succession

7 Levels of Communication Management

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Chart showing Passport to Partnership's 7 levels of communication management4 reasons that senior managers struggle.

By Martin Bissett

Ultimately, when we have to interact with clients, subordinates, superiors or peers, the questions are always the same: Who do I need to deliver this information to and what approach would they respond most favorably to?

MORE ON THE PASSPORT TO PARTNERSHIP: 3 Questions to Evaluate Your Firm Culture | Learn to Read Your Firm’s Culture | Competence: More Than Technical Skills | Experts Advise What Partnership Takes | Partnership: Competence Is Just the Foot in the Door

In arriving at “Communication” we come to the most intangible of all the components to obtain a “passport to partnership.”
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More Merger Questions Than You Imagined

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Business group of two women and two men shaking handsThere’s a lot to consider whether merging up, down or laterally.

By Bill Reeb and Dominic Cingoranelli

Although we find that an internal ownership transition often can be your best bet, a merger makes sense in many cases. So, if this is the direction you are heading, we’ve highlighted some of the issues below that we think you ought to consider, with the first one being to really take a close and hard look at the compatibility of the organizations courting each other.

MORE ON PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: How to Compensate Your Managing Partner | The Job of Managing Partner: Empowered or Emasculated? | How the Best Managing Partners Turn Ideas into Reality | Make Accountability a Process | Accountability Requires Clear Expectations | Base Retirement on Today’s Operations

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Who Is a Likely Candidate for a Merger?

If you are going to consider a merger, which firms would seemingly be a good fit for your practice – i.e., your clients and your employees and if, applicable, partners?  The better the fit, the more likely you will be able to retain clients and employees, and the greater the chance for overall success of the merged firms.
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5 Ways to Measure Partner Potential

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Learn to read your firm’s ‘cultural blueprint.’PTP_2ndC

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

What conclusions can you draw from your knowledge of how the promotion system works in your firm that you need to keep in mind?

MORE ON THE PASSPORT TO PARTNERSHIP: 3 Questions to Evaluate Your Firm Culture | Learn to Read Your Firm’s Culture | 5 Ways to Get Buy-In for Firm Culture | Competence: More Than Technical Skills | Experts Advise What Partnership Takes | Partnership: Competence Is Just the Foot in the Door | Are You Partner Material? Maybe Not

In terms of firm culture, you need to understand the four navigational points of the compass:

  1. Who do I need to stay on the right side of?
  2. What are the unwritten rules in my firm?
  3. Whose opinions can be trusted?
  4. What really impresses the partners?

And here’s a five-part analysis to see how you measure up:

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Merging for All the Wrong Reasons

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Jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing and word "incomplete" in gapFirst: Get your house in order; don’t expect someone else to do it for you.

By Bill Reeb and Dominic Cingoranelli

For at least the past 10 years, the merger market among CPA firms has been pretty active. While the market volume has waxed and waned a little several times during this period, mergers have been a topic in almost every strategic planning retreat we have facilitated.

MORE ON PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: How to Compensate Your Managing Partner | MPs: How to Elect Them … and Fire Them | Partners as Role Models: The Good, Bad & Ugly | Managing the Managing Partner | Pay Varies When Performance Varies | Accountability Is for Everyone | Who Decides What?

 

GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

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Paying the Managing Partner: Today’s Trends and Best Practices

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Businesswoman holding giant dollar symbolHow firms are balancing base salaries against billable hours.

By Bill Reeb and Dominic Cingoranelli

The managing partner should have a compensation plan unique to that position focused on carrying out the strategic and tactical objectives of the firm.

MORE ON PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: How to Elect a Managing Partner … and How to Fire Them | Why Accountability Falls to Managing Partners | How to Implement Strategy, Step by Step | How to Decide Who Decides Pay | Accountability Includes Partners | Succession Plan Requirements | How Retired Partners Are Robbing their Own Firms | 4 Ways to Create More Capacity | Partner Retirement and the War for Clients | Succession: The Questions to Care About | Hazards of Not Reallocating Equity

GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

While there can be some individual performance goals assessed, the bulk of the managing partner’s incentive package and focus should be on overall firm performance. The key here is that you don’t want an incentive system for the managing partner that is overly focused on individual goals because the real value of this position is in driving firmwide change.
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3 Questions to Evaluate Your Firm Culture

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Silhouettes of three business partners talking against a window in an officeYou have to gauge this to effectively move toward partnership.

By Martin Bissett

This second C is a stormy and choppy one, often fraught with political icebergs but navigated diplomatically and with maturity, will lead you through.

MORE ON THE PASSPORT TO PARTNERSHIP: Learn to Read Your Firm’s Culture | 5 Ways to Get Buy-In for Firm Culture | Competence: More Than Technical Skills | Partnership: Competence Is Just the Foot in the Door | Are You Partner Material? Maybe Not

Case study on culture

Deborah had done well. She was bridging the firm’s culture gap and fulfilling its desire to be seen as an equal opportunities employer by becoming the practice’s standout rising star.
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Managing Partners: How to Elect Them… and Fire Them

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Midsection of businessman moving out with cardboard box from officeAnd why a five-year term is ideal.

By Bill Reeb and Dominic Cingoranelli

Often, firms elect a managing partner with a majority vote, but to dismiss a managing partner within their elected term requires a higher vote, commonly two-thirds of the equity vote. In some larger firms, the people running for managing partner might not be eligible to vote in this process, but in many others, everyone can vote.

MORE ON PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: The Job of Managing Partner: Empowered or Emasculated? | How the Best Managing Partners Turn Ideas into Reality | Make Accountability a Process | Accountability Requires Clear Expectations | Base Retirement on Today’s Operations | How Involved Should Retired Owners Be? | How to Find a Partner’s Replacement

The reason why everyone should be allowed to vote is simply that the smaller the firm, the more likely that removing the candidates being considered for the position puts too much control in the minority ownership of the firm. For example, consider the following six-partner firm scenario:
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How Committees Kill Firms

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Businesswoman working at deskWhy managing partners need to be accountable.

By Bill Reeb and Dominic Cingoranelli

As we have said so many times before, everyone likes the idea that “I” will hold “me” accountable. But few like the idea of “anyone else” holding “them” accountable.

MORE ON PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: The Job of Managing Partner: Empowered or Emasculated? | Partners as Role Models: The Good, Bad & Ugly | Managing the Managing Partner | Pay Varies When Performance Varies | Accountability Is for Everyone | Who Decides What? | CPA Firm Performance Assessments: 15 Core Competencies, 21 Questions

So, once it is decided that accountability is important and someone needs to be responsible for implementation, the discussion quickly shifts to “let’s form a group of people, like an executive committee or a compensation committee to hold us accountable.”
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