Keynote Presentation by Sam Allred - PrimeGlobal

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LEADERS IN 

CREATING A HIGH PERFORMANCE FIRM 

FACILITATED BY SAM M. ALLRED, CPA 

DIRECTOR OF UPSTREAM ACADEMY 

© UPSTREAM ACADEMY 2013 1

As the rate of change 

in the business 

environment continues 

to increase, the 

premium on our firm’s 

ability to change is 

growing ever more 

significant. 

© UPSTREAM ACADEMY 2013 

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In many respects, the ultimate 

competitive advantage in today’s 

business environment is the ability to 

improve. As leaders, we need to 

constantly ask ourselves whether we 

are providing the kind of leadership and 

direction that will allow our firms to 

consistently get better. 


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The best and most 

clear indicator of 

whether a firm can 

remain independent 

is whether the firm 

is getting better 

each year. 


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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER 

Are we providing leadership that allows 

our firms to consistently move the dial? 

Are our firms getting measurably better 

each year? 

Have we created a culture where everyone 

in the firm believes we will do what we say 

we will do and go where we say we will go? 


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Too many firm leaders are living the 

Groundhog Day experience. Many feel 

their greatest challenges remain largely 

unchanged year after year. 

Excuses are common and serve as a 

barrier to making significant 

improvements in weak areas. 


A FEW EXAMPLES OF OLD CHALLENGES 

• Willingness to serve lousy clients for 

substandard rates 

• Failure to rapidly develop our best 

people into leaders 

• Willingness to retain poor performers 

• Tolerance for anchor-throwing, entitled 

partners 


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• A tenured attitude in the owner group 

that leads to poor behavior and/or 

performance 

• Client services that haven’t measurably 

improved in the past decade 

• A poor system of accountability 

throughout the firm 


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• Leaders throughout the firm who play 

much more of a reactive, historian role 

with clients rather than a forwardthinking, 

trusted advisor role 

• Partners entrenched in their comfort 

zones spending 50 – 80% of their 

productive time doing work that 

someone below them could do 


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• A/R over 90 days that makes the firm 

look and feel more like a bank 

• Perfunctory performance reviews that 

do absolutely nothing to benefit our 

staff 

• No written career plans for our best 

people 


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The firms in our 

profession fit a 

perfect bell curve. 

There are a small 

percentage of weak 

firms, a lot of good 

firms, and a few 

high performing 

firms. 


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The difference between 

a weak firm and a good 

firm is as great as the 

difference between a 

good firm and a great 

one (HPF). 


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QUESTION TO CONSIDER 

Where is your firm on the bell curve and 

what is your desire and ability to move 

further right? 


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PRESENTATION ROADMAP 

1. Why is it so hard to improve a firm? 

2. Ten common traits of high 

performance firms 

3. The responsibility of leaders in 

creating a high performance firm 

4. Questions and answers 


WHY IS IT SO HARD 

TO IMPROVE A FIRM? 


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QUESTION 

Why is it so hard to consistently improve 

a firm? 


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OBSERVATION #1 

Improvement must be 

accompanied by 

change and change is 

often viewed as a 

necessary evil. It is 

seen as costly, 

annoying, hard, and, 

more often than not, 

ineffective. 


17


The Law of Status Quo has a powerful 

pull on every individual in the firm. 

Our habits and tendencies are often 

more difficult to break than we realize. 


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“Faced with having to change our views 

or prove that there is no need to do so, 

most of us get busy on the proof.” 

John Kenneth Galbraith 


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The Law of Change is 

alive and well within 

most firms. We will 

always have those in 

the 20 percent group 

who are boat anchors 

to change. 


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Most firms are guilty of some level of a 

“flavor of the month” (quarter or year) 

approach. 

Knowing this, employees have to 

determine whether the latest 

goal/strategy will really be something 

that sticks within the firm. 


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It takes consistent, concerted effort to 

bring about improvement in a firm. In 

other words, improvement is hard 

because it’s supposed to be hard. If 

improvement were easy, everyone would 

do it and there could be no competitive 

advantages created in the business 

world. 


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For a firm to improve, 

individuals within the 

firm must change. 

Getting people to 

change is achingly 

hard work. 


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“I’ve seen a lot of changes in my life, 

and I’ve fought every one of them.” 

Jerry Ditto, 80 


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It’s hard to accomplish anything of 

significance in the firm without the 

commitment of the partner group. 

This is particularly true when it comes to 

improving the firm. You can’t experience 

improvement around the partners. 


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It is far easier to be supportive of new 

ideas and initiatives than it is to be 

committed to them. Support is as easy 

as saying, “You go ahead and I’ll stay 

out of your way.” 

Commitment, on the other hand, means 

we are willing to give our best effort to 

ensure success. 


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Because no one benefits more than the 

partners if the firm improves, it seems odd 

it would be so difficult to get partners 

committed to continuous improvement. 

“It is remarkable how scarce sustained 

ambition can be among those who have 

already achieved a degree of success.” 

David Maister 


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Many firms struggle to 

achieve the discipline 

required to develop and 

execute a written 

strategic plan. Too 

many subscribe to a 

“flavor of the quarter” 

approach and live the 

strategy of hope. 


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Firms often convince themselves they 

are doing just fine by making 

comparisons to weak competitors. This 

creates a false sense of security. 

Measuring against a mediocre standard 

seldom helps firms become high 

performance. 


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What Jim Collins 

said about the 

flywheel is true. 

High performance 

firms are never the 

result of any one 

specific action or 

event. 


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TEN COMMON TRAITS OF 

HIGH PERFORMANCE FIRMS 


1. PASSION FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE 

They understand and believe that with 

focus, discipline and endurance, they can 

improve any area of the firm. 

Their track record of doing this has 

produced a culture of high performance 

throughout the firm. There is a shared 

belief they ought to be better every year. 


2. EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE DELIVERY 

They are serious about delivering 

exceptional service and believe the only 

reliable way to measure this level of 

service is by tracking client referrals. 

Their partners are true trusted advisors 

and spend minimal time being 

historians. 


3. HIGH PAYMENT EXPECTATIONS 

Unlike most firms in our profession, 

these highly successful firms expect to 

be paid for every minute they serve 

clients – unless they choose to donate 

the services. 

They have the courage to have direct 

conversations with prospects and clients. 


4. THEY CARE WHO’S ON THEIR BUS 

• They recruit differently than most other 

firms 

• They are willing to throw parity out the 

window and treat their B&B differently 

• They have the courage to make business 

decisions and then carry them out in a 

professional manner 

• A small % of life-time managers 


5. PARTNERS AVOID THE “C” TRAPS 

Partners in successful firms are able to 

avoid complacency, casualness, comfort 

zones, and cruising. 

Their basic belief is that they owe it to 

the firm and to each other to get better 

each year. They recognize that if they 

cruise, they force everybody below them 

into a comfort zone. 


6. PARTNERS ARE HIGH PERFORMERS 

Their partners are all 

high performers and 

are typically excellent 

in four of these areas 

of discipline and 

good in the other 

two. 


7. THERE IS NO STRATEGY OF HOPE 

While hope is a wonderful virtue, it has 

to be among the worst strategies. 

High performance firms recognize they 

must take a leave nothing to chance 

approach to all major endeavors. They 

have developed the discipline to create 

and execute detailed plans. 


8. THEY HAVE LEVEL 8 PROCESSES 

One of the great killers of high 

performance is mediocre processes. 

The best firms understand it’s about 

learning to do the right processes the 

right way. They refuse to adopt a 

checklist mentality. 


9. THEY HAVE A STRONG BD CULTURE 

They believe that profitable growth 

creates opportunities for everyone in the 

firm and they expect to win more than 

their share of key opportunities. 

They have invested the time to create a 

solid marketing message and they are 

careful not to have their rainmakers 

become mistmakers. 


10. THEY HAVE HONEST DIALOGUE 

There is a complete absence of artificial 

harmony in their meetings and 

interactions within the firm. 

They conduct honest evaluations at all 

levels and have created a culture where 

constructive feedback is both welcome 

and expected. 


THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LEADERS IN 

CREATING A HIGH PERFORMANCE FIRM 


Every leader and every firm is unique 

and different as is every group of 

partners. 

So, how do you best ensure that your 

firm gets and stays on a path of 

continuous improvement? Here are 

some thoughts and ideas. 


FOCUS ON FEWER THINGS 

• Leaders often try to take on too many 

initiatives 

• Fewer things done at a level 8 will yield 

much better results than many things 

done at a level 4 

• Quit trying to work on so many things 

at once 


START BY FIXING WHAT IS BROKE 

• Perform an honest evaluation regarding 

what is not working so well in your firm 

• Create a plan to focus on moving the 

dial in one area that needs improvement 

• One key to improvement is to focus on 

what you are going to do different to 

get a different result 


IMPROVE YOUR GOAL SETTING PROCESS 

• Create an accountable partner group 

• Get better at setting the right kind of 

partner goals 

• Tie the goals to your improvement 

initiatives 

• Implement monthly goal accountability 

• Tie goal completion to compensation 


HELP PARTNERS BE LEADERS 

Anchors 

• Supportive of the decision 

• Grudging compliance 

• Seek to defend current 

position 

• Work to undermine the 

decision 

• Step back from 

responsibility 

• Reject and try to stall 

vision 

• Give lip service 

• Stir up frustration 

• Maintain WIIFM attitude 

Leaders 

• Committed to the decision 

• Spirited commitment 

• Seek to understand new 

direction 

• Embrace the decision (even 

if originally opposed) 

• Reach out for 

responsibility 

• Catch, understand and 

carry forward the vision 

• Give their best effort 

• Help others catch vision 

• Adopt WITFBI attitude 


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QUESTION 

How do you move your firm right on the 

bell curve? 

Let’s discuss. 


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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 


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Thank You! 

sama@upstreamacademy.com 


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Keynote Presentation by Sam Allred - PrimeGlobal

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