Skill Gap CLOSING THE

How do you get more of your people to perform

in the ‘virtual CFO or virtual counsel arena?’

This is an area that causes major new business

strain for successful accountants and lawyers;

their ability to ‘push work down’ is directly

impeded by the lack of skill depth within their

team.

I’ve often spoken to accountants and lawyers

about ‘closing the skill gap’ but there are 3

things you should know before you embark on

solving this business restriction.

The gap only exists because you’ve prioritised

short term gain over longer term leverage; your

income and growth is now restricted in direct

correlation to the lack of coaching you’ve

provided to your team in the past.

Your ‘productivity’ measurement and reward

systems have also driven the behaviour of you

and your team. Having a ledger for ‘training and

development’ is one thing but if you don’t

budget time for your team to actually try the

‘stuff’ with clients then it’s all in vain.

Your clients need to get used to the idea of

leverage. They will sense every bit of nervous-

ness from your new ‘virtual CFO/counsel

manager’ and will struggle to see their value if

you drive ‘too hard and too fast’. (You didn’t

learn your skills overnight and neither will your

team)

My father often said, “You can’t make a

silk purse out of a sow’s ear”. So it is with

the development of people. In my early

ideological days of “empower everyone

and you’ll get a return” I would have

happily recommended coaching for all.

I was wrong.

Increasing Your Firms

Leverage

My father often said, “You can’t make a silk purse out of

a sow’s ear”. So it is with the development of people. In

my early ideological days of “empower everyone and

you’ll get a return” I would have happily recommended

coaching for all. I was wrong.

The trick is to identify those that are ready for develop-

ment and guide them towards the activities of the

organisation that is best suited to their personality type.

Failure to do this will create greater strain on the

individual and overload managers with repetitive

monitoring rather than ‘empowered learning’.

This requires a major ‘moral mind set’ shift as this theory

starts at the top and works its way down from Director

to Graduate. Let me explain...

Malcolm Gladwell (in his book “What the Dog Saw”)

raised the community issue of homeless people in New

York, research showed that of the quarter of a million

people that were homeless at some point in the previ-

ous 5 years, only 2500 were chronically homeless yet the

full cost of health care & social services to this minor

group was at least $62M annually!

The dilemma is that by treating these people ‘by the

normal rules’, society was burdened with a massive

financial expense ,yet if treated specific to their

condition, society was taking a moral position that a

chronic drunk should be given free food and accommo-

dation whilst other hard working citizens get no help at

all. Society’s inability to rationalise the unfairness and

identify that you can’t “paint everyone with the same

brush” wasted millions of dollars which could serve

many people more effectively.

So it is with Accounting and Legal partnerships.

The moral position that “we must all contribute in the

same way” or “We should all be responsible for equal

fee bases” locks people into defensive positions and

inhibits growth across the entire practice.

Such an expectation is driven by an ignorance of the

need to play people to their strengths at best,

Finder, Minder, Grinder

I have never seen anyone excel

at Finder-Grinder roles unless

they are forced to by virtue of

being a sole operator. (And in

this instance they don’t excel,

they cope)

FINDER, MINDER,

GRINDER

and at worst, by an arrogance of

“this is how it’s always been or my

way or the Highway”.

The sooner a practice accepts the

need for a balance of skill and

perception, achieved by various

personality types, the sooner they

can set about to meet the three

reasons they went into business

for themselves; Time, Control &

Money.

The two key objectives of an

accounting and legal practice is

“Get the Job & Do the Job". The

three domains of focus is “Finder,

Minder & Grinder”.

I believe people can excel at

Finder-Minder and Minder-

Grinder roles, I have never seen

anyone excel at Finder-Grinder

roles unless they are forced to by

virtue of being a sole operator.

(And in this instance they don’t

excel, they cope)

Everyone has a dominant

personality type, this type surfaces

at times of stress by way of

predictable behaviours as part of

their ‘coping mechanism’.

If you place someone in a role that

requires them to be assertive

(selling) and they are naturally

withdrawn (grinding) then you

expose both the individual and the

practice to risk.

The risks are that the individual

fails to deliver on sales targets

and therefore starves the firm of

work, whilst simultaneously over-

whelming the individual such that

they become ineffective not just

in the Finding arena, but the

Grinding arena also, due to guilt.

The order of creating an organisa-

tional structure which best serves

the practice and those within it, is

to identify the operational tasks

that are required to be completed

in order to meet (your) clients

expectations.

Then, match people to those

tasks by the following attributes;

Typology – Skills – Style – Focus.

Your practice HR development

then sits underneath but must be

matched to the following Ethos:

“”The practice is best served by

the best person for the role, if

such a person doesn’t currently

sit within the practice, go find

them”.

I believe the most cost effective

training comes from developing

team members within their

current range of engagements.

(It’s not too far from their

comfort zone)

I call this “Engagement Relative

Templates’.

The focus should be on coaching,

not presenting, which means

Instruction, Demonstration,

Focused Direction, Observation

and Re-direction.

Once coached effectively, the

team member should be

encouraged to focus their selling

and consultancy efforts within the

domain of ‘client permission’ so

they build stronger relations and

sound confidence and experience.

Typology—Skills—Style—

Focus

“”The practice is best served

by the best person for the

role, if such a person doesn’t

currently sit within the

practice, go find them”.

HR ETHOS

So with all that said, what are the basic steps you can

take to begin to ‘close the skill gap’ with your team?

Determine the financial budget for coaching (since this will direct much of your thinking in terms of scale and logistics)

Identify the directors that have ‘b or c’ clients and have yet to fully scope the engagement with those clients.

Identify the managers that are of the correct temperament (i.e. not just in the position because they’ve been there ‘x’ number of years) and express a desire to develop themselves.

Quantify the number of hours that the director will be available (on a weekly basis) to provide basic mentoring / feedback (of a technical or client background nature) to said managers.

Quantify the number of ‘face to face’ hours

(weekly) that the managers will be required to engage with ‘b or c’ clients as above.

Identify the expectations around fee growth or ‘value add free time’. (Understand there is a cost for everything in life. Time spent learning new skills will provide greater opportunity to increase director leverage in future but may mean a few hours ‘written off’ whilst the manager is developing their skills and resource)

Determine the number of managers that are provided for development and agree on the basis of the training.

Mike Barnes

THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELO PMENT COACH TO ACCOUNTANTS, L AWYERS & FINANCIAL ADVISERS.

Mike regularly consults throughout NZ to increase the leverage within professional

services firms and speaks on a variety of topics, including ‘Closing the Skill Gap’ and

‘What Blocks Professional’s From Selling’.

Mike considers himself a ‘coaching addict’ – “It’s WHO I am, not WHAT I do” explains

Mike, “It’s how I’m wired; it’s in every part of my life”.

Mike is a passionate exponent of The Enneagram Personality Profiling System, (He

attended in New York at the hands of the ‘masters’ Don Riso & Russ Hudson) which

allows Mike to explore the ‘blockages’ that stop people from reaching their own true

potential.

“I coach professionals to do the things they won’t do on their own” says Mike, “my

greatest sense of self-worth comes from watching others grow and knowing I played

a critical part in it”.

Engaged to the love of his life (Natalie) and so very proud of his 3 kids, Mike still finds

time to coach and mentor NZ’s fastest motocross riders. “It’s an extremely demand-

ing and dangerous sport and the professional riders I work with have everything on

the line every time they race. Want to learn how to focus the mind and overcome

fear? – you’ve come to the right place…”

“I coach

professionals to do

the things they won’t

do on their own”

COACH

“The learning from this has been amazing!” says Mike. “The very real threat of serious

injury combined with the pressure of being a professional athlete is the perfect place to

find what really works, and throws out all the garbage that most of the ‘self-help’ books

promote”.

MIKE & KAYNE