Consistency in Creating a Growth Culture

Rainmaking at all levels sets up succession planning success

Angie Grissom

Accounting firm leadership continues to struggle with effective succession planning execution. There are many reasons for this, but the top two may be: (1) the number of retiring partners is far greater than the number of managers who are ready to assume a partnership role, and (2) many firms have not incorporated a growth culture into their day-to-day operations. To put it simply, many founding partners who are ready to retire didn’t give enough thought or attention to how the firm would continue to thrive after they left.

There were times over the last 20-plus years when firm leadership ramped up the development of their people. There also were times when work was so abundant due to regulatory changes and/or shifting economic conditions that training, business development and marketing took a back seat to fulfilling client work in a timely manner. The result is an inconsistent level of staff development across firms.

Consequently, many firm leaders are neither confident in the business development skills in their firms nor sure what to do about succession. Many wonder how they will replace the retiring partners who are their biggest rainmakers and handle most of the firm’s top client relationships. Time is a factor for many of these firms.

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