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What Would You Do if You Had Complete Confidence in Those Around You?

This is the question that Rob Tautges, CEO of Tautges-Redpath, Ltd. in Bear Lake, MN asks his senior partners. Overwhelmingly, answers include uninterrupted time with family and away from work.

According to a new article from AccountingWeb, Tautges-Redpath is one of three firms nationally that offer a sabbatical program for partners. Some programs encourage partners and principles to spend at least 30 days away every five years, while others require that key players get away from the job.

The thought is that upon returning, employees will be refreshed and will have learned something from their experiences away from the job. Also, it forces other employees to step up, building a stronger team and eventually preparing for succession—which is a growing concern with the upcoming talent shortage.

The idea of sabbatical programs started me thinking about all the talk surrounding work/life balance. We all claim to want “it,” but how often do we actually pursue more time away from the job? There seems to be a general sense of “I’m the only one who can do it right,” which leads employees to forget the concept of division of labor and take on mounds of responsibility.

Rob Tautges’s question seems especially relevant—if we all had complete confidence in our coworkers, would we be more likely to delegate and get home in time for dinner with our families?

Posted by David Flax, CPA on January 02, 2008 • Email to a Friend

Comments (1)

The concept of taking an extended leave and/or materially more time off, outside of the “customary” allowed paid time off offered in corporate America, has long been proven to be beneficial both in terms of productivity, professional effectiveness and in retention.

The real question here does not lie in the enigma regarding the benefits of such a concept.  The european business community has rationalized these benefits for years and acknowledgement of the community is reflected in the minimum 4 week paid vacation packages, for the lowest skilled & compensated positions.

The real challenge will lie in our ability to reverse the current downward economic spiral stemming from a lack of vision, leadership and strategy in America-based industry.  We have become masters in our perfected ability as a quarterly-motivated economic professionals to take knee-jerking financial statement actions (lay-offs, plant closures, organizational re-structuring costs, etc.) in order to correct “what others might think”.  Even Covey expressed this in easy to understand terms.....individuals must grow from dependency, to independency to interdependency.......as a business community, we are stuck at dependency becasue we care “too much” about the quarterly numbers and stock market reactions....Additionally, I am challenheged to believe that there is real strategy remaining in the leadershp in America.  Our ability to transition from the short-term pseudo-strategic business plans, re-written every 90 days because the numbers never match expectations, to true business models with annual strategies which stay in place, under reasonable and attainable assumptions, will prove to be a catalyst of innovation and change, so different than what we have experienced in the past 20 years, that other efficiency and effectiveness methods, includsing the work-life balance tools resulting from sabaticals might have a chance to survive the first corporate board room discussion. Currently, our board rooms won’t even allow this topic on the Agenda.

Max Wallace • Posted on Mon, April 28, 2008 - 1:51 pm EST

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