Accounting and Consulting
Certifying success
How to develop the strengths and talent within your organization
By Kristy J. O'Hara
Smart Business Chicago | September 2008
Page 1 of 2
Krista McMasters
Chief practice officer and incoming CEO, Clifton Gunderson LLP
If anyone knows what’s needed to develop an organization’s employees, it’s Krista
McMasters. She started working for Clifton Gunderson LLP
30 years ago as an associate
accountant, now serves as chief
practice officer, and, in April,
was named CEO, making her
the first and only female CEO in
the top 25 public accounting
firms.
She’s been mentored throughout her career, so it’s no coincidence that the mentoring
continues in a transition program before she assumes full
responsibility in June 2009. But
she’s not impatient. Instead,
she believes that building
employees is critical to anyone’s success and she passes
that along to those who will follow in her footsteps.
“I believe really in the development of people, so I do
everything I can to provide
direction, strategy and vision to
people but allow them to execute and build on that,” she
says. “My whole goal is to
build people into leaders that
far exceed anything I ever
could do.”
Smart Business spoke with
McMasters about how she
develops her 2,000 employees
just as she’s been mentored
during her career.
Recruit good people. Recruit people that have the abilities to do
the things you’re looking to do.
Define the position. We have
something called smart objectives. It’s like a job description,
but it goes beyond that and
talks about the things that we
would like them to achieve in
the next six months and in the
next year in their position.
Interview individuals based on
their experiences related to
those objectives, not just on
their credentials or where
they’ve worked. Really get into
defining the types of experiences they’ve had that relate
specifically to the objectives of
the job.
A lot of it is asking the right
questions. A question that I
always ask is to tell me something that they’re most proud of
in their prior job. You get at people’s passions, and that’s where
you get at their strengths. If you
ask them questions like, ‘Tell me
something that defines you —
an experience that you had that
you were proud of’ — you can
get at what it is they enjoy
doing, which is what they’re
going to be passionate about,
which builds on their strengths.
Mentor people. Have a strong
mentor career development program across the board. Everybody that’s managing anybody,
it’s their role to develop whoever it is that they’re managing.
Provide them with a career that
they’re engaged in, and do that
by connecting with someone
who’s really going to help them
in their development throughout their career.
Match up people who do the
same thing. We make sure our
auditors are matched up with
other auditors, etc., so the people that are doing the mentoring
have the ability to know what it is they’re mentoring. Assuming
that the one criteria is met —
that they’re in the same service
area and do the same thing —
we let the mentees help choose
their mentors. We tell them to
look at the people that they’d
like to become. Look at the individuals that work with them and
the people that they think can
help them build on their
strengths because that’s what
they’d like to achieve once they
have more experience.
Once you’ve identified a good
match for a mentor and mentee,
it’s the responsibility for the
mentor to keep the person
engaged, keep on top of what
they’re doing and keep with
them so that they understand
how they can help them build
on their strength.
