Skill Gap CLOSING THE

How do you get more of your people to per-

form in the ‘virtual CFO or virtual counsel

arena?’

This is an area that causes major new busi-

ness 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 priori-

tised short term gain over longer term lever-

age; your income and growth is now restrict-

ed in direct correlation to the lack of coach-

ing 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 actu-

ally 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 nerv-

ousness from your new ‘virtual CFO/counsel

manager’ and will struggle to see their value

if you drive ‘too hard and too fast’. (You did-

n’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 de-

velopment 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 or-

ganisation that is best suited to their personality type.

Failure to do this will create greater strain on the individ-

ual 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 nor-

mal rules’, society was burdened with a massive financial

expense ,yet if treated specific to their condition, socie-

ty was taking a moral position that a chronic drunk

should be given free food and accommodation 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 in-

hibits 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 them-

selves; Time, Control & Money.

The two key objectives of an

accounting and legal practice is

“Get the Job & Do the Job". I

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 opera-

tor. (And in this instance they

don’t excel, they cope)

Everyone has a dominant per-

sonality 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 asser-

tive (selling) and they are natu-

rally 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

overwhelming the individual

such that they become ineffec-

tive not just in the Finding are-

na, but the Grinding arena also,

due to guilt.

The order of creating an organ-

isational structure which best

serves the practice and those

within it, is to identify the oper-

ational tasks that are required

to be completed in order to

meet (your) clients expecta-

tions.

Then, match people to those

tasks by the following attrib-

utes;

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 effec-

tive training comes from devel-

oping team members within

their current range of engage-

ments. (It’s not too far from

their comfort zone)

I call this “Engagement Relative

Templates’.

The focus should be on coach-

ing, not presenting, which

means Instruction, Demonstra-

tion, Focused Direction, Obser-

vation and Re-direction.

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

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 ex-

perience.

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 tem-perament (i.e. not just in the position because they’ve been there ‘x’ number of years) and ex-

press 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 cli-ent 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 develop-ing their skills and resource)

Determine the number of managers that are pro-vided for development and agree on the basis of the training.