HIGH PERFORMANCE PARTNERS = HIGH PERFORMANCE FIRMS

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BESTPRACTICES 2012
HIGH PERFORMANCE PARTNERS HIGH PERFORMANCE
FIRMS Presented by Sam M. Allred, CPA Founder
and Director of Upstream Academy
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Welcome to BestPractices 2012! The theme of this
years conference is Developing Your Team in an
Environment of Change
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WHAT ARE THE CHANGES?

• What are the changes relating to
• Our people
• Our clients
• Risk
• Business development
• Our partners
• Our competitors

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What Does This Mean to You?
The goal of strategy is not to forecast where
the market is going, but to create the responsive
organization which will adapt wherever it
goes. David H. Maister
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You can never become a responsive firm if the
partners refuse to lead the change. Much of what
we will address in this conference applies to
partners leading the change.
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QUESTIONS
How do you get partners to focus on making
themselves better? What are the dynamics of
getting partners to grow themselves?
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SESSION MAP

• General observations regarding partners
• Seven keys to creating high performance partners
• Questions and answers

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? GENERAL OBSERVATIONS REGARDING PARTNERS
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OBSERVATION 1
No other group in a firm outworks the partner
group. Partners put in more time and energy than
any other group. On average, partners work
between 2,300 and 2,400 total hours and have
1,000 to 1,200 chargeable hours.
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OBSERVATION 2
The competition for partners time and energy is
intense. Many partners have found that their
only uninterrupted hours are between 7pm and 5am.
Many have established lengthened work hours to
avoid interruptions.
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OBSERVATION 3
Technology has lengthened the work day for most
partners. Many are willing to check and respond
to email almost 24/7.
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OBSERVATION 4
Too much emphasis is given to how many charge
hours, total hours, and managed business each
partner should have and not on what they should
be spending their time doing.
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OBSERVATION 5
One of the privileges partners hold dear is
individual autonomy. While autonomy is a
wonderful thing for the individual, it can often
be challenging for others in the firm.
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OBSERVATION 6
Most firms allow partners to choose where they
spend their time. Most partners in our
profession work to establish the boundaries of a
personal comfort zone and then stay in that zone
for the remainder of their careers.
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OBSERVATION 7
Most partners have been trained (or perhaps are
wired) to get their value from growing their
managed billings and hitting (or exceeding) their
charge hour budget, rather than gaining new
skills/expertise or developing others in the
firm.
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OBSERVATION 8
Many partners spend the majority of their time on
work that could reasonably be done by others at a
lower level in the firm. Too often, partners hit
their charge hour budgets while those below them
consistently fall short.
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OBSERVATION 9
In a very real way, partners who do the work of
those below them are denying others the
opportunity to grow. The horsepower that only
partners can bring to new opportunities remains
largely untapped.
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OBSERVATION 10
In most firms, partners are the most
underutilized group. There is more wasted
horsepower in the partner group than any other
group.
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OBSERVATION 11
All partners should have a strategy for making
themselves continually more valuable. Sadly,
success in doing this seems to level off for many
individuals once they are voted into the
ownership circle.
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It is remarkable how scarce sustained ambition
can be among those who have already achieved a
degree of success. David H. Maister
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? SEVEN KEYS TO CREATING HIGH PERFORMANCE PARTNERS
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1. DEFINE HIGH PERFORMANCE
To be high performance, an individual must excel
in four of the following six areas and be good in
the remaining two. A high performance partner is
never a one or two trick pony.
Performance Areas
1. Financial Performance
2. Client Management
3. Business Development
4. Team Development
5. Personal Effectiveness
6. Leadership
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2. HELP PARTNERS GET REALITY

• Adopt a partner evaluation process that helps
  partners understand their reality.
• The evaluation process should provide each
  partner an open and honest evaluation.

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• Most evaluations result in a set of numbers that
  indicate the partner has met or exceeded
  expectations in various performance areas.
• However, leaders continue to be frustrated that
  the individuals performance (and in some cases
  behavior) isnt at the desired level.

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KEY PRINCIPLES

• The evaluation process needs to be a catalyst for
  positive change.
• The primary purpose of the evaluation process is
  to help individuals improve their ability to
  contribute.

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KEY PRINCIPLES

• The process should provide honest feedback
  regarding needed improvement.
• To encourage consistency, guidelines on the
  rating system need to be set and followed.
• Evaluators need to openly interact with each
  other rather than being allowed to complete the
  evaluation process while sitting at their desks.

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3. USE UPWARD EVALUATIONS
If done right, upward evaluations help to provide
all partners with their reality. The keys to
great upward evaluations are consistency, quality
of questions, anonymity, and assignments.
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4. EXCEL AT PARTNER GOAL SETTING
Effective partner goal setting is the primary
tool for optimizing partner horsepower and
creating a high performance firm.
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KEY GOAL SETTING PRINCIPLES

1. Goals should play to individual strengths
2. The meeting should be well-planned
3. Development of partner goals should be a
   collaborative effort
4. Partner goals should link in some way to the
   firms strategic plan
5. Performance standards are not goals

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KEY GOAL SETTING PRINCIPLES

1. The number of goals should be limited
2. Partners need to be set up for success by
   establishing ground level goals
3. There must be an established system of
   accountability
4. There should be some connection between goals and
   compensation

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5. HAVE PARTNERS READ CHAPTER 4
Have the partner group read Chapter 4, Dynamos,
Cruisers, and Losers, in David Maisters book
True Professionalism. Ask the partners to come
to a meeting prepared to discuss Maisters
observations about dynamos and cruisers.
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DYNAMOS
You are a Dynamo when you are acting as if you
are still in the middle of a career (not a job)
and on your way to somewhere. As a Dynamo, you
always have a personal strategic plan that you
are enthusiastically working towards fulfilling.
Dynamos are vigorous in finding ways to get out
of the flow of repetitive work (giving away their
overly familiar client work to others in the
firm) even if they are superb at it.
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CRUISERS
Cruisers are fully competent, successful
professionals who work hard, do good work, and
take care of their clients. Rather than working
to learn new things, Cruisers do well for the
time being by living off their existing skills.
They are not working to expand their abilities.
They have a job, not a career.
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6. HELP PARTNERS BECOME EXPERTS

• Have each partner develop and implement a written
  plan to become a world-class expert in one or
  more areas
• Develop specialized processes, tools, and
  procedures
• Publish articles on areas of expertise

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• Develop benchmarking data
• Train others in your area of expertise
• Speak at industry conferences
• Develop a deep understanding of the key issues
  that relate to a particular area

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7. ASK PARTNERS TO BECOME PFTTA

• Spend the majority of client service time with A
  B-level clients
• Spend more time every year being proactive with
  best clients
• Develop a client service plan for all your best
  clients
• Plan monthly strategy meetings

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? QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
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Thank you. sama_at_upstreamacademy.com
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