|
Source: Accounting Today
L. Gary Boomer, Boomer Consulting, Manhattan, KS, says “firms can be successful with shared services. However, it is impossible to move the firm from generation to generation without a shared vision.” One of the challenges in today’s environment is the frequency of mergers, which can endanger the existing culture, thus making it more difficult for firms to achieve continual growth through merger.
Here are some elements of the cultures of firms that succeed from one generation to the next:
- The focus is on the firm, not on individuals.
- The owners have a common vision of the firm.
- Leaders of the firm create consensus.
- The method of compensation is integrated with the strategic plan.
- Partners review each other’s performance.
- Clients are served by teams, whose members are rotated.
- The firm members buy in to its long-term goals and objectives.
- Firm leadership supports learning and training at all levels.
- While strategies and structure of the organization may change, the core values are constant.
- Employees and clients are of equal importance to the firm.
Steps towards building the firm’s culture:
- Create a strategic plan with input and buy-in from partners and staff.
- Choose the right leaders, which may mean replacing some of the management team.
- Adopt a compensation plan that is tied to the strategic plan.
- Everyone in the firm, including the CEO, must be accountable.
- Become a life-time learning organization.
Conflicts will occur among partners, generations, and team members. How these conflicts are handled is part of the firm culture.
From Accounting Today, September 5, 2005. For the complete article, click on the following link: http://www.webcpa.com/article.cfm?articleid=14523&;pg=acctoday.
|
