{"id":80369,"date":"2020-11-12t13:00:33","date_gmt":"2020-11-12t18:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/48e130086c.nxcli.net\/?p=80369"},"modified":"2020-11-17t19:37:37","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18t00:37:37","slug":"success-starts-with-management-and-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2020\/11\/12\/success-starts-with-management-and-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"herding cats: advice for managing partners"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>\u201ceffective leaders get people to follow without making them feel they are being told what to do.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n by marc rosenberg<\/i> \u201cfew things are more important to human activity than leadership. it helps countries prosper.\u00a0it makes businesses successful. parents help children become successful adults.<\/p>\n exclusively for pro members. <\/span><\/strong>log in here<\/a> or 2022世界杯足球排名 today<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cthe absence of leadership is equally dramatic. without leadership, organizations move slowly, stagnate, and lose their way. we are taught that if decision-making is timely and correct, things will go well. yet a decision by itself changes nothing<\/strong>. more important is implementation, and that\u2019s where organizations often fail.<\/p>\n \u201cimplementation is about how leaders influence behavior, change the course of events, and overcome resistance. leadership is crucial in implementing decisions successfully.\u201d\u00a0\u2013 quinn mills, harvard business school professor<\/p>\n and yes, great managing partners of cpa firms, large and small, have led and built fantastic, growing firms by discovering the holy grail of accounting firm management: successful cat-herding of cpa firm partners, showing them that the firm can achieve greatness by performing as a team rather than as a group of individuals.<\/p>\n my point is not to make mps feel unworthy if they are not mentioned in the same breath as jobs, gandhi and lincoln. instead, i want you to see that the biggest factors in achieving organizational success are strong management and leadership. in a cpa firm, the leader is the mp.<\/p>\n regardless of the organization \u2013 cpa firms, manufacturing companies, sports teams, governments (especially!), you name it \u2013 management is often maligned. it\u2019s a shame, but it\u2019s hard to prevent people from thinking this way. management is an easy target.<\/p>\n humans have a natural dislike for being told what to do.<\/strong> cpa firm partners often feel they have an inalienable right to do whatever they want whenever they please (also known as lack of accountability). effective leaders get people to follow without making them feel they are being told<\/strong> what to do.<\/p>\n many top management people are indeed ineffective. <\/strong>cpa firms\u2019 managing partners have little or no management training or experience, so it\u2019s not surprising that their performance is unsuccessful. besides, many mps carry a significant client base in addition to their mp duties.\u00a0 how can they excel as mps if managing the firm is not their #1 focus, both mentally and timewise? they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n people tend to have a healthy skepticism of management decisions.<\/strong> cpa firm partners have a heavy dose of this cynicism because they often think they know more about managing the firm than the mp does.<\/p>\n i\u2019ll give you an example in the abstract art world. most of us have seen some art that, on the face of it, appears strikingly simple. a jackson pollock canvas that looks as if someone randomly spilled paint on it. a mondrian piece that looks like art any fifth-grader could create. i recently saw a pair of coffee cups in an art museum gift shop that nails this sensation to a t. the cup on the left says, \u201cthat\u2019s not art. i could have done that.\u201d the cup on the right says, \u201cyeah, but you didn\u2019t.\u201d the moral of this story is that many partners think they can manage the firm better than the mp, but they never step up and try.<\/p>\n many firms have negative nellies who love saying, \u201cthat will never work\u201d or \u201cwe\u2019ve tried that before and it failed\u201d or the ever-popular \u201cgoal setting is a waste of time.\u201d if not dealt with, these negative people infect the minds of others, thereby preventing management from doing its job.<\/p>\n leaders are often tempted to make self-serving decisions.<\/strong> unfortunately, throughout all walks of life, we\u2019ve seen countless examples of this, including the most visible of organizations: government. (my apologies; remember, i\u2019m from chicago!)<\/p>\n as a result of these challenges, leaders have to build a sense of trust by the governed before they can do their jobs effectively.<\/p>\n this section is bound to raise the hair on your neck. i\u2019m going to expose the traditional model of operating a cpa firm for what it is, deeply flawed. the message of this section is that it\u2019s the mp\u2019s job to correct<\/strong> the flaws.<\/p>\n the points i make primarily relate to multi-partner firms with annual revenue under $20 million, which represent more than 99 percent of all firms. understand this: larger firms became<\/strong> larger firms because they overcame these flaws.<\/p>\n 1. leaders of firms \u2013 the managing partners \u2013 are often burdened with a significant client base to manage, limiting their ability and time to focus on what should be their #1 client: the firm.<\/p>\n advice:<\/strong> new mps should delegate a minimum of 50-75 percent of their clients to others. the better mps never worry about what will happen if they stop being mp.<\/p>\n 2. too often, partner groups require votes to be taken on minor decisions before they can be enacted.<\/p>\n advice:<\/strong> businesses cannot be effectively run like a democracy. mps must have broad authority to make daily decisions without having to take votes.<\/p>\n 3. the following are examples of the wrong people assuming the mantle of leadership:<\/p>\n advice:<\/strong> install mps who are qualified for the job because of their leadership and management skills, period.<\/p>\n 4. the firm is run like a group of sole practitioners practicing under one roof, sharing staff and overhead. each partner has his or her different way of doing things. this focus on the individual is reinforced by (a) antiquated compensation systems that place excessive weight on finding, minding and grinding to the detriment of intangibles such as teamwork and developing great staff and (b) little or no partner accountability.<\/p>\n advice:<\/strong> embrace the word \u201csynergy.\u201d a firm can achieve so much more by working as a team than by relying on individuals to carry the day.<\/p>\n 5. michael gerber\u2019s \u201ce-myth\u201d encourages business owners to work on<\/strong> their business, not in<\/strong> it. partners are really executive vice presidents and should function like executives who delegate and develop people under them. unfortunately, many cpa firm partners never got this memo. they commit the following sins:<\/p>\n advice:<\/strong> arguably, the mp\u2019s most important job is to get the partners performing like executives, not glorified doers who are guilty of the above excesses.<\/p>\n 6. strategic planning is nonexistent. because everyone is so busy with client work and all are rewarded with compensation that most would consider extraordinary (partners earn $300,000 to $600,000 on average), firms have a strong tendency to operate like a factory: get work in and get it out, endlessly repeated. focus on today and forget about tomorrow. fatal flaws of this dynamic include these:<\/p>\n advice:<\/strong> the mp must be the one<\/strong> person in the firm who never<\/strong> loses sight of the big picture \u2013 what the firm should be tomorrow that it is not doing today.<\/p>\n you might say, \u201chow can our model be so bad if partners earn $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 or more?\u201d here are my responses:<\/p>\n this flawed operating model presents serious obstacles to the mps\u2019 efforts to manage the firm like a real business \u2013 before they even start their jobs. the extent to which mps can correct or avoid these flaws goes a long way to determining the success they will achieve in the future.<\/p>\n the management philosophy of a cpa firmthis diagram is very powerful. many firms (and their managing partners) make the mistake of managing the firm from the bottom up on the chart. they appoint a managing partner, adopt a governance structure (department heads, executive committee, partnership agreement, chief operating officer, etc.) and manage the partners\u2019 performance and behavior mostly with the \u201cmessages\u201d sent when allocating partner income.<\/em><\/p>\n the correct way to manage a firm is, of course, to start at the top and work downward:<\/p>\n the bus.<\/strong>\u00a0jim collins, in his legendary book \u201cgood to great,\u201d writes, \u201cbefore a firm begins strategic planning, it must first get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus.\u201d negativity and skepticism among partners can spread at the speed of light if unchecked. these people must be either dismissed or put in a position in the firm where their harm is neutralized.<\/p>\n the vision.<\/strong> once the proper team is on board, it crafts the firm\u2019s vision. what does it want to look like in five to 10 years? what is the firm’s mission? its driving forces?<\/p>\n firm goals.<\/strong> after the vision is firmed up, next is deciding the specific firmwide goals needed to achieve the vision.<\/p>\n partner goals.<\/strong> firmwide goals can\u2019t be accomplished without people to execute them.\u00a0the partners and other firm personnel are the ones to accomplish the goals.<\/p>\n the engines.<\/strong> before the \u201cengines\u201d level of the chart, the firm is like a car that has come off the assembly line but whose ignition has yet to be turned on. the four engines that propel the process and keep it running and finely tuned are these:<\/p>\n this chart illustrates the big picture of managing a cpa firm. it\u2019s the managing partner\u2019s job to never lose sight of this philosophy.<\/p>\n there is an intuitive notion that comes to partners that goes something like this: \u201clet\u2019s all get together and form a firm that will make us all<\/strong> more successful than any of us could be individually. we\u2019ll follow the principles of democracy by dividing up the management duties so that no one is overburdened. the partners will make decisions as group, thereby avoiding vesting too much power in one person.\u201d<\/p>\n management by committee is doomed to fail. this chart refutes the excuses partners often give for favoring management by committee.<\/p>\n why management by committee doesn\u2019t work<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n line partners should welcome the presence of a managing partner because it<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/a>
\nthe role of the managing partner<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n
\nthink of it. whether it\u2019s countries, governments, businesses, education, sports teams, charities or nonprofits, when their histories are written, their successes and triumphs are attributable to strong, effective management and leadership.<\/p>\n\n
management is often maligned<\/h3>\n
the flawed operating model of cpa firms<\/h3>\n
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the antithesis of the mp: management by committee<\/h3>\n
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\n\u201chow effective leaders get people to follow \u2013 without making them feel like they’re being told what to do.\u201d<\/strong>
\nby marc rosenberg<\/i>
\nthe role of the managing partner<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1339,"featured_media":52068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1363,3120,3002,2266],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-pro-member-exclusive","category-special","category-partner"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n