If you’ve made the mistake of hiring another technically proficient accountant who fits the team, it can be worth developing that person to fulfill other roles in your team – ones that can aid in the firm’s growth.
First, you should follow the process of identifying the role your firm requires (see TA57 Mistakes Made When Building a Winning Team). Identifying the roles you require is one of the steps to building your Strategic Structure.
Common barriers to truly leveraged team include:
- Lack of delegation or misuse of resources due to poor delegation; and
- Only spending on technical training for the team when other skills are required to fulfill roles within the Strategic Organisation Chart.
As such, the first issue is structural, the second is about leadership.
The problem is that traditional models for Accounting firms were compliance based and so relied heavily on many team members with technical abilities focused on matters such as taxation. This can be seen in David H. Maister’s model Grinders, Minders, Finders.
Grinders make up the base of this pyramid structure. This means there are more of them required and they are primarily focussed on processing the day to day work.
Minders are traditionally middle management and account managers who look after the clients day to day needs and manage the team to ensure that the work gets done.
Finders are the partners with equity in the business, who spend 80%+ of their time out finding the work and fulfilling traditional sales roles.
Maister’s notes that the higher roles will often help out with work from lower tiers, which can be seen in accounting firms across the country where partners are caught up in day to day work, instead of higher strategy.
In order to grow accounting firms, you require leverage. True leverage is achieved through systemisation and the successful implementation of a new model, the Strategic Organisational Chart.
Let’s look at how the traditional roles of Grinders, Minders and Finders can be evolved to achieve this strategic organisational chart.
The Strategic Org Structure involves investment in a wider range of training for the team that specifically matches the requirements of the roles required.
This includes:
- analysing and problem identification, – (old grinder)
- problem solver – (old minders & finders) partners & pseudo
- project management – partners & pseudo partners, operations managers (see strategic org chart)
- how to manage team and people, and
- sales conversations & influencing communicative skills – partners & pseudo partners
old role |
new role |
responsibilities or eg. |
who they should be |
develop role by investing in: |
grinder |
analyse & research IDProduction person /processor | high end strategic diagnosis, processing day-to-day client work | Bookkeepers, processors & clerks, trainee accountants, and outsourced personnel | analytical & research skills |
minder |
client nurture,Client Service Manager,Client Liaison, Relationship, Pseudo Partner | ensures day-to-day client needs are met. | Senior Accountants and managers | project management, leadership skills,team & people management, trainer, quality control |
finder |
rainmaker, Strategic Solution Providers, Strategic Thinker, | Gets work from within existing client base, with conversations that position more services, conversion process. | Partners & Managers | influencing communicative skills |
One of the big takeaways here is to get clear on your individual strengths ie. which role you are best suited to filling, then identify the gaps in your team, and develop or recruit to strategically fill those missing roles.
In order to achieve true leverage, you (the partners) need to become the Strategic Thinkers, and build a team who can run the day-to-day operations.
