How Administrators Can Effect Change in the Firm

Source: Accounting Office Management & Administration Report

At the Association for Accounting Administration’s 25th annual National Practice Management Conference, Sam Allred, founder and director of Upstream Academy, spoke about how administrators can help partners. Here are some highlights:

• Partners are under great pressure from expected retirements—the need to find cash to fund retirement payments, transition of clients, and marketing.
  • This makes it difficult for administrative people to get partners to participate in initiatives. One administrator suggested a plan for mornings to be devoted to “production time’’—when partners can work uninterrupted.
• Partners don’t delegate. They are more comfortable doing the work themselves. Sixty percent to 80 percent of their work could be done by others. And they don’t like standardized processes; they want to do things their way. These attitudes are transmitted to staff.
  • Administrators should understand why partners behave this way—it will help them, the administrators, promote change. Thirty percent of partners will embrace change, 50 percent will be disinterested, and 20 percent will be opposed. Administrators should work with the 30 percent in favor of the change. Once the 50 percent disinterested group sees the results, many of them will likely become interested.
• Partner admission standards are increasing—sometimes beyond the level at which existing partners perform.
  • Administrators can be empathetic to staff members called upon to do the work of those underperforming partners.
• Administrators will feel uncomfortable when partners speak to them in a negative way about other partners.
  • Firms should adopt policies forbidding partners to speak negatively about other partners except directly to them.
• Administrators can help firms enhance quality.
  • They can challenge any practice that diminishes quality.
  • They can help standardize many areas including recruiting, retention, meetings, budgeting, and client communication.

For the complete article, click here.

From Accounting Office Management & Administration Report, August 2008, p. 1. For subscription information contact Institute of Management & Administration, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, 30th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5902. One-year subscription $449. 212-244-0360, [email protected].

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