Monthly Archives: December 2013

STRENGTHEN YOUR (MENTAL) CORE

Posted in Horse by

As I wrote in prior posts, I have a horse that is difficult. I’ve learned techniques to manage her behavior, and we steadily make progress. She is now seven years old and I hope to show her 3rd level dressage this year.

This horse does relapse back into bad behavior. So not all the techniques I’ve learned work 100% of the time. At first I tried to follow them to the letter.  I told myself I must not be doing it right if it doesn’t work. But on my own, with nobody helping me, I found this wasn’t productive. It was wrong-headed thinking. I had to make a decision about where to go with the training.

I don’t think I can ever sell this horse. Her behavior can be unpredictable, and I feel it would be dangerous to pass her on to someone not skilled in dealing with it. Someone who could deal with it would probably get frustrated and turn to methods not conducive to making the situation better. More than one person told me she just needed to be beaten.

So as I think about it, what keeps coming into my mind is that I am responsible for her. I’ve had her most of her life, so whatever her problems, I had a hand in making them. No, she isn’t fun to ride sometimes, and when things are hard, it’s easy to want to give up. I say to myself that I deserve better. But so does she. She needs me to get better so she can reach her potential.

I accepted my role in her life. That it wouldn’t be easy, that it would be frustrating, and that I couldn’t seek professional help because people were so critical of my solutions and wouldn’t allow my ideas in.

Sometimes in business, you are in situations you don’t want to be in, and it would be easy to say, it’s too hard, it’s too much work, or my personal favorite, it’s not fair. But you have to ask yourself if you are the best person for the job. Could someone else do it better, or are you uniquely qualified? Will someone else even be willing to do it?

If not, then you must take it on. You must do it even if you don’t want to.  You must do it even if you don’t see any reward beyond yourself, even if it won’t get recognized. By experiencing this on your own, without outside influence, your core will become stronger, and this will intersect with an unknown opportunity in the future. This is the foundation for success.

DO THE OPPOSITE

Posted in Horse by

I’ve been struggling with my Grand Prix horse the last few weeks. He is really tight and stiff in the back, and I have a hard time getting him looser in his canter. Since I work alone, I have to be self-motivated and try and come up with solutions. My first idea is to do the opposite of what I’m currently doing, just to shake things up. If I’m holding too tight on the reins, I let them long and loose. If I’m leaning back, I lean forward. If I’m kicking too much, I stop and just use light leg aids.

It is really hard to change yourself like that. My first reaction is to try and fix whatever happens when I do the opposite. That just sends me back to what wasn’t working, so I have to fight off that feeling. I try to stick with the opposite approach long enough to understand what is changing. Then I have to decide if I think it is enough of a change to warrant continuing on with it.

That is the problem in dressage. Changes can take days, weeks, or even months to manifest themselves. You have either been traveling down the wrong road and have to go back, or you picked the right thing and you’re closer to your goal. It is the waiting to find out that’s hard. And if you were wrong, you feel like an idiot for wasting all that time. I try not to let those feelings haunt me.  I learn a lot from my mistakes, it just takes me a long time to realize the learning.

I’m a member of Clinton Anderson’s No Worries Club. I really like it because he has a huge library of videos on his website that cover just about any problem you could ever have.

I went to the site and searched for dressage, and four videos came up. The first one featured a top dressage horse ridden by a professional, and the comments weren’t all that helpful.  The next three were a series with another dressage trainer. In one of the videos, Clinton put on a top hat and tails and rode the dressage horse. It was amazing. He is so humble and doesn’t take himself too seriously, even making fun of himself a little bit. He rode the horse really well, and clearly he’s an expert horseman. Watching that really buoyed my spirits.

I took notes and found that these videos gave me some great ideas for my own horses. Clinton is an expert at suppling a horse, and although it isn’t the’ dressage way’, it is extremely effective. I ended up having two great rides today. Thank you Clinton Anderson!

THE IMPORTANCE OF ACCOUNTING NOTES AND REFERENCES

Posted in Accounting by

Accounting departments will always experience some level of attrition. Of course we would like everyone we hire to stay on forever, but that’s not realistic. While there are many ways to ease the transition, one of the most effective is to train all members of your team to keep their work well-documented.

There’s nothing worse than when somebody leaves a company abruptly and there are no notes or backup for any of their regular projects. This situation highlights the value of spending the extra time on notes that clarify your work. It is always easier to document your work when it’s fresh in your mind.

The accounting department will have frequent interactions with various outside entities, and most of those will be by phone. It’s amazing how much easier it is to remember conversations by taking notes not only about the issue at hand, but also about any emotions felt during the interaction. If the person on the other end of the line was frustrating, or perhaps they were more helpful than expected, make note of it.  Sometimes hold music can be unusual enough to write about. Don’t worry that it may seem strange to others, if it helps your memory, write it.

For financial work papers, notes regarding unusual entries made during the month along with explanations, and references to additional backup are critical. They will be useful at year end, particularly if your financial statements are audited.

Take notes and reference assuming you will not be around to explain your work at a later time. Your work should be able to stand on its own.  It shouldn’t take a committee to explain what is going on with your work papers.

It can be tempting to take shortcuts with the referencing, especially if it’s something that is prepared frequently. Never assume what you do is obvious. Think in terms of making your eventual successor’s job easier. Set a high standard they will want to uphold.

BE STUBBORN

Posted in Horse by

I used to think I needed to train my dressage horses with someone regularly to make any progress. I’ve learned that it really depends on who you can find to train with. Once you’ve been riding for a while, you start to develop your own system. In dressage, there are plenty of opinions on what is right and wrong. Someone will always think you’re wrong and this can be a problem if you don’t recognize it.

The last few clinics I rode in actually made things worse for me. The instructors wanted to radically reconstruct everything I was doing. When someone tries to completely change you like, it makes you assume that everything you do is wrong. Maybe wrong to them, but not wrong to you. You can train incorrectly and you’ll get a result. It may not be the best result, but it is a result.

If you can find a kindred spirit, someone that connects with you, that allows your voice to be heard, then consider yourself very lucky. I had that for a very short period of time, which ended in 2006 with my mentor’s death. I look back on it now and I’m so glad I recognized what a gift it was to work with someone like that. He clearly knew more than me, but was humble about it. He told me he wasn’t God, and just told me what he saw. He said I was the trainer, and if he told me to do something that didn’t work, I was to ignore it.

Since he died, I’ve been searching for my next mentor. I’m still searching. I do learn from everyone I work with, as long as I can incorporate it into my system.  It fails when I try to embrace their entire method and abandon my own.  I second guess myself so much I become useless. This is something that must be avoided.

I don’t recommend working on your own for extended periods of time. But I will say this – it can work. It took me a long, long, time to train my first horse to Grand Prix. Even I didn’t think it was possible to do such a thing without a trainer. It was hard, frustrating, and I was off in the weeds more times than on the correct path. I pondered why it was that I managed to succeed, and I think it was stubbornness. I refused to give up in the face of overwhelming odds.

Of course I can’t rest – I’ve reached this goal and now I’ve set another one. I need to get better at Grand Prix. My horse is sound and relatively young (age 14). I still have days when I get frustrated, and tell myself to give up, but that’s one inner voice I am able to ignore. My other voice tells me to keep on, because if not now, when?  You never know what you can accomplish if you give up. That’s why I don’t!

5 TIPS FOR POWER MEETINGS

Posted in Accounting, Uncategorized by

Most people consider meetings boring and unproductive.  That’s because they are generally called without a plan, are too long, and don’t engage with those that attend. Try incorporating some of the ideas listed below to super-charge your meetings:

  1. Make them short. Keep your meeting to 15 minutes or less. A short meeting translates to a power packed productive session.
  2. Regular meetings. Meet once a week if possible. Bi-weekly is okay, but anything less than that isn’t often enough.
  3. Encourage everyone to share their ideas.  Everyone should know that this is the place to express themselves. If they have ideas to make their jobs more efficient, or would like to take on something new, this is the time to share it.
  4. Provide snacks. People love to attend meetings if there’s food involved – enough said!
  5. Attendance is optional. This one is a little counter-intuitive, but one advantage is if someone has a deadline or schedule conflict, you don’t have to reschedule the meeting for everyone else.

Try this system for a month. You’ll find your team better focused and higher functioning. This is a team that’s more supportive for you.

YOU CAN LEARN SOMETHING FROM EVERYONE

Posted in Horse by
Liesl age 2

Liesl age 2

I have a horse with really bad behavior on the ground. I’ve owned her since she was six months old. It started the day I got her, she ran me over on the way out of the trailer and I’ve been wary of her ever since.

As an experienced horsewoman, I assumed I could apply all that I had learned so far to try and correct this behavior. I would say I was about 90% successful. She is mostly trustworthy, but that 10% of the time she isn’t, is extremely dangerous. She’s knocked me down many times. She doesn’t have a confirmed respect for personal space.

This year, I began to think there was no hope and I would have to sell her. I ride alone most days, and I was concerned she would knock me out and nobody would find me for days.

I had joined the American Quarter Horse Association, and began receiving their magazine. I was really impressed with the professionals in the Western discipline, they seemed to be very knowledgeable about how horses thought and reacted to people, and in reading the articles in the magazine I started to think differently about how I interacted with my horses.

I wanted to see this type of horsemanship in action. As a dressage person, I considered myself fairly open minded, but I think each discipline tends to think of itself as ‘all wise.’ I was so frustrated with my horse I decided I had better drop that attitude or this problem wasn’t going to get solved. I decided to travel to Oregon and see a Clinton Anderson clinic.

Those two days blew my mind. Watching him work with the horses was amazing. He spent a lot of time talking to the audience and really giving us a thorough view of how the horse’s mind worked. I wasn’t sure how to apply it to my riding, but I could definitely apply it to my ground training. I took so many notes I ran out of paper and had to write in the margins of the program.

I purchased a rope halter and lead, and the stick he uses for what he refers to as his Method. I started to work with my horses based on the notes I took at the clinic; my dressage horses learned to stay out of my space, yield to pressure, and even do rollbacks! I felt like I had been given the key to the secret horse training society.

My mare can now be safely led to and from the arena with no problems. She is calm and can be handled by anyone. She also had trouble loading into the trailer, but he had a technique for that too. I was grateful for it when I went on a three day road trip to California and halfway there she decided she didn’t want to get on the trailer. I knew exactly what to do.

They say there is no teaching, only learning. Now I believe it. I can learn something from anyone, and sometimes the learning comes from unusual sources.  I had to be willing to change my mind and admit I was wrong. Because I can do that, I can get better. It is a hard thing to do, but the rewards are great.

THE LITTLE QUARTER HORSE THAT COULD

Posted in Horse, Uncategorized by
Justine 20101

Justine 20101

At the end of 2009, one of my horses colicked and died. She was a beautiful eleven year old Westphalen mare, and I had imported her from Germany in 2003. It was tragic, but fortunately happened quickly; it came on so fast there was no time to transport her to the clinic for surgery; she died within a few hours.

I was devastated, but with horses, in order to experience the triumphs and happy times, you have to be prepared to accept some of the difficult times as well.

I only keep two horses at home, so my other horse was left without a buddy. I decided to find a companion animal, nothing fancy, but something I could train and perhaps sell later on. I wasn’t too concerned about having another competition horse; any time spent in the saddle translates to more knowledge.

I looked around locally, and nothing stood out. My friend mentioned she had a Quarter Horse that was currently in reining training, and the horse didn’t show talent for it. She was going to bring her back home and just put her out in pasture. I decided to have a look to see if she would suit me.

She arrived at my house, and my first thought was how pretty she was. She was also very small compared to my warm bloods, but being a Quarter Horse, she was wide-bodied and even though I am 5’7” she was a good fit for me.  She was four years old at the time. Her name was Justine.

I started riding her and immediately noticed something special about her. Now I didn’t have high expectations for her. She was downhill built and moved like a sewing machine. But she was so sweet and willing, and I found myself looking forward to coming to the barn because every time she saw me she nickered loudly. And wow, what a quick learner she was! At age four, I had her doing all the first level dressage moves in a few months. Her canter was a highlight too, like a rocking horse.

Again, since I only had the two horses at home, I decided to bring her along to the shows with me. She was for sale, as her owner was having health problems and couldn’t keep her. So I figured getting her out and showing her would help with the sales process.

She had an amazing year. She almost always scored in the 60’s, and placed in most of her classes. She would go toe to toe with fancy warm bloods and hold her own. My other horse showed in the advanced classes, and preparing for those would stress me out. With her, I could just relax and have fun. It was a nice contrast from the pressure I normally felt when I showed.

She helped ease the sadness of losing my other horse. I was so amazed at how she tried, she never let me down. She didn’t have the natural talent of the warm bloods, but she would put 110% effort in every time. She belonged out there.  I try not to be overly dramatic, but it was almost like she had been sent to me for a reason. I never pondered that too much, all I knew was that I liked her and she brought me joy.

At the end of the season, I had another horse I brought into the barn to start, so I sent Justine back to her owner. I was satisfied with our season together, and thought it was time for both of us to move on.

Justine came back into my life a little over a year later. Another chapter began, and I will share that story in future posts.

TIPS ON TRAINING NEWLY HIRED ACCOUNTANTS

Posted in Accounting by

Congratulations! The business is growing and you need to hire more people. I will assume you’re past the screening process and have hired your ideal candidate. The problem is they have little to no experience. Either they are just out of school, or perhaps have experience in areas other than accounting. Here are some ideas on setting them up to succeed.

Unless you have other experienced staff, most of the training responsibility will fall on you. One of the best ways to start is to give them a relatively straightforward task. An easy way to do this that won’t require a lot of your time, is to have them prepare reconciliations or work papers that have already been done. For example your prior month sales tax returns, or financial statement work papers. They can compare their work to the prior month. If they have questions, have them prepare a list and you can schedule a time to go over it. This allows them to go at their own pace and learn by doing.

Another good way to get new hires started is cross-training with other departments. A staff accountant can pair up with an AR or AP clerk for a day. I like this because it gives your current staff a chance to learn effective training skills, and the new person will become familiar with your systems and other aspects of the company. It is also beneficial to have as many people as possible trained in data entry. There are always times when the volume increases, and there are not enough staff. The ability to have the extra work done internally is more cost effective than hiring temporary staff.

I want the people that work for me to understand that every task in accounting is potentially theirs.  Yes, they may get promoted and have additional responsibility, but if something needs to be done, they may “get the call”.  People need to understand that to work efficiently, sometimes you have to do things that aren’t as fun, or not as sophisticated. I like to look at it in terms of helping someone else; if AP needs help with their filing, I’ll do the filing, even if I’m the Accounting Manager. That’s the kind of attitude you want to instill in your employees, and the best way to do that is to lead by example.

After about a month on the job, ask your new employee to start documenting what they do every day. Once you have a week’s worth of documentation, review it, and then ask them to draft a procedures write up of their job. This assists with documenting internal processes and gets them thinking about other tasks they might enjoy doing.

Some people are happy to be told what to do; others are more aggressive and will seek out new opportunities. Find out what type of person you’re dealing with as soon as you can. One is not necessarily better than the other, but you can assign tasks based on skill level and attitude. For example, someone that is more of a follower will be suitable for repetitious work, like data entry, filing, or collections. Someone more aggressive will learn those things, get better and faster at those tasks, and end up with a lot more free time in the day. You want to be ready to fill that time with productive activities. You might consider having them start on one of those special projects that are sitting on your desk!

The common theme of these techniques is building teamwork. They should understand no task is too big or small. Let them know they will be recognized for making the department more efficient. Find out their strengths and use them to your advantage. Discover their weaknesses, and find ways to help them be stronger. In helping them build skills, you build yours as well.

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS

Posted in Accounting by

While accountants always like it when things balance to the penny, we also consider materiality. For example, if your bank reconciliation is off by $20, and the account balance is $600k with millions flowing through it every month, it makes more sense to write off the $20 and move on with your life. I do it all the time. It allows me to focus on more pressing issues.

There are times though, when I see what appears to be an immaterial amount, but something about it bothers me.  Between sales, property, and income taxes, I file over 1,000 returns each year.  If I chased down every penny nothing would ever get done. However, when reconciling sales tax accounts, it really makes no sense for the general ledger not to tie within pennies of the subsidiary. In most cases the subsidiary is another software program that calculates the taxes on your invoices. In a perfect world, these systems communicate with each other seamlessly.  Since our world isn’t perfect, things happen.

Last month my general ledger and subsidiary were off by $17. The tax owed was $80k. But I was bothered. There was no reason for it to be off. I put my detective skills to work, it took about an hour, but I figured out that the software system was incorrectly posting a credit memo; the credit went to a different state than the original debit. Without getting into all the fun details, suffice it to say that this hour spent resulted in a reprogramming of the sales tax program to correct a systematic error that would have continued to occur. If I didn’t investigate $17, the next one could have been thousands, or over time it could have added up to even more than that.

Today I received an email requesting a resale certificate for a 3rd party shipment. The wording of the email was confusing; I read it quickly and thought I knew the answer, was about to hit send, then I felt again like something was wrong. I read the email a few more times, and determined there was a misunderstanding of sales tax law. As part of my investigating, I uncovered another problem.  I determined that a sale had been sourced to an incorrect state, no tax had been collected, and it was a material amount. The error I found was only thinly related to the email, but being bothered, I spent the time.

Never feel bad about spending extra time to investigate the details on something that just ‘feels wrong.’ You could uncover larger problems and solve them before they cost your company a lot of money. In communicating these issues internally, you show expertise and leadership. It also showcases your problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

Spending this extra time develops what I like to refer to as ‘the gut instinct.’ It will get faster and easier to glance at something and know that it doesn’t seem right and needs further analysis. Being able to react quickly with gut instincts is a valuable business skill. Never waste an opportunity to practice it – that $17 could change your life!