Holding partners accountable.

• Author: Wilson, Jennifer

In this economy, partner accountability has become a hot topic. Accountability, or "count-on-ability," is a personal and cultural way of being that enables colleagues to trust each other's words, commitments and actions. It assures us that we can rely on each other to follow through on commitments and do what's necessary to ensure team success.

This article provides an overview of an effective partner performance and accountability model and outlines a few ideas within each element to help identify areas where it's possible to improve performance--both personally and within your partner team.

The foundation of partner performance and accountability is leadership unity around your firm's strategy. In other words, you must all adhere to and champion the same standards.

Constructing a Strategy

Your strategy should include:

* Your firm's mission (or reason for being) and core values.

* Your leadership vision for the future--which addresses the following:

--What do you want to be known for?

--Where are you headed in terms of:

* Firm size (revenues, staff size, number of offices)

* Product/service mix

* Ideal target client profile by product/service

* Leadership and governance model

* Succession

* Your three to five core initiatives this year that will support your firm's movement toward the agreed-upon vision, including the difficult moves that will contribute to your success.

The strategy will have little chance of success if the partners are not unified around it. We could write an entire article around the concept of gaining partner unity--and it is never perfect unity. That said, at least a super-majority of your partner team must agree to the plan and then carefully document strategy for your firm. Then, you must require that those who do not agree either submit to the will of the group (and behave and contribute accordingly) or pursue opportunities elsewhere.

Setting Expectations

Once you've developed unity around your firm's strategy, you'll define performance expectations for each key member of the leadership team (and then for all others in the firm). Work with your partners to develop clarity about which partners are responsible for each functional area in your firm, such as business processes (human resources, marketing, internal information technology and accounting/bookkeeping] and initiatives or service lines that you offer (audit, tax, SALT, business valuation and accounting services, for example). Depending on your firm's size...