Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
Does Your Firm’s Managing Partner Have Unique Creativity?
In almost all CPA firms there is one managing partner. This person usually rises to the top because they are unique.
The majority of practicing CPAs that I have met, love helping their clients. In fact, it is all about the clients. Some will throw their team members under the bus in the name of client service. (Of course they don’t think of it this way but their team members do.)
CPAs love tax and/or audit and accounting. They enjoy the challenging issues surrounding both and they work diligently on behalf of their clients. Many, honestly prefer to distance themselves from the firm’s management decisions, challenges, problems (unless issues get in their pocketbook).
Somewhere , probably during their late 20s and early 30s, a few CPAs get bitten by the management bug. They really enjoy the recruiting, hiring and building a quality team. They become fascinated with the MAP numbers and find it very challenging trying to figure out how to make their firm look better on paper. They seem to have a natural talent for bringing in business and building relationships with both clients and staff. Eventually, they become managing partner of the firm.
Have you ever thought about how your managing partner actually got the job? Are they unique, creative and passionate enough to take the risk of managing their partners and the firm?
Read this chapter from Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin. Does it apply? More importantly, do the partners in the firm appreciate what the managing partner actually brings to the table?
Delivering Unique Creativity
Three fairly simple words, very difficult to combine in a meaningful way. Let’s go backwards.
Creativity is personal, original unexpected, and useful.
Unique creativity requires domain knowledge, a position of trust, and the generosity to actually contribute. If you want to create a unique guitar riff, it sure helps if you’ve heard all the other guitar riffs on record. Unique implies that the creativity is focused and insightful.
Delivering unique creativity is hardest of all, because not only do you have to have insight, but you also need to be passionate enough to risk the rejection that delivering a solution can bring. You must ship.
The resistance, our fear of standing out, rears its ugly head every time we’re on the hook for this sort of work. So we avoid the work. The sparse list of people willing (and able) to do this sort of work makes it particularly valuable.
How do you evaluate the job your MP is doing? Do you evaluate the job your MP is doing?
Does he/she have unique creativity (focused, insightful, original, useful)? And, most importantly, are they willing to stand-out and to risk the rejection that delivering a solution can bring?
Note: The logo, above, comes from Managing Partner Magazine, a publication for the legal profession.
- "Mom always tells me to celebrate everyone's uniqueness. I like the way that sounds."
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