Training New Partners
Source: CPA Practice Management Forum
This article is by Sam Allred, founder and director of Upstream Academy and shareholder in Anderson Zurmuehlen & Company ([email protected]).
The looming retirement of baby boomers will bring more new partners to accounting firms in the next 10 years than in the preceding 30. New partners will be challenged to transition older partners into retirement and prepare their firms for continuous change. They must deal not only with change, but also with commitment and accountability. They must build a culture, which encourages feedback.
Commitment is distinguished from support. Support can be as little as expressing your approval of a firm initiative. Commitment means doing what is necessary to ensure success of that initiative.
Commitment to training new partners is necessary because new partners:
- Are willing and eager to succeed.
- Will help older partners retire.
- Will be challenged by ever-increasing change in the profession.
- Will have a profound effect on firm culture, recruiting, and retention.
- Will be challenged to weed out underperforming partners from their ranks.
Partner training means helping new partners routinely:
- Act as role models for staff as they shape their own behavior.
- Teach by doing.
- Eagerly espouse the firm’s vision and mission.
Partners must acquire a thorough understanding of:
- The partnership agreement.
- Bylaws.
- Retirement plans, both qualified and unqualified.
- The succession plan.
- The firm’s operating expenses.
- Key drivers of firm profitability.
- Benchmark numbers for which each partner will be responsible.
- Responsibilities to other partners. Assigning mentors to new partners is advisable.
- How to demonstrate commitment to the firm’s culture, important initiatives, and goals.
- Soft skill such as leadership, marketing, and sales.
- The value of lifelong learning.
- Underperformance—what it is and its consequences.
From CPA Practice Management Forum, CCH Incorporated, 800-449-8114, August 2007, p. 5.