Hands-Off Leadership Development Heralded by CPA Firm Leaders

As featured in Accounting Today.

You’re busy. Everyone is. You also need a pipeline of future leaders to continue to run the profitable accounting firm you’ve created and provide you, hopefully, with a generous internal buyout. You’ve been hearing that you need to actively develop your team to be successful, but who has time for that? After all, you learned how to be a consummate professional the hard way. Why not pass that experience on to the next generation?

If you’d rather spend time with your clients or family and let your team figure things out for themselves a little more, you may want to take a page from a new initiative developed by local CPA firm Jones, Voss and Billings. JVB is two years into implementing their Hands-Off Leadership Development program (“HOLD”) and shared with us some of the highlights during a recent interview.

Some tenants of the HOLD program include:

1. DIY networking: JVB uses a Do-It-Yourself approach to networking. Managing Partner Bill Billings explained: “To most CPAs, schmoozing in a room full of strangers sounds awkward and uncomfortable, and it is. If our employees want to make it in this job, they’re going to have to figure it out all on their own.” The firm’s unwritten plan is that by the time someone has attended 40 or 50 events, they’ll start to know a few people in the community and might feel comfortable approaching one or two of them. Or they won’t. But at least they’re in control of their destiny without any interference from the firm.
2. No feedback: JVB’s No Feedback culture makes sure that their mantra of learning the hard way impacts all employees. From the new intern to the manager whose name keeps being mentioned in exit interviews, JVB is sure not to let anyone know what they’re doing—wrong or right. This vacuous environment allows much more time to be spent redoing work, banging one’s head against the wall and complaining to others about the problems that are prohibited from being dealt with directly.
3. Avoid mentoring: Mentoring takes time, and all of JVB’s partners and managers have better things to do. Anyone found prioritizing mentoring over putting out the latest client dumpster fire is placed on a two-week administrative leave where they are given access to tax or audit software, but no communication tools.
4. Dress for yesterday: As one notable exception to the hands-off policies, the partners felt it was important to incorporate guidelines regarding dress. Billings added: “Much of our success was founded on wearing uncomfortable clothing that required dry cleaning and ironing.” To honor their history, the firm has mandated that full suits are worn by all employees, and women must wear skirts and heels. Billings noted that some employees were having trouble finding a store in town that still sells suits, but he assured us that this wasn’t his problem.

“We’re retaining a lot of people who are cut from our [the partners’] exact same cloth. What more could a CPA firm want?” said Bill.

At press time, the firm was launching their new employee recruiting campaign, featuring the tag line Why Lift You Up When We Can HOLD You Down!? Individuals interested in a career with JVB are requested to mail a physical copy of their resume to the office, postmarked before April Fool’s Day 2023.