From Greg's Head

New Year’s Eve offers a period of both reflection on the year behind us and a look ahead to the year to come.  How did this last year go? What are you going to change in the new year? What do you want to accomplish? These are questions you can apply to both your personal and professional life. Thanks to everyone who read and commented on the blog this year, it’s been a great year and I’m looking forward to 2010. Have a safe and happy New Year!

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the PKF Texas - Entrepreneur's Playbook® page of the PKF Texas website.

Previously we talked about acting with integrity to obtain success beyond success.  It’s one thing to say that we choose to act with integrity; it’s another thing to do it.  How do make sure we follow through? In a word: discipline.

Discipline allows you to regulate and direct your energy toward your goals in alignment with your values.  Discipline is the capacity to maintain awareness and choose consciously in the face of instinctual pressures.  The ability to self control yourself to subordinate immediate gratification to long-term objectives is essential for success beyond success.

In his study of companies that went from “good to great,” Jim Collins found that key common factor was the existence of disciplined people, producing disciplined thoughts, and taking disciplined actions.  Disciplined companies responded to challenges effectively; they were able to maintain flexibility on a tactical level while remaining firmly anchored in their core mission and value.

As Fred Kofman has written, discipline is a direct consequence of conscious choice and response-ability, the capacity to enact a course of action that is congruent with our purpose and values.

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Head over to the BusinessMakers Radio Show Overtime website to listen to PKF Texans Raissa Evans and Jen Lemanski talk about what it’s like to be a member of the PKF Texas Practice Growth team.  Hosts Esther Steinfeld and Katie Laird touched on several topics, including challenges they face as YPs in the industry, how the firm leadership supports them and the team and what projects are coming up.  All parties did an outstanding job!  Click here to listen to their interview. 
 
On another note, I would like to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all the FromGregsHead readers.  I hope your holiday season is healthy, happy and filled with loved ones!

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Pannell Kerr Forster of Texas, P.C. Joins Partner Power to Expand Microsoft Dynamics NAV Service

HOUSTON – December 22, 2009 – Pannell Kerr Forster of Texas, P.C.(PKF Texas) has joined the world’s largest Microsoft Dynamics organization, Partner Power. The Partner Power organization covers more than 50 countries around the globe, and being a member enables PKF Texas to service and support its existing and future multi-national customers. 

 “Houston is primarily an international city due to its stature in energy; space exploration, transportation, and medical research at the world renowned Texas Medical Center. Because of Houston’s international atmosphere, it is natural for us to have a global outlook when looking for new business opportunities,” says Greg Price, Director, Consulting Solutions about the membership of Partner Power.

PKF Texas’ top 10 Dynamics NAV customers are global companies, and they will now be able to access services internationally through Partner Power.  Within the Partner Power international network, PKF Texas will be referred to as Partner Power in the Southern US.

As a member of Partner Power, PKF Texas is now an integral part of a proven and highly successful organization with a proven track record of more than 300 international ERP implementations. Partner Power’s business model is built around committed membership, which not only benefits the members of Partner Power, but also the many international customers engaging with Partner Power for multi-national Microsoft Dynamics projects.

“With the Partner Power membership, we will be able to cater to the needs of multi-national companies, no matter if they are looking for a local implementation in the Southern US, or if they are looking for an organization capable of carrying out implementation projects throughout their multi-national organizations,” said Price. 

About Partner Power
Partner Power is a global provider of Microsoft Dynamics solutions and services specializing in creating value for international organizations. Partner Power, is a global organization made up of the leading Microsoft certified professionals working locally in more than 50 countries. Partner Power offers international organizations the largest range of implementation and consulting services based on Microsoft Dynamics in the world.  For more information visit www.partnerpower.biz.
 

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the PKF Texas - Entrepreneur's Playbook® page of the PKF Texas website.

In our last segment we talked about focusing on the process to achieve your desired outcome.  There is additional value by which you can evaluate your own actions. 

In evaluating success, an additional standard is looking at the alignment between your behavior and your values.   This is known as a measure of integrity, or success beyond success.

In his book Conscious Business author Fred Kofman lays out an impressive idea that integrity is not a particular value, akin to honesty, but rather integrity is adherence to a code of values.  Ask yourself the following question:  Are you willing to win at any cost?  Before you answer yes, consider another question.  What if winning requires unethical behavior? Does this cause a pause?  Enron, Tyco, WorldCom all had impressive codes of ethics.  But that code of ethics didn’t prevent their executives from acting unethically.

Most executives know the difference between right and wrong and we know where the dividing line is located.  In the heat of the moment do you put integrity first and subordinate success or uphold success at all costs and put integrity second?

Every time we act, we are either in alignment with our values or we are not.  We choose whether or not we are aligned.  When it comes to integrity, we can always be players.

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PKF Texas has done it again!  For the second year in a row, we are one of the Best Accounting Firms to Work For  in the country.  Accounting Today sponsors the program with the Best Companies Group.

Our President, Kenneth Guidry, had this to say about our inclusion on the list two years in a row, “PKF Texas is honored to again be named among the Best Accounting Firms to Work For. Several years ago, we chose to adopt a “people first” flexible workplace strategy to grow our business without overburdening our team or compromising client service. This strategy has proven to be beneficial as we make adjustments to our business in response to challenges posed by the economy.”

This survey and award program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in the accounting industry, benefiting the nation's economy, its workforce and businesses.

PKF Texas takes our commitment to corporate social responsibility and our culture very seriously, as it effects not just our internal team, but the clients and friends of our firm.  Congratulations to the PKF Texas team!  This is well deserved recognition.

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On December 3, PKF Texas hosted a “Rebound Roundtable” featuring CEOs from a cross-section of industries.  They discussed strategies and tactics companies can use to take advantage of the return of the economy.  The panelists were:

Ken Jones – Director of the Entrepreneur & Venture Development Center at The University of Houston Downtown
Keith Cole – President, Delcor USA
Vince Foster – CEO, Main Street Capital
Curtis Brown – CEO, Rimkus Consulting

Phil Morabito, CEO of Pierpont Communications was the moderator extraordinaire.  Pierpont was also a sponsor along with Sterling Bank, Sandler Training and the Houston Business Journal.

The transcript of the panel’s discussion will be featured in a special section of the HBJ this Friday.  PKF Texas’ Director of Entrepreneurial Advisory Services, Byron Hebert has written a brief article that will also appear in the section. 

The panel had many great insights that I think you will find valuable as you navigate your business through the current economy. 

Friday I will post the link to the online version of the section on the HBJ site.
 

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the PKF Texas - Entrepreneur's Playbook® page of the PKF Texas website.

Recently we have seen some failures in various sectors of our economy, financial institutions, the auto industry and mortgage banking to name just a few.  Yet many of us turn to our political leadership to solve our problems.   It’s easy to play the victim and say someone else is responsible for our woes.  But I submit we cannot, and should not, look to others to solve our problems.

I submit many of us need to take a step back and think about an exercise Fred Kofman has used to demonstrate what’s really important in our lives.  First, think of three characters you admire.  They can be real people or fictional characters.  Now think of key personality traits that make each of your chosen characters admirable to you.  My characters are: Abraham Lincoln, John Adams and George Patton.  I admire Lincoln’s courage; Adams desire for freedom and self awareness, and Patton’s tenacity and passion for defeat of tyranny.

Now compare these traits to what our society and other elements of the media define as success.  Kofman’s research suggests, and I concur, that it rare you will find anyone who is selected because their qualities are power, wealth, youth, beauty, pleasure or fame.

Your behavior in all kinds of situations can reveal the quality of your character.  Kofman suggest that you are more likely to be successful when you focus on the result of process versus an outcome.  While outcome is important, how you achieve that result is important to integrity of your own personal character.  And while winning is important, it’s more important how you win.  And this leads us to my future topic…Success beyond success.
 

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the PKF Texas - Entrepreneur's Playbook® page of the PKF Texas website.

In “Player versus Victim Leadership Part 1 we discussed that taking the role of a player is the preferred way to address business and life in general.  Let’s explore some additional information on this subject.

In his book Conscious Business, Fred Kofman outlines his definition of response-ability.  Kofman writes that this applies to the way you respond to a situations that are presented to you.  In life, we are presented with the opportunity to make choices.  The responses you make are the key to your individual self awareness.

In addition, being responsible does not necessarily translate into being successful.  But it provides a solid foundation from which one can live their life and deal with anything that comes your way.

While you are not responsible for the environmental factors that surround your world, you can and should be responsible for how you respond to the cards that are dealt your way.  Or in other words you can be a player and play the cards dealt to you, or, you can complain about them become disengaged and unproductive. 

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.” Says Don Juan.
 

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Just in time for the busy holiday travel season, Google has partnered with airports across the country to provide free WiFi access through January 15, 2010.

Google has set up a website listing the 54 participating airports.  Both Bush-Intercontinental and Hobby are on the list. 

Google says, “We’d like to make the holiday travel crunch a little easier and more pleasant – and what better way to do it than with what we know best: the Internet?”

Thank you Google!

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