PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
What does the future hold for your business?
By Dr John Collins (left), Managing Director, and Steve Hobbs (right), Facilitator and Coach at The Professional Coaching Alliance Ltd
FEATURE
“If you’re not interested in getting better, it’s time for you to stop leading.” Patrick Lencioni
Taking responsibility for your business, its performance and the team that delivers it, is at the heart of your role as an owner, partner or senior executive. While we are all assailed by a constant stream of
messages that we must change to survive, transform digitally, operate in the Cloud, be more agile, adaptive, experimental, people-centric… we must do this alongside running the business day-to-day. In this environment, it’s not surprising that strategy can
sometimes take a back seat. Our external operating environments - markets,
customers, competition, legislation etc – are changing rapidly under these influences. Our ability to evolve our strategy to meet these external
pressures is often constrained by our internal operating environment – both in the way we are organised and the capability and capacity of our people to engage with, understand and address the issues themselves. It shouldn’t surprise us that research by the McKinsey
Global Institute (2018) shows organisations will require a 55% rise in technological skills by 2030. What may come as a surprise is that the next highest requirement (a 24% rise) will be in social and emotional skills, particularly in leadership and management, as well as interpersonal and entrepreneurial skills. McKinsey found that almost one-in-three firms are
concerned that lack of skills will hurt their financial performance and many firms are also concerned they lack sufficient knowledge in their executive teams to lead the transformations needed. How do you measure up in this respect? Does your
current strategy account for these future challenges? Some organisations are showing what’s possible. They
have taken bold steps to secure their futures in this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world we all live and do business in now. The evidence is there in the business news feeds.
‘Almost one-in-three firms are concerned that lack of skills will hurt their financial performance’
‘No unnecessary meetings. Zero office politics. Is this
professional-services nirvana?’ was published on
Clic.co.uk in March 2019. “Keystone Law is the happiest law firm in the world,”
said James Knight, its founder and CEO, “this is happiness by design. It’s a complete restructure of the traditional professional services firm. “Everyone has the same job title. Everyone is on the
same deal. There are no office politics. We don’t own our people. “Everyone could leave tomorrow if they wanted to. But
they don’t… and we’re growing faster now than ever before.” From Love Business East Midlands, in January 2019, we
learned that the accountant Cooper Parry was named best company to work for in Europe. CEO Ade Cheatham, said: “We’re tearing up the rulebook when it comes to culture… our unique culture and philosophy on engaging our teams keep getting us recognised. And importantly, our growth, client advocacy scores and regular testimonials show it’s working for clients.”
business network September 2019 61
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