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10 FEDA News & Views A white board, 60 minutes of your time, and honest answers to three introspective questions— that's all Organizational Health Coach Alan Andersen needs to begin to piece together a pretty convincing picture of a company's health. Health, not as in traditional metrics tied to fi nancials. His perspective veers more toward the softer side of the continuum and is con- sistent with long-held beliefs favoring the transformational power of people development. "Our approach is a little bit different," says Andersen, who is a partner in the Shandel Group, a consulting and coach- ing fi rm that specializes in helping com- panies fi nd clarity via leadership devel- opment training and culture building. "Companies are made up of peo- ple and successful business is simply about who we are and the customers we serve," adds Andersen. "So, my defi - nition of health is people-oriented. Are the people that drive the company men- tally, emotionally, spiritually and fi nan- cially well—and along with that, how informed are they? Your level of health is in direct proportion to the strength of your communication." That's where the questions come in. Andersen starts the diagnostic with three: What are your priorities, and does everyone from the CEO to entry level staff know with crystal clarity what they are? "Usually, we respond with yes or no but what we don't do is follow up with more questions to tease out information to determine if everyone is thinking on the same terms," says Andersen. The second question is what are the (internal and external) positions that you need created or fi lled in order to meet your priorities in the next 12 months? Finally, do you have the right people to align with those positions and priorities? "Regardless of the make or model of a company, everyone has room for growth," says Andersen. "It's all about ask- ing the right questions so that you can identify what you know and what you don't know—and it's what you don't know that can slowly sap performance, profi tability and growth." What You Think You Know…. It was Seattle-based CPA Dan Nicholson's vision, all 400 pounds of it, that fi rst prompted him to give Andersen a call and eventually invest in an assess- ment. Big dreams of world domination aside, Nicholson started his fi rm, Nth Degree CPAs, in 2008 with the intent of revolutionizing the world of accounting via an extreme level of high touch paired with a holistic approach to client care. "When you talk to business owners, they overwhelmingly say the functions they hate the most are tax and account- ing, and the thing they hate the most about their accountant is that they are unavailable and not proactive," says Nicholson, a former research fellow for the Governmental Accounting Standards Board. "That's in large part a refl ection of the fact that the majority of accounting fi rms really just want to be individual practitioners," he says. "They're a team of one or two indirectly messaging to the world that they are more interested in a transactional relationship." Nth Degree, on the other hand, has a staff of 10 and hopes to one day grow that number tenfold—manpower Nicholson believes will help retain his top talent and support plans to expand the fi rm's base and its services. But before moving forward, he says, "we needed to know how aligned we were with our staff. Did they believe in what we were trying to do? "The assessment was a really good way to build cohesiveness with our team. Having an outside facilitator led to a more open conversation and gave everybody the opportunity to share their thoughts and feelings." Moment of clarity: Discovering that his staff thought he shared too much. "I have always put a lot of emphasis on transparency and trying to build a consensus around what we are doing," says Nicholson. "And what we learned, was that they like being informed but would prefer to have things a little more settled before we share it with them. I was bringing the team in on things that How Healthy Is Your Company? The 3 Questions that Will Help You Get Closer to the Truth By Stacy Ward, Managing Editor fedastacy@verizon.net