You’ve Done Just Little Enough to Make Partner!

I’m fairly confident I’m not alone when I regale folks with tales of past inept co-workers and supervisors who, despite exhibiting galactic levels of mediocrity or more often incompetence, manage to wrangle ill-deserved promotions.

I once worked for a restaurant company where one area manager came up with the head-scratching strategy to begin charging for bread (this despite 99.99% of eateries in the U.S. offering it complimentary) and when customers were not exactly elbowing their way to purchase these for-a-fee bread baskets, he was immediately elevated to regional supervisor. Shortly thereafter, both he and the entire chain wound up on the unemployment line, a testament to this C-level wizardry.

More recently, my previous employer promoted from within someone they named to head up new business development strategies, and despite bringing in exactly no new business in nearly two years, this person inexplicably received a series of promotions whereupon he was incrementally handed more responsibility over various divisions of the company. This was a person I would not have entrusted to valet my car — and it’s a 1999 Honda Accord.

There are myriad theories why this happens; prevailing ones talk about companies’ ineptitude in “getting the right people in the right seats on the bus” or designating employees with A, B and C grades whereupon too many supervisors fit into the B category and therefore are threatened by A performers. As a result, they give more latitude and tolerance to the bottom-dwellers because by comparison they look good.

But what about within a CPA firm with regard to its existing staff and future transition and succession issues?

Too often, we’ve witnessed the unfortunate scenario of partners at or near the retirement stage with no formal succession plan to speak of who are forced to either look for an 11^th hour merger candidate or, out of mere convenience, designate partnership status to someone who may not necessarily deserve an equity stake.

One obvious solution lies in being proactive and taking the time to assess the situation and potential candidate pool in your firm.  Theoretically, as a managing partner, you hire people you feel have both short- and long-term potential (hopefully that includes leadership qualities as well) to help your firm grow and prosper. If one or two eventually evolve into partnership material, that will certainly spare a lot of antacid down the line.

No managing partner can pretend to have all the answers, and the best one with an eye for talent surrounds themselves with – if you’ll pardon the overused phrase - the best and brightest.

Because costly breadbaskets or lack of new business notwithstanding, many of us unfortunately have had ringside seats to see what happens when you don’t.