lessons in effective communication for partners and wanna-be partners.
by martin bissett
passport to partnership
the passport to partnership study collated a number of responses in a conversational style.
more on the passport to partnership: 3 questions to evaluate your firm culture | competence: more than technical skills | partnership: competence is just the foot in the door
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a couple examples really stood out as the first steps in effective communication:
- would we put this person in front of a client? meaning: the clients are our source of income; we don’t jeopardize that for anything. if we think that this person will do anything less than support the perception of the firm and its people in the eyes of the client, we’ll keep them back in the office.
- how does this person deal with those in support roles? meaning: let’s never forget where we came from or labor under the misguided belief that because someone has less authority in the firm or a lower pay grade, they are somehow inferior to you.
a case study on communication
deborah had done well. she was well liked by her clients and colleagues alike. the natural and authentic approach that she had with them had resonated well. the confidence that all stakeholders had in her technical abilities was now being augmented by their level of comfort in her interpersonal skills.support
all was going well until she had a new hire join her team. the young man, though talented, did not respond well to her style, was confrontational and even went above her head to the managing partner to express his chauvinistic unwillingness to take direction from a superior of “the opposite sex.” while the young man was rightly chastised for his behavior, it didn’t change in the short term.
deborah became part incredulous and part indignant. she started choosing other members of her team to give work to and started deliberately selecting this young man for menial tasks well below his ability. what had started as a minor irritant quickly escalated into a full-blown standoff and the threat of a “silo” micro-culture in her department was becoming a fast reality.
deborah was out of her depth for the first time in a long time. her own work suffered as she tried to understand how to manage this situation and find a form of communication that might work with her young miscreant.
the managing partner called deborah into his office. he advised her:
this young man is out of order and make no mistake, if he carries on this way, he will be looking for another position soon enough. you need to know that you have our full backing. however, you also need to know that he comes from a whole family of cpas including his father and his grandfather. it was a male-dominated profession in their time and he has grown up and been educated with that world view. he now needs educating out of it.
if nothing else, he’s got ability and you could sorely use that in your department right now. may i respectfully suggest that you take time out with him away from these premises, in an informal setting. don’t drop down to his level but demonstrate how you’ve gotten to where you are on merit and that you hold the keys to his future in this firm. take an interest in him, ask him to collaborate with you on finding a productive way to work together and let me know how it goes.
your responsibility, deborah, is to rise above this type of issue. you have an increasingly large responsibility for a major profit center of this firm. when issues like this arise, either manage the person up or manage them out.
one response to “30-item checklist: getting people to listen to you”
nancy fox
getting people to listen to you is in direct proportion to you being able to tap into what resonates with them, what drives them, what motivates them.
yes, it is deborah’s responsibility to have her staff member become a productive member of her team and it will reflect on her accordingly. and the fastest and most powerful way to gain someone’s buy in is to understand what’s motivating him or her.
who knows what was making her employee buck her leadership. maybe he thinks showing her up is the fastest way to promotion (his motivation could be promotion). maybe he doesn’t like to follow but wants lead (motivation is effect change not follow it, or being visible). maybe he doesn’t like public accounting or maybe he wants his cpa family to think he’s succeeding.
deborah would be wise to follow stephen covey’s advice: seek first to understand, then to be understood.
then she can effect a plan to get her staff member to buy into her leadership and they become collaborators and co-creators instead of boss/employee.
ideally, he would then accept her leadership because he believes she has his success in her priorities.
the checklist of questions: unclear how these are helpful in the issue at stake? they are subjective and not specific at all.
for example: how well do i build relationships with external influences? could better be asked:
what are 2 examples where i’ve built strong relationships with external influences, and i am able to demonstrate success in these ways:
and then- where are some examples where i’ve not built the kind of external relationships i’ve wanted? what didn’t work?