The more research I do the more it seems that I may be onto something. Firms of accountants that do not have functioning partner development programmes and recruitment consultants are telling me the same thing.

That is that managers and senior managers often have great technical skills but that their wider business skills have yet to be honed.  This is likely to hold them back from achieving partnership status. Tailored mentoring could help with this of course. In the mean time recruitment, succession and motivation issues are all conspiring to constrain the development of future generations of partners outside of the largest firms.
There was a time when professionals were routinely categorised as finders, minders or grinders. The finders went out and developed new clients and brought in the business; the minders looked after the relationship with those clients; and the grinders were the ones who did the detailed technical work.  There is also a fourth category: Binders – those who keep (bind) the team together working effectively and who set a good example themselves.

If we assume that CPD focused on technical development covers the  ‘grinders’ quadrant of a potential partner’s development, that leaves Finding, Minding and Binding. In a subsequent blog I will set out the key skills that I think fall into each category.