Ep 016 - Innovation Starts with People with Sheila Enriquez

Transcript

Transcripts are generated by machine learning, so typos may be present.

Chris Hanslik: In today’s episode, you will meet Sheila Enriquez, managing partner of Briggs & Veselka, a CPA firm here in Houston. and learn why she believes innovation starts with people. Sheila, thanks for being here today.

Sheila Enriquez: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Chris Hanslik: So I want to ask you this first, you know, tell us what is your company Briggs & Veselka known for and what do you do?

Sheila Enriquez: That’s an easy one for me. So Briggs & Veselka is a full service CPA firm. So we work with entrepreneurs and companies that are emerging as all the way to very large companies providing accounting services and tax services. So that’s full service audits. We also do tax returns all the way from corporate to the individual. We also have a fairly robust consulting service line as well where we do internal audits. transaction advisory services. We have forensic litigation support and client accounting services. So very much integrated with our core of audit and tax. We are the largest independent firm in Houston, third largest in Texas, which we’re very proud of. So we have offices in Houston, which is our main office, an office in Austin, the Woodlands, and El Campo.

Chris Hanslik: Very good. Yes. Let’s talk a little bit about your role as managing partner. I guess maybe first, what inspired you to even, I guess, become a CPA, but more importantly aspire to take on a leadership role in a CPA firm?

Sheila Enriquez: Yeah, I have a very sort of long-winded way of getting to the CPA actually. I started as a management, I had a concentration in management for my undergraduate degree, but then at the time that I was about to graduate, the dean of the graduate program at Long Island University, I was attending Mercy College in New York at the time, and about to graduate with my management degree but had three credits for my elective. And so I went to Dean Wayne Shafari to try to get a graduate level business course, quantitative analysis. And in the process, he actually advised me to go back and get my CPA. And then literally, this was in January and I was graduating in May. I think it was 2004 and he said, you know, you’re a woman, you’re a minority. The CPA license is a game changer. And of course, at this time, what I didn’t know is he was starting a program that was a four plus one MBA, CPA program, which is really way ahead of its time. And it was a collaboration between Mercy College and Long Island University that happened to have a campus in the Mercy campus in Dobsbury. So I was one of the first students that actually ended up being in that program that you got your MBA and then you got your CPA. your ability to take the CPA exam as well.

Chris Hanslik: All at once.

Sheila Enriquez: All at once. I took his advice, and so if you look at my resume, I actually got my undergraduate degree in May and then I got my graduate degree, my MBA in September. And that’s because I pretty much was ready to graduate and ended up taking the accounting classes. But it was the best advice ever because I went back taking accounting classes, fell in love with it, really took to it, and then sat for the CPA exam and passed it. And really that has changed my whole trajectory because it opened a lot of doors and got me to where I am today. So I’m forever grateful to him. He’s still a mentor. I still talk to him regularly. He’s retired now. He lives in New York. And so, yeah, it was, let’s just say, serendipity. It wasn’t anything planned at all.

Chris Hanslik: Well, that’s great. So then, as you started your practice, it evolved into you taking on management responsibilities and becoming the managing partner.

Sheila Enriquez: Yeah, so that too has been more of a journey than anything because I had shared with you that I ended up taking the CPA route and I didn’t actually get my license until a few years after I passed the exam because I came to the United States as a student. So I was on a student visa and so I needed to find an employer that will take a chance and hire me and sponsor me for a working visa and once again Wayne was an amazing resource because he connected me with a consulting firm, Brenner, McDonough, and Tortolani, and they were a unique firm. They still are. They’re actually a national practice, but they work primarily with Catholic religious, and they’re a consulting firm providing management and accounting and business consulting services. It’s outsourced. And so I worked with them for a number of years. They actually hired me as a part-time student when I was a student and hired me part-time, sponsored me for my H1 visa. And I stayed with them for a number of years. I actually ended up working in New York and then moved to Rhode Island because one of the partners at McDonough retired and worked there for a couple of years before needing to get my CPA license and I needed audit hours. And because they weren’t a CPA firm, I couldn’t get it through them. So the intention was I was just going to work for a public accounting firm for a year, so I can officially get my license. But then I moved to another firm, Spar Johnson & Your Solo, and fell in love with the work. It was a small firm in Rhode Island, full service, but I got to do everything. So I started as a staff. It was a little bit of a step back because I wasn’t I didn’t have the experience but quickly moved out and I got to do audits. I got to do taxes after I did my audit and that was all the way from the corporate or the partnership to the owners to their kids. And then because they didn’t do public company audits, I got to do consulting in the summer.

Chris Hanslik: Gotcha. So now it’s been about four years since you’ve taken over as managing partner at Briggs and Faselka, right? Yes, yes. And, you know, I guess, tell us a little bit about since taking over, what are some of the the key ingredients or factors that you think you put in place to kind of help the firm grow and help you as a leader?

Sheila Enriquez: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. So when I had taken over Briggs and Visalka, it was actually very sudden and we were in the middle of a bit of a crisis, you know, in the sense that I had to take over sooner than expected. And we were in the middle of a lot of transitions. So including systems implementation, we also were in the middle of acquisitions. And as a firm, historically, we’ve not really done a lot of acquisitions. Maybe we do one zip. Every couple of years, we would do a small acquisition, mostly tags. But for whatever reason, 2018 was the year that a lot of the investments we made in conversing and communicating with targets ended up materializing. They were just ready. If I start that year, I took over officially July of 2018, but served as interim managing partner in February of 2018. So we closed on our first deal that year, our very first office outside of Houston. And it was Bill Love. He’s a solo practitioner. in Austin, tax and litigation support. So he does divorce, family law, matrimonial cases, pretty much. So we closed on that in January. We had another one that was happening, that was our digital forensics practice now, Pathway Forensics, that we closed in February. Another one in April that was a tax firm. another one in November that was a combination audit tax and then our largest one at the end of that year also in Austin practice. So it was a very, very busy year. So part of it for me was I call it a realignment. You know, our firm is 48 years old. You know, we started as a purely tax firm. We grew rapidly from when our founding managing partner, Johnny Visalka, co-founder Johnny Visalka, who led the firm for 38 years, was the managing partner for 38 years. He stepped down in 2009, and then John Flatowitz took over from him, who really accelerated the growth of our firm. He doubled the firm in the eight years that he led the firm. So he was the managing partner that I succeeded from. And so when I took over, I saw it as really a realignment. In other words, it’s a perfect time for us to really think about how can we scale from where we were because we grew so rapidly. Our systems didn’t quite keep up with our growth. There were a lot of growing pains. And the way that I would describe it is Johnny led the firm during our infancy to our formative years. John took over in our teenage years because it was like a growth spurt. And then I was blessed to take over at the time when we are about to become much more, that 18-year-old, right, that’s thinking, where are we going to go from here?

Chris Hanslik: More mature.

Sheila Enriquez: More mature, like what do we need to put in place, right, in order to do that? And that really was the opportunity for me. I thought it was a great way to think about what do we want to be when we grow up, right? I think at this point we’re about 30, 35 million. And so I started really thinking about more of setting a longer strategic goal, strategic plan. At this point we’re only doing one year strategic plan. So by November, I actually had a consultant. We sat down as a partner group and developed our five year strategic plan that we still continue to use today. And that was a game changer because that strategic plan really, really addressed, it was very robust, you know, it really addressed where do you want to be in 10 years, you know, address culture, what are non-negotiable. So people, people first that will always be you know, character of our firm. It addressed governance, so there was a lot of governance updating that we had to do, and that was a big lift, you know, that was a heavy lift, you know, that we needed to really do to make sure we can scale. We were at that point, I think we were 24 partners gave or take, and all of the equity partners were part of the board. And it’s difficult to make decisions. And so one of the things that we really did was to think about how can we be built for speed? So it was a big one. Processes and innovation was another big one. Talent acquisition and retention, recruiting. M&A. So really addressed all of the big pieces of our strategic goals, but then also created sort of the action items and then target dates. So I’m happy to report it’s really been, we’re ahead of it. That’s great. We’re ahead of it. You don’t always hear that. I know, I know. We actually have to revisit it this year because even as we’re ahead of our targets, also the pandemic certainly has thrown a wrinkle and it allowed us to kind of think through, well, you know, how can we accelerate even some of the things that we’re thinking about? So really, it was almost a gift to me that the taking over as managing partner, which I didn’t even really ever You know, I didn’t think that would be a role for me necessarily. So I think it was just one of those things that I got into the role and then learned as I was doing it, but with a tremendous support of the partners was able to really think through the longer goals of the firm and keeping the main purpose of our firm is just to give opportunities for people and help our clients. So that’s really been a great experience so far.

Chris Hanslik: That’s great. You mentioned something that is part of your strategic plan. Innovation, I think you mentioned. So what are some of the things that you have implemented that you believe are innovative?

Sheila Enriquez: Yeah. You know, the way that I define innovation really, it’s not just primarily technology. The way I look at it is, you know, you can innovate by looking at what you’re doing currently and improving it. So it’s, can we do things smarter? You know, especially in an environment where a CPA firm typically, and this is not a knock on our profession, but we really are not, we’re not really built for change. You know, we’re a steady profession, you know, tax laws and audit for the longest time would not really change much, right? But then, really in the last decade, we have seen a tremendous sort of that change happening in a very very rapid way you know it’s just it was almost like exponential and i remember actually four years ago when i had made my presentation to the partners when i was running for election you know for for the managing partner role i played a video and you may have seen it and if you haven’t i highly recommend our listeners to look at it but change squared If you Google that, you’ll see a video, and it will talk about how change has gotten so exponential over the years. Now, this is pre-pandemic, by the way. So this was in 2017. Now, whatever that video said, it has even gotten more exponential because of the pandemic. But really, we have the capacity for change in our firm, and we have exhibited that over the years. And I’ll give you specific examples. going paperless in our audits, you know, expanding into other service areas beyond audit and tax. To me, that’s innovation, you know, allowing for the development of tools that will deploy our services in a different way. Again, leveraging technology. But ultimately it’s the people side where I think where the innovation really happens. It’s giving them opportunities to get into areas that maybe you wouldn’t even think about as a CPA. And that’s why I love this profession so much because it really does, it’s like law as well, and of course I’m a lawyer too, but it’s that diversity of practice. You know, it’s that what are you interested in? What are you passionate about? What are you good at? And you can almost always find it, you know, in the services that we provide in the farm.

Chris Hanslik: Well, it sounds like you’re giving some autonomy to your people to explore, to be curious.

Sheila Enriquez: Well, one of our pillars is really finding the best in each other. and really, really bringing your whole self to work. I’m a firm believer in bringing your whole self to work, that work-life integration. I know there’s some other thoughts out there about separating work and personal life, but I’ve always had an integrated work-life because I have a family, you know, working busy seasons. I remember going to law school in the evenings while working, and what I appreciated the most about breaks in the Selca was it allowed me to have an integrated life because I can work from home when I needed to. I can leave when I needed to, not miss any of my kids’ events, right, but still go back and then work. And what’s so interesting is that the pandemic has forced us to do that now, but we have always, we’ve always had that mentality of breaks. And to me that that’s always been the game changer why I’m so loyal to the farm, you know, because it’s, it, it has allowed me to thrive. I mean, you know, Chris, you and I have worked before on projects. I started our litigation support practice. That was a passion that I didn’t even know I had until I started doing work because I finished law school and thought, Hey, how do I leverage that?

Chris Hanslik: Sure.

Sheila Enriquez: Being an auditor, I’m not a tax person, you know, and most JD, you know, most CPA JDs are taxed. And the firm embraced it. I remember going to them, presenting a business plan on building litigation support practice where we put under one umbrella forensic litigation valuation and the executive committee said, go for it. You know, and now proud moment for me. We had a meeting last week and year today, they’ve exceeded 2 million. which is incredible. We’ve built a team. I’ve got two other partners and we’ve got a solid team, you know, and it’s one of our fastest growing. So the firm has been very entrepreneurial, very, very entrepreneurial. So the innovation piece of this to me is if you have an entrepreneurial mindset, the innovation happens very naturally and very organically. And the reason for that, I think, is because people are allowed to try. And we’re a CPA firm, so don’t get me wrong. We cannot afford to make mistakes that cause us to lose our credibility and all of that. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t pilot things. So one of the big things that I started doing when I took over, because I knew my biggest challenge would be change management. How do I move a big ship? We are incredibly successful. I don’t think in the 48 years of the firm we’ve had one year where we didn’t have a growth year. And that’s a testament to Johnny and to John and all the senior partners. Absolutely. They’re very forward-looking. They really fostered creating opportunities for people where other firms might look at it as, oh, the pie is going to get split more because we’re bringing in more partners. their mindset has always been growth mindset. Let’s grow the pie together. And that’s always been, I think, a game changer. So, you know, it’s just the innovation piece to me, it starts with the people and allowing them to try, allowing them to venture into the areas that they’re passionate about because it’s also a way to retain because our biggest challenge is keeping our people.

Chris Hanslik: Especially these days, right?

Sheila Enriquez: Yeah, what is it? Like the great resignation.

Chris Hanslik: Yes, that’s the new word.

Sheila Enriquez: And it’s real.

Chris Hanslik: It is real.

Sheila Enriquez: So if we can talk to people and say, what are you passionate about? And maybe you don’t know yet, but here are all the many aspects that you can try. So we allow people to actually move it in the firm, which was unheard of before. If you’re in tax, you’re in tax. Now we tell them explore.

Chris Hanslik: So I think it’s great, and what I hear you say is there’s a huge emphasis and focus on your people, which leads to culture. So tell us a little bit about the culture at Briggs and Veselka, how you would define it or describe it, and what that feels like there.

Sheila Enriquez: Sure. Yeah, no, the way that I would define it, people first. we always put our people first. And that doesn’t mean that our clients are second, really. It’s that when we put our people first, our clients get taken care of. Because they’re engaged, they’re excited, they know what they’re doing. Therefore, it naturally then lends itself to having excellent client service. So that’s how I would put it. It’s we’re people first. we are firm first. So those two go well together because one of the things that I’ve seen, and it’s not a knock on other organizations, we’re all different, right? I think culture to me is one where if you have a culture, you attract the people that are like-minded. And that’s what works. That doesn’t mean that another culture isn’t working. It’s just that it’s different. I gravitate towards breaks because I am people first. Just love developing people. I love when I see them grow. I love when we start new services and then I see it thriving and succeeding. And that’s us. You know, our values is dedication, excellence, and compassion. I tell you, Chris, during the pandemic, compassion became the go-to.

Chris Hanslik: Right.

Sheila Enriquez: Because it required, I define it as empathy with action. It really required understanding, it required empathy, it required working with people, our staff that had young kids at home because we had a day we had to go remote. All 300 plus people had to go remote and so it required a lot of patients, you know, and, and we still are in the middle of it. Right. But that, that, and it sounds so soft. And I remember when we came up with it and we loved it though, it was the one, we did a survey of our staff. We did a survey of our clients. That word kept coming up.

Chris Hanslik: It’s definitely a word, it’s an active word, right? And I love how you describe it, empathy with action.

Sheila Enriquez: Right, right. And it’s a game changer. I’m telling you, it’s been because I know about you guys, but burnout is real. You know, the fact that we’re not together is difficult, you know, so. it really has elevated our ability to nurture and maintain the culture. So culture to us is core.

Chris Hanslik: And I think you’re right about culture where if you really are intentional about what your culture is, you attract people that will succeed in it. But if for some reason you made a mistake in that, it shows up as well.

Sheila Enriquez: I call it tissue rejection.

Chris Hanslik: You call it what?

Sheila Enriquez: Tissue rejection.

Chris Hanslik: Tissue rejection. I like it.

Sheila Enriquez: It’s like you bring people in and they all of a sudden they’re like, ah, this is how they work. And they naturally kind of like shut off. Right. It’s like either we identify and we take action or they naturally say this is not for me. And that’s OK. Right. Absolutely OK. And that doesn’t mean that we’re like we’re all alike. That’s all not the case. We’re actually quite we are very diverse. We’re very diverse. I think we actually received, so honored, the inaugural HBJ Diversity in Business Award. So we got that award in the large company.

Chris Hanslik: Congratulations on that.

Sheila Enriquez: Thank you. No, very, very proud. But speaking of culture, I think our culture fosters inclusion, which to me you have to have that discussion before diversity. So we achieved our diversity and we’re very diverse. I think we’re 40% non-white. And of course in Houston, we’re blessed because it’s a diverse pool of candidates to begin with, but we created that organically. That wasn’t because we had, and of course we’re moving towards more formalized programs now, but that really was just because we have a very inclusive culture. This came natural. Very organic, you know, and that I’m very passionate about that of keeping that, keeping that as sort of like our way of building diversity so that, you know, it’s really about giving people opportunities and having allowing them to bring themselves, their whole self to work and being authentic. Right. And not not be somebody else at work and be somebody else.

Chris Hanslik: Hard enough. Right. You try to be someone you’re not. Absolutely.

Sheila Enriquez: Absolutely.

Chris Hanslik: So you amazing success over 48 years and your four years as a managing partner, I’m guessing there’s had to have been some setbacks along the way. So I want to know if you could maybe just, you know, recall one of those setbacks, tell us about it, tell us how you overcame it and what the learning was and how it made the organization better going forward.

Sheila Enriquez: Yeah, I wouldn’t even really call it a setback. I think it was more of a learning experience. It sort of goes back to your question about innovation. You know, how do you innovate? What’s my definition of it, right? Well, to me you have to try and you have to allow people to I don’t want to use the word fail because it’s really not a failure, but maybe it’s not what you expected, right? So we have this practice that we started, I want to say five years ago, and John Plotowitz was still the managing partner, and we were all very bullish about it. It’s client accounting services. We knew that there was a need for our startup clients, even our larger clients that don’t have the right infrastructure. In fact, I think you might have been one of our clients.

Chris Hanslik: I think we were.

Sheila Enriquez: Yeah, so if you think about it, you don’t really need a full-time CFO yet. You’re on a growth mode, but you don’t really have the need, really. And this is where I came from personally. My first job is an outsourced management, accounting, and financial consultant. I believe in this because I think it’s a great way to get this expertise. without paying the full price, so to speak, right? So you’re really sharing. It’s like a shared services, right?

Chris Hanslik: With other fractional CFOs.

Sheila Enriquez: Exactly. Exactly. So we have this vision of building it out and, you know, and I think so our history as a firm is we would start practices by being really lean. So I’m a perfect example. I was an audit. I still am an auditor and wore a second hat building the litigation support practice. And that worked well, you know, a lot of our practices were built that way. Except you get to a certain size and then it’s really not feasible. You actually have to invest and bring in the people with the skill set, with the experience and create a team under them. Well, five years ago or so we decided we’re going to start a practice and we’re going to go ahead and do it exactly how we always have done it. And in this case, it wasn’t so much a volunteer, but more of like a voluntold, hey, you know, you’re going to start to practice. So long story short, you know, we struggled a bit to kind of get our footing and, you know, getting the right leaders in, getting the right people in, getting the right structure, getting the right technology. But I tell you, you know, when I took over, I realized that it’s still, we wouldn’t give up on it because the opportunity hasn’t changed. What needed to change was our approach. And so fast forward to when, it’s actually two years ago, I still saw tremendous opportunity in this area, ended up finding a different leader and actually not even a partner yet. but somebody that’s a senior manager who happened to have an interest in this area and has the right skill set because his name is Kevin Stewart. He’s a principal at the firm and he ended up, before joining the firm, actually worked at Walmart, worked at Charming Charlie as a controller CFO. So he’s very passionate about consulting. I remember the first week that he started at the firm, he was hired as an audit senior manager and he I was leading the consulting and he wanted to meet with me and I talked to him and I was like, what’s your interest? And he said, well, I really love the, you know, accounting implementation process improvement, you know. So I kept it in the back of my mind because I was like, he would really be good, you know, for projects like that might come in. And so he was struggling a little bit in audit because he, not struggling, but like he just wasn’t, you can just tell. It wasn’t his passion. So I ended up just talking to him about the possibility. And I said, are you interested? And he said, absolutely. You know, and then we have another, she’s now a senior manager. We had, we had another tax at the time senior who joined us through an acquisition from Seafeld molar, Jonna Kelly. She too had a passion for it. So I have to tell you, I’m so proud of them because they just started, they just restarted it. And I call it a reset. January 1, 2020, just before the pandemic hit. And they have turned it around completely. So Jonna Kelly led our PPP efforts this year or last year, you know, and has really grown in her role. And she’s moved up very quickly. She’s now a senior manager. So between her and Kevin Stewart, I mean, they have tripled the revenue from last year. I think they’re going to probably close to 2 million this year. And they’re not partners, right? But they found their passion. So that one might consider failure or not quite the success we were hoping for. We were able to turn it around. And what I learned from that is having the right leaders with the right skill sets. That’s the recipe for success.

Chris Hanslik: Well, it sounds like another learning that I’m hearing is you didn’t give up on it.

Sheila Enriquez: Right.

Chris Hanslik: Right. You as the leader of the organization could have easily said, you know what, it’s not working, pull the plug. Instead, you’re willing to risk making a change. It’s probably difficult if you’re trying to tell a partner, you can’t leave this anymore.

Sheila Enriquez: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. And sometimes too, I’ve learned this role and Chris, you do it. You’re the chairman, right? It’s like sometimes it’s that empathy piece. It’s that of how can I communicate the message without making someone feel like they felt, right? But no, it’s really, it was a relief.

Chris Hanslik: It’s so funny you say that because it’s been my experience. A lot of times it’s a big relief, but someone doesn’t want to come to you and say that. And then they flourish because that burden that they placed on themselves, the stress, the anxiety is gone and they go back to doing what they did really well.

Sheila Enriquez: Exactly. And there’s such a big, it’s like magic to me when you find the right person and you put them in the right seat.

Chris Hanslik: Yes.

Sheila Enriquez: Because you almost really don’t need to motivate them as much. You just have to be there to guide them and clear the path and give them the resources. And contrast that to when they’re not in the right seat. First and foremost, I want to make sure they’re the right fit for the culture of the firm. We’ve had that too.

Chris Hanslik: Of course, of course. Just somebody that should not be on the bus to begin with. I know you read Good to Great. No, I know. You keep referring to Jim Collins’ analogy of us. I think we’ve all read that. If you’re out there and you haven’t, you should. I’m guessing maybe every guest I’ve had on the podcast so far, there’s been a reference to Jim Collins.

Sheila Enriquez: So I think he’s got a new book. He 2.0. I don’t know if I’ve started listening to it. It’s an extension of good to grade. And so I highly recommend it. I have yet to finish it. It’s definitely a great book. But yeah, I’m a fan.

Chris Hanslik: Good. So that’s kind of our conversations, you know, evolved into talking and I want to ask you some questions about you specifically your leadership style kind of your philosophy about leadership some you may have shared but you know what is kind of how do you describe your style and your philosophy as the leader of the organization?

Sheila Enriquez: You know that’s a great question I probably would characterize myself as really truly that that leader that you know think about what I can do for the organization first truly, because that’s really my success. So what’s in the best interest of the organization?

Chris Hanslik: Firm first.

Sheila Enriquez: Firm first. And being authentic is very important to me. I don’t really mind showing my vulnerability. I’m not perfect. That was so refreshing to me when I joined Briggs & DeSalca because I didn’t grow up in this country. I grew up in the Philippines and came here for college. My values are pretty ingrained in me by the time I got here, but I understood I had to adapt and I had to understand the culture. So it’s such a perfect fit for me with Briggs and Visalka because I can be an authentic leader in the sense that I can be myself.

Chris Hanslik: Do you think that life experiences made you more understanding and tolerant as a leader?

Sheila Enriquez: No doubt. No doubt. You know, I grew up in the Philippines, lived in Japan for a year and a half, studied there, lived in New York for six years, Rhode Island for nine. And I share this because every place I’ve lived in has a different feel. But it’s very similar, right? Like what really drives us? Family, friendships, relationships. You know, that’s the one core for me. But there’s also this recognition that we’re very diverse. And sometimes, you know, we speak different languages. We speak different, even like our personalities. But at the core, we share so much more. So there’s more commonality than differences. And so having that common ground allows me, I think, as a leader to, I’m more of a listener, right? So in a conversation, I would tend to want somebody to really open up. And I try not to judge. I try to be curious instead. So if they say something, it really, for me, might actually hurt me, right? Because, oh, it’s a criticism, or someone might take it as a criticism. I’ve learned to, over time, especially as a leader, John Flaudowitz used to say to me, you know, you cannot really care about what people think of you because as a leader, there’s always going to be, there will be people that agree and people that disagree. The thing you have to remember is are you doing it in the best interest of the firm? That to me is really the best advice, you know, and especially in the middle of the pandemic where 50% of our people believe one thing and the other 50% believe another.

Chris Hanslik: Yes.

Sheila Enriquez: You know, and so to me, I think, the listening part, the empathy part, you know, I think that always putting, thinking about their interests resonates too. So I don’t know how to define that, you know, being authentic. I know servant leadership is so well, common term, but I look at it where I don’t, I’d rather lift them up, right? But I also would own accountability for, I would be the first to own if when things don’t go well. And what I’ve found too is, John has taught me this as well, surround yourself with the best people. Surround yourself with the people that actually disagree with you. People that work with me know, in fact doing litigation has trained me well because I tell my team, I don’t want you to tell me when you disagree because I don’t want to be sitting in the hot seat being deposed and you didn’t tell me because you were afraid that I would be offended. challenge me in a respectful way. But yeah, so I would say authenticity is probably a big thing for me.

Chris Hanslik: Okay, so lots of great thoughts and advice there. If there were A couple of things that you would want to share with maybe an entrepreneur or a new business owner, someone that is getting something started and wanting to scale or grow, what would be a couple of pieces of advice you’d say, you know, focus on these things if you don’t do anything else or maybe something that you wish you had known that you’ve learned since.

Sheila Enriquez: Well, I just think don’t forget about the people part. You know, I think my mother is a serial entrepreneur. She’s always owned her business. And then my father, who passed away in July, but he always put people first. He was a golfer. He taught golf for a living. But I saw how he treated people regardless of their status. So I think, especially entrepreneurs, I think that’s so important. Always don’t lose focus about the people aspect of it. But also, I think agility and flexibility. especially in these times is so critical and you know just being comfortable with uncertainty because that’s certainly something that we all as leaders have to live with and it actually is possible right? I mean I’ve been living it for days.

Chris Hanslik: If you didn’t think flexibility, agility and dealing with uncertainty were important before the pandemic you certainly have learned that since right?

Sheila Enriquez: Absolutely and I think I shared it before too. I think surround yourself with people that are not like you, in terms of their thinking, because we all are very different, you know, we went through this exercise with our partner group, I think it was December of 1920, December of 2020, I decided it would be good to kind of just regroup where it wasn’t just all business, you know, so we had a consultant come in, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Enya Graham, but it’s like a personality, you know, it’s like there’s nine, there are nine types, and what I love about it is it’s like there are nine normals, So if you knew where you land in that spectrum and understand that somebody’s different than you, but they are equally… Well, diversity of thought is so important. Yes, exactly. I think that because somebody has to check you. I tell people all the time in the firm, I have blind spots. So I need people that can see them and that I need them to be comfortable. And then the other thing is provide a safe place, safe environment for people to speak up. That’s so hard to do.

Chris Hanslik: So hard. I think it may be one of the most single, most important things you can do. If you can actually create that, then it really opens up so many possibilities and opportunities.

Sheila Enriquez: Right, because what I’ve found is sometimes people just want to be heard. It doesn’t mean that you need to agree with them, but they just want to know that you heard them. Because that was the thing that I was trying to find out in the beginning, you know, being a leader that really was more technical than anything, right? And it’s the other thing, like, we are so good sometimes in what we do, but as a business owner, as a leader, it’s not what we do, it’s how we relate, you know, with who we’re leading. I think that’s the big difference to me. So there’s a book that I always recommend for people starting a new job, like when they join us or when they take on a new position. I don’t know if you’ve read it, First 90 Days?

Chris Hanslik: I’ve not heard of that one.

Sheila Enriquez: Yeah, it’s highly recommended. In fact, I send it. I actually buy it and then I send it to people because what it talks about is You know, what you did at your old job is irrelevant. You can take all of that with you. Like I have all my experiences being a lawyer. You know, I used to do HR. I lived in different countries. All of that I bring to the fore, you know, for when I’m doing my job. Sure. It’s just part of who I am. But, but also, you know, I grew up in the firm as a technical expert audit litigation, right? Taking on the role of managing partner. What worked in me managing my jobs doesn’t necessarily work with managing 30 partners. Not managing, but interacting with 30 partners. There’s this article, I may have shared it with you at one point, that talks about leading your fellow rainmakers. This job is very difficult.

Chris Hanslik: I’ll agree with you on that one.

Sheila Enriquez: Yes, I’ll have to share that article. It’s a Harvard Business Review article about leading your fellow remake makers that you’re not really leading them, right? You’re interacting with them because they’re experts in their own right.

Chris Hanslik: Right. Absolutely.

Sheila Enriquez: And it’s just very challenging.

Chris Hanslik: So, Shival, this has been great. Lots of good insight from you and an amazing success story in your own right. But let’s wrap up by talking about some fun stuff. So, first of all, how’s your golf game?

Sheila Enriquez: It’s getting better.

Chris Hanslik: Good. That’s good to hear.

Sheila Enriquez: No, actually, I had the privilege of, well, not so much. It’s just I’m very lucky because my oldest one who’s 18, who just started college took took another or what’s the term that got interested again in the game of golf during the pandemic. So it’s sometime in July of 2020. I think it’s because golf is one of those sports you can play during the pandemic. You’re outside, right? So I had the privilege of really playing with him all summer. We would play every week and I would have him for four hours out in the golf course. So it got me playing more. So that was amazing. So, but yeah, I love golf as you know, it’s just my dad’s legacy. So in fact, I want to keep playing and I’m going to have to know that weather is getting cooler. We should go out there.

Chris Hanslik: The weather is getting better.

Sheila Enriquez: Yes, exactly.

Chris Hanslik: All right, so we’re a Texas-based podcast, so you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue?

Sheila Enriquez: Oh, barbecue all the way. All right. You didn’t hesitate. I love barbecue.

Chris Hanslik: So if you could take a sabbatical for a month, where would you go and what would you do?

Sheila Enriquez: Oh, that’s a good one. I would go to a I would go to a mountain resort, because I grew up in the mountains, a mountain resort in the Philippines, and I would try to start my book. I want to write a book. That’s on my bucket list, is to write a book. Just for my own, for my family. I don’t know that I would really publish it.

Chris Hanslik: You may not see it on Amazon.

Sheila Enriquez: Maybe not, but it’s just I want to, you know, I’m so blessed. There’s so many blessings in my life and amazing experiences having lived in three different countries. I’d love to really put that almost like my own journal, you know, of my life. And so I would, I would do that. I would absolutely do that.

Chris Hanslik: That’s great. Oh, that’s a great thing to end on. So Sheila, thank you for taking the time to come on the podcast and share your story.

Sheila Enriquez: A pleasure, pleasure.

Chris Hanslik: It was just great to see you again.

Sheila Enriquez: Same. And I will, you know, we’ll have to, we’ll have to do this again, but you will be on the other side of the table.

Chris Hanslik: Fair enough. All right. Thank you. And there we have it, another great episode. Don’t forget to check out the show notes at boyarmiller.com forward slash podcast. And you can find out more about all the ways our firm can help you at boyarmiller.com. That’s it for this episode. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you next time.