I, Too, Struggled With Letting Go During My Succession Efforts

I recently discussed how several managing partners and leadership teams expressed concern about not being able to leverage their firm to push work down as part of their succession plan. If you remember, though, it wasn’t that they didn’t trust their team; it was more that they hadn’t given their staff the opportunity.

The unfortunate reality is that we aren’t bringing the next generation up properly to do the real work. Is this because we, the “old guard,” haven’t been adequately trained to handle the handoff? Maybe. Or is it because we’ve been doing the work ourselves for so long, we’ve forgotten how the partners before us transitioned their work and entrusted us with the opportunity to grow.

I’ve walked in your shoes.

As my own practice and leadership responsibilities grew, I realized I needed to transition more of my day-to-day to work. I had two talented, trusted, and critical professionals with whom I closely worked, and I told them it was time for me to start transitioning clients to them. While I knew my team could provide quality service, I wasn’t so sure my clients would make the transition. I was very client-focused. Beyond knowing about their professional needs, I knew their children’s names, when their family was sick, etc.

My panic moment of “did I really just transition work” came about a month after I strategically tasked my key people to become the signing partners on one of my larger clients. I remember waking up one night and thinking, “I haven’t heard from this client in a month,” and it made me nervous because I regularly talked with this client. I knew the new partner was great with client relationships, but silence in this instance didn’t feel “golden.”

The next day, I asked the partner if everything was OK because I hadn’t heard from the client, and she said, “It’s great! We’re talking every week.” When I saw the client a few weeks later, they said, “We still love working with you, but she’s taking great care of us.” I was standing in the way of my own peace of mind. In fact, what I later found out was this partner was doing an exceptional job and the client may have wondered why I didn’t make the transition sooner!

Those of us who came up “old school” (me included) may often forget (or choose not to accept) our clients can and will embrace new team members. Think back to the clients you inherited from the partners who came before you when you were a staff, senior, or manager, and how those legacy clients accepted you when your transition happened 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. Maybe many of your clients weren’t inherited from others, but the principal remains strong: if the client sees the relationship in terms of being serviced by the firm instead of just one individual, they will more likely embrace necessary business transitions.

It wasn’t that I was smarter than everyone else. My partners trained me, gave me the opportunity to grow and learn, and offered constructive feedback, guidance, encouragement, and reviews. I challenge you to do the same for your team if you’re not already doing so. Your retirement payout literally may rely on how well you embrace and lead this succession.

For some, seeing clients transferred creates a “fear” of feeling irrelevant. Don’t think of it that way. Think of it in the opposite: The successful transition of clients proves the relevant leadership and training you’ve provided to your team and the excellent client service you’ve provided to your client. When I look back at my public accounting career and see the successful transition of clients and the extraordinary capabilities of the professionals who serve those clients, I feel a great deal of relevance and satisfaction.

It’s easy to think clients stay at a firm because of the service you provide them. But take time to observe just how much your entire team, from the receptionist to your fellow partners, contributes to your success, and it becomes clear how much you owe it to your clients to ensure you’ve done everything you can to set them, by way of allowing your team to learn and grow, up for a continued partnership with your firm. Succession planning is one part of the “Other Big Four.” Succession requires that you appropriately retire/transition successful ownership from one generation to the next.

There are many reasons to embrace trusting the next generation’s ability to take on the succession challenge. There really aren’t good reasons to delay.