Six Types of Managing Partners

Source: Public Practice

If you’re an MP or department head, this article may help you better understand yourself and better relate to and with your partners. For other partners and staff, understanding the MP can help you create a relationship beneficial to you and the firm.

Type 1:
The busy MP. The busy MP who tries to keep a lot of balls in the air doesn’t often do it well. Michael Epstein, MP at Fuller Landau in Toronto, is one who does. He is MP for two offices. Managing people, both partners and staff, is a big part of ensuring the firm’s growth. He is involved in coaching partners on mentoring, and mentoring four to five protégés himself. He hosts a Friday luncheon with staff to discuss business and personal activities. He is involved in recruiting and views every day as a recruiting day. He is advisory partner on large engagements and in M&A and corporate finance, though he no longer has a book of business. He is involved in new client proposals, mergers, strategic alliances and developing the marketing plan.

Type 2:
The self-improvement MP. Irwin Steinberg, MP of Steinberg Advisors in Northbrook, IL, has made “an aggressive commitment to people, and to making sure he is directing his own skills and development toward creating an environment that will attract staff and help retain them.” Steinberg hired a coach to help him deal with people issues and time management.

Type 3:
The learn from experience MP. Philip Holthouse of Holthouse Carlin and Van Trigt in Long Beach, CA, recognizes that lessons learned—and valuing those practice-management gains—may be the secrets to success.

Type 4:
The millennial-friendly MP. Andy Armanino, MP of Armanino McKenna in San Ramon, CA, believes winning the talent wars may require being committed to becoming an employer of choice. He and other firm leaders pay attention to input from millennials.

Type 5:
The non-CPA business manager. Tracy Gallagher is managing director at Tofias PC in Cambridge, MA. His only client is the firm. This rare solution to the management problem resulted from a difficult transition a decade ago, when the founders turned the practice over to the second generation. The trauma of that transition caused the new leaders to create a system that would assure the firm’s financial health and growth. Today the firm is financially sound and profitable.

Type 6:
The new MP. Imagine a new MP not only having grown up in the firm, but being its first MP. This is the situation of William Tapp, managing shareholder of Kirkland Russ Murphy & Tapp in Tampa, FL. The major challenges are people, strategy, succession, and firm culture. Tapp is trying to spend more time calling recruits himself to broaden the recruiting reach. The firm is discussing various future equity opportunities and the remaining years for the founding owners. They have known each other for years and yet find it difficult to talk about these issues. Keeping the culture they started with is key. They hope to maintain the strengths of strong interpersonal relationships, a less formalized structure, and less emphasis on metrics and budgets. But in reality, it is hard to avoid structure and metrics, which are inevitable. Tapp says it is important to understand their impact and importance and to let people know “why.”

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From Texas Society of CPAs, Public Practice, September/October 2008, www.tscpa.org.

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