Challenge

An international accounting network wanted to develop newly promoted partners. This transition is always tough because throughout their career fee earners are praised for technical ability and promoted on merit. As they climb up the success ladder  they find themselves managing more and doing less of the work that they enjoy and were promoted for. At the senior associate or senior manager level people find themselves fighting to develop their portfolios in order to get that partner position.

On arrival they are now on the lowest rung of the partnership ladder and it takes time to be able to perform and the programme was designed to accelerate performance at partner level from offices and teams across the world. At this level it is common to have client work and fee portfolio, while managing multiple different jobs, a team and of course business development has now become of paramount importance.

Solution

As we have worked with a range of professional services firms at partner level we put together a programme entitles ‘Pathfinder’ so that new partners could enhance their skills across all the different areas that firms must deliver if they are to succeed. we call this The Competitive Engine.  It’s the range of performance levers that will determine how effective your firm is at driving growth and balancing client expectations.

At its heart it offers new partners a series of toolkits and resources (plus a bit of practical knowledge) to enable them to build their portfolio, manage people and deliver effectively.

Lever 1: Client Relationships and Business Development

Level 2 Commercial Acumen

Level 3: Leadership and Management

Level 4: Strategy and culture

Results

Our Pathfinder programme (in various guises) has enabled some firms to build relationships and drive revenue directly through greater collaboration. Across different firms in a global network it allows people to build trust, share challenges and learn how to improve their emotional intelligence and use tools to change the conversations with clients.

Recently in 2020, these programmes have gone online successfully and are being rolled out across a number of regions in 2021.