How to Self-Assess Your Firm in Five Critical Areas of Leadership and Management -- An Essential Step to Becoming a Great Firm

On Tuesday January 16 I will be presenting a Webinar with the same title as this article. The Webinar will present what we believe is a ground-breaking program to move your firm on a path towards continual improvement.

Adamson Advisory and CPA Leadership Institute have developed an assessment tool that firms can use to look inward at their effectiveness as leaders and managers. It will help firms determine where they are strong, and what they need to work on to not just sustain the firm, but move it forward especially in the changing environment that most CPA firms are facing. There is a lot of discussion about Block Chain and Artificial Intelligence, etc. that may create dramatic changes in the profession. So it is critically important that firms do more planning than they may have in the past.

The self-assessment tool will be a major factor in the firm’s planning process.  It addresses 5 critical leadership areas.

1. People Management and Development 
2. Growth of the Practice -- what is being done to facilitate growth
3. Financial Metrics--what are the most important metrics that should be used to measure performance and compare to other firms
4. Client Service-- what technology, systems, and processes are used to bring client service to an ever higher level
5. Overall Partner Effectiveness--from vision and strategy to raising their personal games. How can partners be not just client service practitioners, but leaders as well? This may be the most important of the 5 factors.

In the area of Overall Partner Effectiveness, I will address the role of the Managing Partner. I have identified two roles or responsibilities that managing partners must do if they do nothing else:

1. Vision and Strategy--the Managing Partner is the steward of the firm’s vision and strategy and must help develop, explain, and communicate them to the partner group and the firm. The vision and strategy should provide direction to everything the firm does.
2. The Managing Partner is the person responsible for helping the other partners maximize their individual performance-- this may be achieved through coaching or mentoring. It is how the firm gets the most out of the partner group.

Here are two examples from the assessment tool that will show you how firms will score themselves on a 1 to 10 scale as show below:

1. Within the People Management and Development area: We have an inclusion and communication process to connect firm management to our young people.                                
2. Within the Partner Effectiveness area: Our partners are committed to personal growth and continued learning.

1-2 Poor

3-4 Just OK

5-6 Good (nothing wrong with good)

7-8 Excellent

9-10 Best of the Best – we own this one

In the Webinar I will discuss how the assessment tool will help you evaluate your firm in each of the 5 critical areas shown above. There are a number of sections in the assessment tool that are not financial metrics. But they are crucial in making a CPA firm great. These intangibles may in some instances be difficult to measure. I will discuss these factors in the Webinar and explain why they are just as important or perhaps more important than traditional financial metrics.

I work with many firms that are satisfied to be “good”; and there is nothing wrong with “good”. But if you are looking to pick it up a notch, we can help you define and attain the vision of a great firm.

I haven’t addressed every possible criterion, but the assessment tool does deal with many of the major areas critical to top performing firms.  Many segments of the tool are affected by the size of the firm.  A three-partner firm can’t be expected to have everything in place that a ten-partner firm will have. A three-partner firm will probably have a lower absolute score. They will ultimately rate themselves in relation to the scores of other similarly sized firms. The question is what should you be working on to become a ten-partner firm.

The Best Practices Network

We will be inviting firms to join the new Best Practices Network, an on-line Network for CPAs for continual learning about Best Practices and how to implement them. Members of the Network will be provided with the self-assessment tool and learn how to use it in determining the effectiveness of their firms’ practices in:

1. Management and Leadership (the area addressed in this article)
2. Marketing
3. Business Development
4. Merger Readiness
5. Partner Admissions, Transition, Retirement and Buyout, Compensation, etc.
6. Personnel and Recruiting
7. Technology
8. Others (to be determined)

This article and the Webinar on January 16 focuses on Leadership and Management. Future Webinars will focus on the practices listed in 2 through 8 above.  If you would like to attend the webinar click here for the brochure and registration page.