt Senger saw a net income increase of 23% after working with MPS. Even more impressive, Melinda reports, neither she nor her team worked any additional hours! They accomplished their goals in the same amount of time by working more productively together.