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Accountancy magazine (July 2006) ran an article “Coaching: the new religion”  written by Wilf Altman.  In it he suggested that ‘leading firms of  accountants are surprisingly coy about coaching.’

In my experience however all of the largest firms run partner development programs and most of these include a form of coaching or mentoring.  I agree with Wilf that there is no single definition of ‘coaching’ in the context of “the new religion”.  Many accountants have heard of life coaching, business coaching or success coaching.  We have probably also heard of mentoring – typically where a suitably senior person shares their experience and their wider knowledge of the profession to speed up the development of a less experienced person.  

What the process is called however is less important than whether prospective partners and rising stars are motivated to enhance their skills. Most firms tend to rely on senior partners to act as coaches or a mentors.  In practice such partners rarely have the training, talent or time to be reliably effective in such roles.  The candidates cannot complain for fear of damaging their potential for progression and upsetting the senior partner.  The firms imply that the best candidates would take that chance but few people have the confidence that requires. 

Increasingly therefore ambitious firms are engaging experienced credible mentors from outside the firm.  Mentors such as myself are not subject to conflicting time constraints or political manoeuvrings within the firm.   We are there for the candidates when required and can provide a tailored programme that includes coaching in those, generally non-technical, skills that the candidate needs to develop further.

Most firms that are not large enough to run their own internal partner development programmes are increasingly looking to find cost effective alternatives.  They want to ensure that their rising stars stay and develop the key business skills they require to be effective and profitable as partners.  Some firms may describe this as ‘coaching’. Others will see this as mentoring – which is possibly more relevant for all but the really experienced partners.  Offering new recruits the (tax-free) benefit of a credible mentor can also assist the recruitment process during the ongoing ‘war for talent’.

This entry was also submitted as a letter for Accountancy magazine and has now been published as such on p23 of the September issue.

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.

For the professional firm the key benefits can be summarised:

* faster, more effective induction
* development of staff and partner skills
* instilling a feel good factor in staff
* retention of quality staff and potential partners
* enhanced development of key skills
* gains in productivity and the performance of individuals
* better communication, commitment and motivation
* more motivated staff and partners