Crafting a future: How to create a truly compelling firm vision

The more partners are engaged with the firm’s future, the better they perform. So, the vision of the firm’s future has to be compelling and persuade everyone in the firm, especially the partners, that they want to play a part in making it a reality. However, getting the partners engaged isn’t always easy. How can you make sure they remain on side?

In the first article in this series on partner engagement, the analogy was made of a bridge and girders. All too often, partners see the girders but not the bridge that they are building and, as a result, don’t engage with either the picture of the firm’s future or the journey. There is value in both, but building a bridge is a lot more compelling.

The picture becomes even more compelling when it’s a bridge to somewhere people want to go: it’s the ultimate destination that people engage with. The journey is a lot more enjoyable (even if not every part of it is) if the end point is exciting and has benefits that everyone shares.

The partners need to understand the benefits to the firm and themselves, and they need to know what the journey will entail (the ‘how to’). Partners are typically highly analytical and need to know the details of the journey before they’ll embark on the voyage. Just saying ‘we want to be a top ten firm’, for example, won’t cut it.

In addition to being highly analytical, partners always want to calibrate how they’re doing. So, as well as a clear destination, there have to be distinct milestones that enable everyone to measure progress.

Some managing partners have expressed concern that specific measures will curtail the entrepreneurial spirit that the partners need in their search for new markets and business. However, milestones don’t mean that a firm can’t be opportunistic.

It’s all about the journey: sometimes the winds change or the train gets cancelled or there’s the opportunity to visit somewhere unexpected and you change your course. The destination doesn’t change – only how you get there.

A compelling vision

What is a compelling vision? It’s not just a simple statement. The vision statement also needs to have:

• a clear destination;

• the strategies for getting there (the how to);

• the way progress will be measured; and

• the benefits to the partners of going on the journey.

While some firm vision statements still talk about becoming the leading player in a region or nationally, there is increasing recognition that a vision is a lot more than a statement, particularly among the Big Four accounting firms.

See, for example, the box ‘Common ideas from the visions of the Big Four accounting firms’. There are references to clients and people (the two markets that every professional firm operates in) and the ways the firm endeavours to persuade people in both markets to choose their firm rather than its competitors.

The UK’s magic circle law firms are demonstrating an increasing focus on these areas, although their visions are not always as detailed as those of the Big Four.

 

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Common ideas in the visions of the Big Four accounting firms

• Do the right thing for our clients, people and communities

• Help our clients to improve their business around the globe

• Put the best people at our clients’ disposal

• Set the standard/ be the best at everything we do

• Others compare themselves to us

• How we work with our clients and each other

• Be the best place to work

• The quality of our professionals’ development experiences

• Diversity of backgrounds, experience and minds

• Responsible business is good business

 

Engaging partners

The following true story helps to illustrate what can happen when all of the elements – vision, journey, milestones and a positive answer to ‘what’s in it for me?’ – are not in place.

One managing partner came back from Harvard Business School’s leading professional service firms programme with renewed energy and a determination to drive the firm forward.

He outlined his vision of moving the firm from its regional base to becoming a leading national firm to his partners and talked briefly about what they needed to do to get there. But, to his abject disappointment, nothing happened.

Concerned about the lack of action, the managing partner visited all of the offices to talk through his plans and, during these visits, the partners’ concerns became apparent.

While the partners really liked the idea of becoming a national firm, they felt the only way to achieve this was through a merger, which, critically, they felt they would be on the wrong side of. As a result, the partners didn’t engage with the vision and returned to the thing they knew best – serving their clients.

Where did the managing partner go wrong? The vision initially appeared positive. However, when it was subjected to the partners’ analytical scrutiny, the ‘how to’ was clearly negative and the ‘what’s in it for me?’ was decidedly negative. With this conclusion, the lack of ways to measure progress didn’t even get debated.

This example demonstrates that there is no point in a managing partner coming up with a vision on his own or with the executive team and expecting it to be taken up by the partnership without question. If the partners are going to engage with the vision, it’s critical that they have an opportunity to have their say about each of the elements.

That means doing at the beginning of the process what the managing partner in the above story did towards the end – actively soliciting the partners’ opinions. In a small firm, this is relatively easy, but scale brings significant difficulties.

One thing is apparent: managing partners shouldn’t try to do everything themselves. That’s a truism in any size of firm, but in medium and large firms it’s especially so.

1. Get the influential partners on side

To actively influence the partnership, managing partners need the help and support of partners who can influence other partners’ behaviours. Sometimes, that means the partners in managerial positions but, more often than not, it means the heavy-hitting client partners.

So, for the managing partner, the first task is to get this group of influential partners on side. This means getting them all together (in as many groups as necessary and with the help of facilitator) and helping them to refine their thoughts on the vision, the ‘how to’, the milestones and the benefits.

2. Get the remaining partners on side

The principal underpinning how to getting the remaining partners on side is exactly the same for the remaining partners as it is for the influential group.

With scale, this means multiple groups in different locations, with the leadership of the individual groups split between the managing partner and members of the influential group.

After all of the groups have taken place and their output distilled, it is critical that the managing partner and the influential partners get together to confirm the final story that will go back out to the partnership for final confirmation. When the story is taken back out to the partners, any remaining concerns will naturally be addressed and the outcomes will be transmitted to the other partners.

3. Work out how to get there

The ‘how to’ is as important as the vision statement, if not more so. With so many firms across all PSF sectors trying to do broadly the same thing within their market segment, the focus must immediately switch from the destination to the ‘how to’.

Success in professional services is an execution game. The successful firms are the ones that invest time and energy in getting their strategies right and, critically, making sure their people have the capability to deliver them.

When it comes to engaging the partners, the vision doesn’t have to provide the fine detail of each of the strategies – no partner expects that. But, partners do expect – and need – to know the key moves the firm will be making and what the implications will be for them.

If the firm is planning to invest heavily in geographic expansion or growing a new service line, the partners need to know the detail of the growth plans (including any direct involvement they may have) and what the investment means for their own plans. Equally, if the firm plans to invest in improving its delivery capability, the partners need to know what they personally have to do to develop their people’s capabilities.

4. Measure progress

Partners always want to calibrate how they are doing, so measuring progress on the journey is critical. There must be clarity about the points the firm should reach at different times and how they will be measured.

Progress against the targets should be shared across the partner group, together with the reasons the firm achieved the targets or failed to do so. If the firm fails to reach the target, then how it plans to achieve it in future should be part of the sharing and subsequent discussion. Naturally, the revised plans should be confirmed with the partners following the discussion.

5. Show what’s in it for them

If the partners are to commit to the firm’s future, they have to see a personal upside in the final destination. That upside can take many forms and each has to be spelled out.

It’s critical that the descriptions are honest. Smart people quickly stop trusting their leaders if they believe they are being lied to or the downsides are being glossed over.

If, for example, achieving scale is achievable only through a merger, the likely impact of the merger on partner earnings must be addressed. Again, smart people know that earnings may be flat, or even drop, in the short term. The key thing is that the upsides to both the firm and the partners make any initial sacrifice worthwhile.

Walking together

Highly engaged partners walk together. This means the whole partnership actively commits to making the firm’s vision a reality, even if some of them do not agree with all of the elements. That’s the norm in most PSFs.

Rarely will every partner agree with everything, but the key is the commitment that comes from believing that the ultimate benefits are truly worthwhile – and, critically, having been involved in the debate.

Two things are clear:

1. partner engagement only comes with active involvement in the key decisions that impact the firm; and

2. highly engaged partners perform at a much higher level than they would otherwise.

This brings benefits to the firm in all its markets and, of course, increased profitability.

Robert J. Lees is a founding partner of Moller PSFG (rob.lees@mollerpsfgcambridge.com) and August J. Aquila is the CEO of Aquila Global Advisors (aaquila@aquilaadvisors.com).