Truth is Never Disrespectful

To non-sports people, forgive me for telling a sports story I heard on a radio program. Our local basketball team, the Chicago Bulls, have a player named Zach Levine, who has been an all-star and is in the prime of his career. But he missed a month due to injury. Prior to his injury, the Bulls were one of the worst teams in the league – for two straight years.

With Levine out of the lineup, the team is suddenly winning more games than losing them. How can this be, you might ask? The answer is that Levine is a “ball hog.” His approach to the game is “me” instead of “team.” When Zach is in the lineup, the other players stand around and wait for him to go solo and shoot. A recipe for disaster in basketball.

The commentators suggested that when Levine returns to the lineup, he needs to be told the truth: “You’re a ball hog and, despite your all-star level of play, the team has been consistently losing – badly. Zach, when you return, we want to work with you to re-engineer your game to fit better with the team spirit that has enabled us to turn around our season.” One of the analysts asked how Zach might react to this. The other responded with a line that is the genesis of this blog: Truth is never disrespectful.

Okay, that’s enough sports!

Hearing this adage caused me to think about CPA firms.

It matters how the truth is delivered

You may be familiar with the centuries-old phrase, credited apocryphally to Confucius: “You can be right in what you say, but if you say it in the wrong way, no one will hear you.”

Or perhaps you remember Stephen Covey’s legendary book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. “Seek mutually beneficial win-win solutions and agreements in your relationships,” says Covey. “Valuing and respecting people by seeking a ‘win’ for all is ultimately a better long-term resolution than if only one person gets his/her way.”

Truth needs to be delivered with tact.

Many partners who are not involved in firm management think they know best how to manage the firm. If they tried, they would soon find out that they lack the fundamental skills and vision to manage.

Here are some of those skills, excerpted from our book, CPA Firm Management and Governance.

• Management is a people job; if you’re not up to the task of working with people, encouraging them to meet performance expectations, adhering to the firm’s core values and getting them to respect you, then you shouldn’t be a manager.
• Management requires holding people accountable.
• Leadership — getting people to follow — is critical.

All these skills have this in common: getting people (partners, especially) to perform at highly productive level.

Our book The Role of the Managing Partner includes: how the best MPs in the country impact their firm’s success • how the MP manages the other partners • getting partner accountability • increasing profitability • management vs. leadership • authority that the MP should have • 25 best practices that the MP should focus on • the MP’s role in managing staff and revenue growth • how MPs lead the charge in merging in other firms • why it’s critically important for the MP to assemble a great management team • partner compensation-a potent weapon in the MP’s arsenal • observations of how the very best MPs operate • essential organizational skills for MPs • evaluating the MP • why and how MPs fail • great quotes from great leaders. 

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Holding partners accountable is arguably one of the most difficult duties of firm management. I remember interviewing a partner years ago and asking him if he believed in partner accountability. I can’t remember his exact words, but this is what he meant: “Yes, I believe in partner accountability…as long as it doesn’t affect me.”

Some believe that more than any other attribute, the ultimate measure of partners’ performance is the size and profitability of their client base. That’s very short-sighted. Sure, attracting and retaining a profitable client base is important. But there are many other things that, if unattended to, could cause irreparable harm — things like firm management and administration, mentoring staff and helping them learn and grow, developing specialties, teamwork, strong work ethic, etc.

It’s the job of managing partners to hold partners accountable for all partner duties, not just client production.

Below are examples of performance and conduct by partners that should prompt the managing partner to tell the truth.

All of the following have been experienced a dozen or more times by our team of consultants:

• Partners acting like solos; no other partner knows their clients.
• Partners not billing and collecting in a timely fashion because they are “too busy,” thus straining the firm’s cash flow, negatively impacting the other partners.
• Partners disliking decisions made by the MP and the EC, and venting their displeasure to staff members and anyone else who would listen.
• Partners charging 1,800–2,800 billable hours a year because they don’t want to be bothered with delegating work to staff and training them. This limits the progress of the staff.
• Partners regularly assigning work to staff at the last minute and requiring a fast turnaround, often putting the staff in the middle of a conflict with other projects they are working on.
• Partners receiving negative results from their upward evaluations by the staff and ignoring the reports, thus continuing their unacceptable behavior.

It’s management’s job to address these issues promptly and get the issues resolved. The better managing partners will use a positive approach: “How can we work together to resolve these issues? How can I personally help you?” instead of negative tactics like “What’s wrong with you?” or “If you don’t improve, your comp will be cut.”

In other words, tell them the truth.

In closing

I’ll leave you with a quote from Doc Rivers, who some of your may recognize for his management prowess in his field: “Average performers want to be left alone. Good performers want to be coached. Great performers want to be told the truth!”