Leading An Accounting Firm

Section 5Leading Synergy

Anumber of years ago, I toured an automobile assembly plant in Detroit and was stunned at the choreography of the systems and how well they seemed to work. As a black chassis came down the line, black doors arrived from feeder lines. Everything seemed like a symphony of manufacturing. The same is true as I’ve visited some of the world’s best brands: Southwest Airlines, British Airways, a Disney theme park, or a Ritz-Carlton Hotel. I can feel the smoothness that has gone into aligning the many systems to support the people and their strategy. As this smoothness occurs, and friction is removed, businesses achieve a synergy that Terry Snyder, president of the accounting firm alliance PKF North America in Lawrence, GA, calls magic.

Synergy comes from a Greek word that means cooperative or joint work, but in business, it means that you produce an effect greater than the sum of what individuals can produce. As author Stephen Covey puts it, you achieve synergy when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Author John Maxwell calls it momentum.

In chapter 16, “Synergy and Alignment: One Plus One Equals Three,” we will go in depth into synergy and alignment, so that the teamwork that takes place is like a symphony, with everyone playing his or her part to achieve the vision and mission within the values of the firm. We’ll discuss preparing your firm for crisis and how to make sense when bad things interrupt the flow. When accounting firms achieve this synergy, ...