Monday, February 4, 2013

Being “Super” Prepared

I imagine after Sunday’s climactic Super Bowl contest there’s an ad running in the classified section of several New Orleans newspapers that reads something like this:

“Experienced electricians for hire. Formerly employed at Superdome charged with overseeing operation of stadium lights and illuminating halftime shows. Only blemish on record was a recent game outage. Will trade Beyoncé tickets for work.”

You can bet the world-champion Baltimore Ravens and runner-up San Francisco 49ers were not the only ones cleaning out their lockers after the big game. I’m sure those held responsible for the unprecedented 34-minute delay due to the well-publicized power outage were ushered out of the building under the cover of darkness and given an armed escort out of the French Quarter never to be seen again except on the unemployment line.

The official line was “failure of the equipment maintained by the stadium staff.” Or, by now, the ex-stadium staff.

Who’da thunk that the wattage and flow necessary to power a visual extravaganza spotlighting the gyrating diva Beyoncé and a cast of hundreds would require more juice than, say, the stadium lights or exhaust fans for the vendor carts?

While the Super Bowl incident was obviously a dramatic example of preparation (or a lack thereof), egregious examples of being caught flat-footed don’t necessarily have to occur before a viewing audience of 115 million or so people. It can easily happen, say, in a CPA firm of 10.

Now that tax season is literally hours away from kicking off in high gear, how many partners and principals have — again — pushed memos and frequent talking points surrounding key aspects of the firm’s continued success in the future under a pile of 1040s?

Partnership agreements?

Internal succession evaluations?  

How about a formula to buy out those partners who announced they were retiring within a year or two?
My guess is they all got lost somewhere in the 3rd quarter of Sunday’s game (if not before), between the mammoth tray of hot wings and blue cheese and the overstuffed 6-foot sandwich. And it’s doubtful they will be resurrected any time before May 1.

But in between the dunes of W-2s that will almost certainly litter your respective offices over the next few months, it might behoove you to set aside some time to review and revisit what keeps stroking the engines of your firm and see to it that it will keep going — not just for tax season or the next quarter, but the next quarter-century.

Otherwise, a decided lack of preparation could well write the next classified ad: Space available for professional services firm. Good location. Reasonable.”

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