including 3 key initiatives in most strategic plans.
by bill reeb
let’s discuss how firms need to alter their thinking as to what best practices might look like near term to better position themselves for the future that is almost here now.
more: change happens: how to master it.
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first of all, which i have covered numerous times before, we have to truly address from a workload perspective the prevalence of the upside-down pyramid™ in firms.
how does the upside-down pyramid work? its culture starts with the premise that the lion’s share of the firm’s income should be generated by its partners and managers. when you are a smaller firm, this philosophy is not only logical, but practical, because partners are the first workers in the firm. therefore, the culture evolves supporting the idea that partners and managers should be very hands-on and involved in the detail work of most client projects.
the workflow hierarchy or the utilization of available capacity is a trickle-down approach.
partners do the technical work until they have worked all the hours they can stand, and then the excess trickles down to the managers. the managers, in turn, while simply mimicking their successful bosses, do whatever technical work is available until they have worked all of the hours they can stomach, and then they allow the overflow to trickle down to the supervisors. the process continues in this same fashion down through the lowest level or staff or interns.
in each case, regardless of where someone is in the organizational hierarchy, little or no priority is assigned to keeping everyone below them working. rather, delegating work down to lower levels is more of an afterthought. it is as if the people in these firms believe that the subordinates 1) are employed to do the work that their superiors don’t want to do and/or 2) are considered to be “gofers,” kept on standby to provide assistance when needed. by utilizing this capacity model, partners and managers tend to be overworked and staff is
- generally ignored,
- commonly underworked,
- poorly trained and
- often performing marginally as a group.
the upside-down pyramid™ will, as a firm continues to grow its top line, harm the profitability and long-term viability of the firm. for example, instead of pushing work down to the lowest level possible, partners and managers behave in the exact opposite way. work is performed by the most experienced person possible. while one could surmise that this approach would garner higher fees (because the work is performed by people with higher billing rates), most of the time, that assumption is wrong.
for most of the work we do in cpa firms, our total fees are either fixed-in-fact or in-presumption. obviously, fees are fixed-in-fact when a specific project price was specified. the fees are fixed-in-presumption when we do recurring work, such as annual tax preparation, and the client will assume that this year’s fees will be within a reasonable range of those charged in previous years (unless the scope of the work changed). so, regardless of who does the work, the overall fees are likely going to be about the same. but as mentioned above, the problem is that when you tie up partners doing work managers can do, then partners won’t have time to do the partner work that is critical to the firm’s long-term success. so, while high partner charge hours will likely create excess short-term profits, the partners will be trading off the future of their firms by not:
- spending time routinely with clients and referral sources (which is how firms create tomorrow’s organic growth)
- developing their people (which is how firms create tomorrow’s leaders and technical capacity)
- improving business processes (which creates tomorrow’s enhanced efficiency)
- creating and implementing strategy (which generates a more competitive firm in the future), etc.
so the key is to get each level of worker in a firm’s organization, starting with the partners and working down throughout the firm, to do their jobs – their entire jobs, not just the easiest parts of their jobs.
and because we commonly find that firms don’t hold people accountable for doing their full jobs, this “working below your level” syndrome cascades all the way down through the organizational chart.
let’s consider now, in this light, why and how firms need to rethink how they are operating. consider these points made by bill belichick, often reported as possibly the greatest coach of all time, but certainly listed as one of the best coaches of all time. what is the phrase he so often repeats? it is “do your job!” in an article in usa today sports (january 2017), david butler covered how coach belichick goes about ensuring that his players “do their jobs!” he listed five fundamentals that the coach follows:
- first, each player has an assignment … he needs to execute on that assignment.
- second, he holds players accountable to living up to that standard.
- third, the coach perceives players as movable parts in a system.
- fourth, he will trade standout players in a heartbeat to make the system better.
- fifth, coach belichick expects his players to do all of the little things to make them win.
so, let’s take a look at these points in the context of running a cpa firm, reversing the upside-down pyramid™, and rethinking how you operate as an organization.
you have an assignment! what is that assignment?
at the top of the right-side-up pyramid, there are common roles found in a firm. the most common roles include:
- csp (client service partner)
- pl (practice leader)
- tp (technical partner)
- managing partner
- past partner who sold his/her ownership but is still working in some capacity for the firm
- manager
- with the lower levels in the pyramid being supervisor, senior and staff
you have an assignment, by virtue of your role in the firm – are you living up to it? generally, the answer is “no.” everyone loves doing work below their level because it is not only easy, but it doesn’t force them to push the boundaries of their comfort zones.
finally, partners constantly put themselves and their staff in this position because they underhire for the combined level of current work and growth they are experiencing. being short capacity-wise means that it takes all hands on deck just to get the basic product out the door in a timely fashion. this circumstance probably will always occur in any firm for a total of four to six weeks a year, during a couple of intense deadline periods a year. however, for many firms, working at maximum capacity at certainly the top levels, and often at almost every level, seems to come closer to just the opposite, where for only about four to six weeks the firm can operate at less than maximum effort.
let’s assume for a moment that firms rethought through their staffing practices as well as their job role expectations; what might “doing your job” look like for partners and managers? generic roles and responsibilities for a client service partner, in our view, might include:
- maintaining client satisfaction with, and loyalty to, the firm
- continuously updating their understanding of client’s priorities
- meeting with “a” clients at least four times a year, “b” at least two times a year
- identifying additional services that would be beneficial to those clients
- providing a high-level oversight of the work performed for those clients
- passing down the regular contact and billing/collecting responsibilities of “c” clients and potentially some low-level “b” clients to managers
- pricing projects above firm established minimum levels of realization
- billing and collecting fees
- focusing on developing people and building a right-side-up pyramid
- maintaining a constant connection with key referral sources
- implementing firm strategy
just think about it this way:
a primary role of a partner in any service business is relationship management because if he/she is not doing it, then who is?
next, generic roles and responsibilities for manager or senior manager might include:
- develop and deploy a high level of technical competence
- take care of scheduling and project management for the bulk of the projects in the firm
- ensure that the people under them are getting better, faster and stronger, and build people according to a set of expected competencies
- those in coaching roles should have a major part of their incentive pay directed toward the successful development of their people
- carry a small book of business that they manage, bill and collect
- provide technical training in their areas of expertise
- start building a network in the community
at the end of the day, you may have some different expectations for your partners’ and managers’ roles. what it important is that you make an effort … very soon … to determine what these definitions should be in your firm, for your partners and managers. furthermore, every person at every level needs clarity about what you expect from them in their jobs. as well, they want clarity, and they deserve clarity, about what is expected of them if they want to be promoted in your organization.
hold people accountable to living up to the firm’s standards
there is a lot to digest to fully understand accountability. we have hours of videos available on our website, a monograph on this topic and many, many columns written over the years for your state cpa society e-newsletter that address this topic as well. but for this article, i will hit some high points to support coach belichick’s second reference point.
to hold people accountable for living up to the firm’s standards, doesn’t it seem logical that the firm needs to establish performance standards and communicate them? this requires management to not only set expectations, but to monitor performance against those expectations and adjust as necessary. all too often, we find that expectations are ambiguous rather than clear, therefore creating a large chasm between desired and actual performance. finally, we often find, even when expectations are clearly shared upfront, that usually, virtually no performance feedback occurs on a frequent enough or timely enough basis to make a difference.
performance feedback in most firms is considered an annual hr function rather than a daily and weekly developmental function.
setting expectations isn’t that tough to do. it is all about creating clarity and getting rid of ambiguity. here are some simple questions to ask to ensure that adequate clarity is provided to hold someone accountable. those questions are:
- what is the scope of work that needs to be done?
- what does the deliverable look like?
- when is it due?
- what is the budget (time and $$) for the work?
- what resources are at his/her disposal?
- how will success be measured along the way?
this last point is critical. you need to set up metrics against which to monitor progress and success. keeping score takes some thought and effort to do it properly. as i believe zig ziglar is credited as saying, “if you aim at nothing, you hit it every time,” or consider another common phrase used in operations management, “if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” quantitative metrics are easier to come up with, but numbers alone, especially a single number, cannot only be misleading, but can be easily manipulated by those so inclined.
consider realization. if that is a standalone metric that a firm emphasizes, then i can assure you that many people will manipulate the hours charged to a project, either theirs, those of others working on that project, or both, to ensure that a high realization is achieved. for example, a partner may eat some of his/her own time, or covertly request of others working on his/her project to not record some of the actual time worked. this drives realization up but provides misinformation as to whether that project is actually priced reasonably or not.
many simple quantitative metrics, while easy to determine, can also be easy to manipulate. however, quantitative metrics are an important part of performance management and measurement, so the key is to utilize several in conjunction with each other to provide a balance to help offset normal manipulation.
qualitative metrics, although firms may attempt to minimize them because of perceptions of difficulty in assessment, often have far-reaching and impactful consequences. consider goals such as improved:
- delegation,
- development of people,
- responsiveness,
- behavior (for people behaving badly) and
- skills in stepping up to a new leadership role.
these kinds of objectives are qualitative in nature and therefore often seem more subjective, but they don’t have to be totally subjective. when you look at the importance of operational issues such as delegation, leadership, people development, etc., they are too important to worry about the fact that they cannot be easily quantified. rather, we’d suggest that you focus on the fact that they really cannot be overlooked or left unmanaged.
people need to be perceived as parts within a system
i always talk about building “the machine” in firms. the machine is what cranks out tax returns, audits, financial statements and every technical service. when 200, 2,000 or pick any number of tax returns are turned over from partners to the machine, then everyone works together performing their role to ensure that the highest level of quality, responsiveness, accuracy, timeliness and more are the end product produced.
partners should not be messing with the machine.
partners shouldn’t intervene in the inner workings of the machine so that they can customize the way their end products are produced. the machine does its job without a lot of fanfare or drama – everyone has a job, does their job, works within the boundaries of the system organizationally and procedurally, in order of priority, and in support of deadlines.
if someone in the machine wants to go rogue, then that person is corrected or, if that is not enough, at some point removed. as coach belichick says, “anyone, even standout players, can be let go if they don’t want to work within the system!” and the same rule should apply for partners and managers. anyone who will not work within the system, who won’t do their job, who constantly wants to modify their role and the way the machine works, should be removed. you can’t build a machine that cranks out superior results consistently when the machine is not allowed to work the way it was designed.
having employees who have to ask, “who is the partner or manager in charge of this tax return?” in order to determine how to modify the way they work within the machine is symptomatic of a dysfunctional system.
there are a number of component parts that are necessary to take a firm’s strategy and implement it so that it operates as expected with the proficiency of a machine. achievement of the firm’s strategy involves:
- setting expectations for roles and responsibilities, and competencies
- setting up governance to hold each person accountable
- a compensation framework that is built to motivate the achievement of that strategy
- goals set for everyone, from partners to staff, that are directly tied to the strategy
- significant incentives to make sure you are getting everyone’s attention as to what priorities need to be achieved
- readily available information and constant feedback on progress
- annual, potentially significant changes in performance expectations based on the strategic plan, and the firm’s strengths and weaknesses
it is simple. each machine needs to be designed to discourage people from focusing on other people’s jobs and encourage them to stay focused on doing theirs. and if they won’t do that … look for people who will. often, talented people who want everything customized around them go from being superstars in an organization to the reason why the organization stagnates as it finally outgrows the ability of the superstars it was built to support. look at any dynasty in any sport in the past 30 years. you will quickly see that once the superstars realized that to be the best, their job needed to change to focus on making the machine the best it could be – this understanding was the point at which those dynasties were built.
you should expect all your people to do all of the little things to be successful
eight out of 10 cpa firm strategic plans include at least the following three things:
- building firm capacity and leverage
- developing new business opportunities with existing clients, new clients and through referral sources
- ensuring a governance structure that allows partners the ability to focus on doing their job while being held accountable to the firm’s strategic plan
usually there are other initiatives too, but these three are typically foundational. however, many firms struggle with implementation of these initiatives because they don’t make the effort to ensure their people are all doing the little things.
for example, one of the first little things that comes to mind is that every firm should be embracing a competency model for their people. it is not just about being the best you can be, but rather, being the best that you can be in each of these expected competencies. the real mindset change that needs to take place regarding the competency model isn’t simply to start utilizing them. rather it should be to set minimum expectations for each competency and ensure each person, at their level, is always meeting at least the minimum standards of performance.
in the past, even when firms have utilized competency models, they would embrace a “pick system.” what i mean by this is that if your firm identified 10 competencies, then they would accept you being really good in three of the expected competencies, being okay in a couple of more, and being totally devoid of the remaining ones. that simply doesn’t get it done in today’s business environment.
we use 15 competencies in our model. our system allows you to focus on the handful of critical competencies that need the most work at any time, to get people up to the overall level you hope for. we don’t care whose model you use as there are plenty in the marketplace, or you can make up your own. the point is to identify what you expect from your people from a competencies perspective and develop them to build those competencies.
once you have created or adopted a competency model for the firm, then decide, by competency, by role, what the minimum standard of performance looks like for each of those competencies. this is critical if you really want to evolve your firm to work in a 21st-century operating model.
looking at the graphic below, you will notice that i am showing 10 competencies for purposes of illustration. notice the color scheme. the pink bar represents actual performance and the blue bar represents the minimum level of performance expected for that competency area for this person, in this job, in this level.
we expect people, because of their strengths, to overperform many of the minimum levels of specific competencies, and sometimes even way overperform. but the nuance to today’s thinking is that while we need to leverage everyone’s strengths, we can’t allow their weaknesses to become an albatross for the organization to carry. therefore, we also need to hold people accountable for meeting the minimum level of each competency, and when they are operating below that threshold, the organization needs to hold them to accountable to developmental goals to quickly close those gaps.
so, while this person is doing very well in eight of the 10 competencies shown in this graphic, he/she is also falling short of the minimum expectation in two areas. the first area under the minimum is the execution area and the second notes a shortfall in living up to the trusted business advisor role. therefore, a developmental plan needs to be put in place to ensure that improvement in these two areas is made in the coming year for those two competency areas.
as you think about the little things, similar to football, ensuring that you are doing the requisite blocking and tackling, we suggest that you make sure:
- your culture focuses on developing others first, not everyone developing themselves first.
- you have a system that can develop people better, faster and stronger, which requires accountability and a hierarchy in which someone is being held accountable for each person’s improvement.
- bosses are rewarded based on the accomplishments of their people.
- you remove all partners from running the machine. partners need to focus on managing clients/referrals; managers need to be running the machine.
- create a culture where it is unacceptable to do work beneath your skill level and the expectation is to push everything possible down that is beneath your level. this allows people to fill the job they are in now rather than continue to do, for higher pay, the job they had previously.
- everyone needs to be meeting their goals. that means everyone needs to have goals. and that means that goal monitoring and review should occur frequently, not annually, but monthly or more often as necessary.
- everyone needs to be making themselves replaceable in their current jobs. otherwise, when they get promoted, they leave a gap. and that gap is almost always filled by allowing, if not motivating, them to work beneath their level.
wrap-up
when you think about coach belichick’s system, the fact is that:
- year after year he turns out winning teams.
- he has very talented people on his teams but he doesn’t build the team around them; rather makes them leverage their special talents within the machine to make the machine better.
- he develops his players to have the competencies he needs for them to have in order for them to do their jobs … not someone else’s job, but to do the specific jobs they have.
- if someone wants too much glory or limelight, or if someone wants to bend the system to work their way, then that person gets cut or traded, no matter how good they are.
- he makes sure his people do the whole job, even the parts of that job they might not want to do. for example, he will ensure his receivers tackle or run interference during a play when they are not the target of the play.
these are clearly some basics that every cpa firm should be embracing in order to sustain and improve their current level of profitability, enhance their longevity and ensure their viability for decades to come. if we want to evolve our organizations, we have to start by thinking differently.