Leadership

Partners Must Show Unified Front

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Five cheetahs strolling on a pathEven if behind the scenes it’s like herding cats.

By Robert J. Lees, August J. Aquila and Derek Klyhn
Creating the Effective Partnership

In our work with managing partners, we always talk about the importance of the partners “walking together,” of sharing that common vision.

But if the partners are to share the vision, they have to play an active part in determining the firm’s direction – and, critically, how it’s going to get there.

MORE ON LEADERSHIP FOR PRO Members: 11 Steps to Building a Better Partnership Team | Why Your Firm Should Be a Republic | It’s Not Always about Money: 16 Tweaks for Your Comp System

In most firms, and particularly those with multiple locations, the partners typically give their proxy to the managing partner and the executive team to come up with the options they believe face the firm in its drive for sustained high performance.
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5 Questions for Every MP to Answer Honestly

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Businessman's hand separating letter blocks spelling "im" from those spelling "possible"Before you can change your firm, you have to gauge where it is now.

By Robert J. Lees, August J. Aquila and Derek Klyhn
Creating the Effective Partnership

How do successful managing partners respond to the internal and external challenges they face?

MORE ON LEADERSHIP FOR PRO Members: 6 Practical Ways to Innovate | The 4 Best Ways to Use Your Senior Partners | How to Tell a Culture Change Is Due | 11 Steps to Building a Better Partnership Team | Why Your Firm Should Be a Republic | Partnership Is About Persuasion

Without exception, all of the partners we spoke to talked about the need to have a clear sense of direction that the partners, in particular, could coalesce around. But what they considered even more important is the translation of that direction into a compelling vision and the strategies for achieving it.
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Can You Afford to Be a Sponsor?

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Man pointing at computer screen while woman works, both smilingThe cost is in political capital.

By Ida O. Abbott
Sponsoring Women: What Men Need to Know

Most sponsorship occurs informally, without any structured or programmatic context. Informal sponsor-protégée relationships usually start in one of three ways.

The most common way is when a senior manager or partner

  • identifies someone as a star performer,
  • believes that she has what it takes to succeed and
  • wants to make that success happen.

MORE ON SPONSORING WOMEN FOR LEADERSHIP: How Protégées Can Help Sponsors | Beware Misunderstandings About Work Relationships | Women Must See Politics As Leadership | Bias Persists Against Women with Children | 5 Ways Women Get Shoved Aside | Why Men Don’t See Women as Leaders | Thanks for the Advice, But I’d Really Prefer a Promotion | 18 Ways to Boost Your Protégée | Why CPA Firms Need More Women | Protect Your Protégée from Flextime Saboteurs | Use Others to Promote Your Protégée | 8 Ways Sponsors Can Highlight Opportunities

The sponsor recognizes her talent and potential while they work together or when he observes her at work and is impressed by her ability. As the two work together their relationship grows.
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Partners Love, Hate Leadership

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Aquila leadership context modelManagement can’t be left to others. (Drat!)

By Robert J. Lees, August J. Aquila and Derek Klyhn
Creating the Effective Partnership

Regardless of their ownership structure, most firms either operate as partnerships or would prefer to operate as partnerships.

MORE ON LEADERSHIP FOR PRO Members: 8 Ways Leaders Destroy Firms | The 4 Best Ways to Use Your Senior Partners | 11 Steps to Building a Better Partnership Team | 6 Things Leaders Must Do | How to Build a Growth-Centric Pricing Strategy | How to Combine Two Firms after Merger: Carefully

The tensions between being a business and the loss of the values and ethics of being a partnership feature strongly in our research.
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8 Goal Types for Leadership, Accountability

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Numbered running track at a stadium“Production” and “client service” aren’t specific enough. Nail it down.

By Auqust Aquila
Creating the Effective Partnership

As leaders of a firm, partners need to do more than pay for themselves and contribute to overhead expenses. Their duties to the firm and to each other extend to bringing in new business, improving their own skills as well as developing skills in others, contributing to strategy and a passion for continuous improvement in all things.

MORE ON LEADERSHIP FOR PRO Members: 8 Questions That Staff Ask In a Merger | Does Your Dashboard Need Fine-Tuning? | 6 Practical Ways to Innovate | The 4 Best Ways to Use Your Senior Partners | Today’s Top Six Partner Compensation Trends | Why Your Firm Should Be a Republic | Partnership Is About Persuasion | 6 Things Leaders Must Do

Most firms don’t take enough time to develop meaningful partner goals because it is a very time-consuming process. But, if you want to get better results in this highly competitive environment, this is the road you need to take.
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Management Styles: Partnership vs. Corporate

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"That's okay I don't know what the chart means either."BONUS CHECKLIST: 25 best practices for managing partners.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Retreats

In firm management and governance, we find two distinct management styles: partnership vs. corporate.

Partnership style. Democracy heavily impacts the way partnerships are governed. In a democracy, every partner has a vote and there is a “majority rules” mentality. A system of checks and balances prevents leaders from becoming dictators. The “citizens” want a reasonable amount of input into decisions.

MORE ON RETREATS: 30 Marketing and Growth Questions to Cover at a Retreat | How Marketing for CPA Firms Is Different | Why Create a Marketing Plan? | Thinking of Merging? Discuss It At a Retreat | How to Take Action After a Retreat | 12 Simple Rules for a Retreat | Leave Your Retreat With a To Do List | Every Retreat Needs a Leader, But Who? | Retreats Are No Place for Clowns | Who Should Participate in a Retreat? | Retreat Logistics: How Long, What Kind? | What Should CPA Firms Discuss at Retreats? | Why Do CPA Firms Conduct Retreats?

In a partnership style, partners have “certain inalienable rights” like:
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How Protégées Can Help Sponsors

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Road with painted arrows heading two directions4 requirements when starting from scratch.

By Ida O. Abbott
Sponsoring Women: What Men Need to Know

Most leaders engage in sponsorship and have been sponsored themselves, so the nature of a sponsor-protégée relationship should be familiar.

MORE ON SPONSORING WOMEN FOR LEADERSHIP: Beware Misunderstandings About Work Relationships | Women Must See Politics As Leadership | Bias Persists Against Women with Children | 5 Ways Women Get Shoved Aside | Thanks for the Advice, But I’d Really Prefer a Promotion | Women Leaders Provide 6 Market Advantages | Why CPA Firms Need More Women

Generally speaking, you sponsor women just as you do men. You may have to make a little more effort up front. And you might need to adapt to the impact of motherhood and other sex-related differences. But the strategies and tactics that sponsors use to help women move ahead are not much different than those for men.
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Beware Misunderstandings About Work Relationships

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Shoe-only view of man and woman at office, back to back3 ways to derail sponsorships.

By Ida O. Abbott
Sponsoring Women: What Men Need to Know

We know that even when a relationship between a woman and a man is strictly business-focused, others may not see it that way. Here are three thorny issues to watch for and quell.

MORE ON SPONSORING WOMEN FOR LEADERSHIP: Fears of Innuendo, Gossip Impede Development | Women Must See Politics As Leadership | Why Some Women Resist Using Networks | Bias Persists Against Women with Children | Standards for Women Still Differ

1. Gossip and rumors

Relationships in the workplace are frequently the subject of rumors, and close relationships between senior men and junior women are tasty fodder for the gossip mill. Because sponsorship between a man and woman is not as common as sponsorship between two men, it is more noticeable and subjects the man and woman to greater scrutiny.
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