Last week’s post (March Madness, April Sadness Biases for Investors and Hoopsters Alike) generated more feedback than usual, so I thought we’d do a follow-up post. With the annual NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament (aka “March Madness”) behind us, have we learned anything new about what separates  the elite teams from all the other contending teams?

Yes, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.

As mentioned last time, the 2025 tourney was only the second time in history that all four top-seeded teams (Auburn, Florida, Duke and Houston) made it to the Final Four. That being said, we expect fewer “Cinderella” upsets in the future because it’s easier than ever for elite players to transfer to top contenders. And it’s easier than ever to compensate college athletes directly through Name Image & Likeness (NIL) deals.

But what if there’s something more going on? Could that explain why Florida and Houston advanced to the national championship game and why Duke and Auburn – the two highest ranked teams coming into the tournament – had to watch the finals on TV?

Could those same attributes explain why some professional service firms sail through busy season and year-end crunch time, and others implode and point fingers when the pressure is on?

Dan McMahon, CPA, Founder and Managing Partner of Integrated Growth Advisors says, yes. He believes that team culture, whether in the office or the hardwood, has as much to do with it as raw talent, coaching and mentorship.

“Houston is a culture-first program,” noted McMahon. “Under head coach Kelvin Sampson, their identity is built on grit, relentless defense, and a next-play mentality. Their players embrace tough games and physical play—and they rarely get rattled,” McMahon noted. Against Duke, he said that Houston’s consistency and mental toughness showed through against the exceptionally talented, but relatively inexperienced Blue Devils.

“While Duke has a legacy culture from the Coach K era, sustaining that under new leadership takes time,” said McMahon. “Duke usually brings in the most talented freshmen in the country, but they’re still evolving [under third-year head coach Jon Scheyer] in terms of forging a new identity. Culture takes root over years—not just seasons,” asserted McMahon.

Florida, the eventual champion, “played like a team on a mission,” related McMahon. “Their chemistry, unselfishness, and execution were clear against Auburn in the semi-finals.” He said Auburn head coach, Bruce Pearl, had done an “incredible job instilling intensity and passion,” but Florida seemed more poised and more connected in high-pressure moments. “Auburn had energy—but Florida had balance. In March, the more emotionally steady, values-aligned team seems to win the big games,” explained McMahon.

Here’s the thing: culture doesn’t guarantee victory—but it raises your floor, and in March and April, that matters. “Strong cultures create clarity under pressure,” said McMahon. “And that’s often the difference between closing out big games or watching them slip away.” Every March he said, we witness elite college basketball teams rise—or fall—based on how well they execute under pressure. “The difference rarely comes down to raw talent. It’s about culture, clarity, and leadership,” he said.

According to McMahon, players at Houston and Florida don’t have to guess what to do in the final seconds of a game—they know instinctively what to do, having run through each scenario countless times in practice. The players inbound the ball with confidence, not confusion. They know exactly where to be on the court at the start of the play and where to move as the play develop. They trust their roles. They operate within a system that’s been built and reinforced day after day.

Now shift the lens to the world of accounting firms and other professional services firms.

Over the course of his career, McMahon says he’s found that the highest-performing firms share many of the same traits as the top tier college sports programs:

1. Defined roles and responsibilities.
2. Strong tone at the top.
3. Clear mission, vision, and values understood by all.
4. Proven systems in place that replicate success.
5. Team members don’t need to be spoon-fed by coaches/superiors. They anticipate, adapt, and execute. 

As a result, McMahon said the highest-performing firms don’t fall apart during tax season or year-end planning season —they rise to the challenge. “They’ve put in the reps,” asserted McMahon. “They’ve invested in leadership development, cross-functional communication, and process accountability. Their team members know what’s expected of them—and why.”

By contrast, McMahon said lower-performing firms resemble teams without a playbook. “They have lots of individual talent, but no shared system. They have unclear roles. Leaders haven’t built trust or communicated expectations. Every crisis feels like the first time. The firm survives tax season, but just barely – and excuses and finger-pointing prevail rather than accountability.”

On whose team would you rather be?

Conclusion
How is your firm managing through crunch time? I’d love to hear from you.

#marchmadness, #firmculture, #governance, #accountability

Two thirds of advisors (68%) who responded to our weekly Insta-poll believe this Holiday season has been more stressful than usual from both a business and personal perspective. So, after another difficult and stressful year, don’t beat yourself up for overeating, overspending, over-pouring and oversleeping a little during the Holiday season. Same goes for your clients. You deserve it.

Just know that your ambitious plans to get back into fitness, financial and emotional shape after January 1^st are not likely to stick. Research shows four out of five New Year’s resolutions (81%) will be abandoned by mid-January unless you started test-driving them around Thanksgiving time. The idea is to start making realistic tweaks and adjustments to your resolutions before you post them on your bulletin board and social media accounts for all to see. But in today’s A.D.D. instant gratification society, most people don’t have the patience for that.

Go real with your resolutions

Again, resolutions don’t fail because we lack willpower or discipline; it’s more about bad timing. When we launch resolutions on January 1st, we are making a change based on a calendar date when we think we are prepared to change our lives dramatically. It’s even more difficult to hit the ground running when you’ve gone a month or more without being on our A-Game.

Yet, this mindset has been around for over 4,000 years, ever since the ancient Babylonians used the start of the new calendar year to crown a new king, or to proclaim their loyalty to an existing king. It’s also when they swore to their gods they would pay off debts and promised to return borrowed goods to their neighbor. The penalty for breaking one’s resolutions back then were a lot harsher than they are today. But even then, the “stick rate” wasn’t as a high as you would think.

Harvard Business School professor, Amy Cuddy believes resolutions don’t last because too often we’re setting ourselves up for failure and self-loathing. “We tend to set unreasonable aims for ourselves and then experience negative emotions and a lack of motivation when we don’t reach them,” she observed. “Failing to meet the unreasonable goals we set for ourselves can in turn take a negative toll on our self-worth,” added Cuddy.

Sound familiar?

Researcher and author Richard Wiseman, agrees with Cuddy that we set goals that are too high or too audacious and that we also tend to be too impatient. He believes another big cause of resolution failure is that we tend to sprint out of the gate in search of immediate “returns” rather than taking “baby steps” that will take some time before they move the needle.

If you’ve been a coach potato your entire adult life, don’t resolve to run a marathon within six months. It may work in the movies, but in real life, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment, injury and an unhealthy relapse. However, if you start with 20 minutes of walking a day with a goal of completing a 5K run in six months, your odds of success go up exponentially. And from there, you can talk about completing a 10K or half-marathon before year end with even more ambitious goals in 2023.

Beating the odds

Trying to get your clients to modify their financial behavior in the new year can be quite challenging, too. But it can be highly rewarding if true changes result, Glenn Freed, Ph. D told me. Freed, chief investment strategist of New York City-based Syntax Advisors told me you’ll further cement your status as a client’s most trusted advisor if you can “frame” your legal, charitable or financial planning discussions around New Year’s resolutions. “You can have discussions in person or through a client newsletter. The key is to use these resolutions as a way to check in with clients throughout the year,” added Freed.

The experts seem to agree on one thing: to make any resolution stick, it has to become an ingrained habit. For example: 

• Resolution: Quit smoking vs. Habit: Stop smoking that one cigarette you have every morning after breakfast.
• Resolution: Eat healthy food vs. Habit: Start substituting that one daily morning pastry for a banana.
• Resolution: Lose weight vs. Habit: Every evening after work, go for a two to three-minute run or walk around the block.
• Resolution: Manage stress vs. Habit: Meditate for two to three minutes every morning after you wake up.
• Resolution: Improve finances vs. Habit: Save an extra 2 percent of each paycheck and put half into my 401(k)s low-cost index fund and the other half into a high-yield savings account at my bank.

By immediately breaking down each resolution and seeing what the smallest habit could be, experts say your chances of succeeding will be 50 percent higher. And if even these incremental habits are hard to stick to, don’t give up. Tweak them so they’re manageable.

Conclusion

High performing advisors help their clients follow up on resolutions not only in December, but throughout the year. Framing the financial planning discussion in this way at the start of the year and then following up consistently can be an effective way to help clients stay on the path to financial resolution success. Make 2022 a great year no matter what COVID, the markets, the economy and geopolitical factors throw at us.

This new year, there’s only one resolution I guarantee you that I’ll keep: It’s to getting better at making resolutions.

Tell me what you think.

#productivity, #resolutions, #accountability