Episode 94: How to Deal with Pushbacks In Your Firm?

In this week's episode of The Wize Guys Podcast, Tim Causbrook with Jamie Johns and Ed Chan identify the different forms of pushback when it comes to implementing a deep and narrow team design for every accounting practice.

It is a treasure trove for practice owners, brimming with actionable advice and lessons learned from the front lines of business evolution. Jamie delves into the significance of unwavering leadership and the dangers of slipping back into old habits. Understand the impact of team complexity on business growth and why the 'no bypass policy' is a cornerstone in maintaining a streamlined focus. 

Tune in to this week's episode to learn some tips on why educating, people and the team must work hand-in-hand to achieve a well-balanced structure. Also, find out which is more effective in conducting a 1-on-1 discussion or meeting as a group!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:23 Understanding the different forms of pushback
• 1:12 Tip #1: Choose the most senior people in your team to influence them.
• 1:57 Tip #2: Don't implement the new model as a group.
• 3:13 Tip #3: Educate your team why you're doing it.
• 4:08 The importance of having one-on-one meetings

Transcript

Wize Mentoring: 0:02

From Wize Mentoring is The Wize Guys Podcast, a show about accounting and bookkeeping practice owners and the many stories, lessons, and tips from their experience of transitioning from a time-poor practice to a business that runs without them. I hope you enjoy and subscribe!

Tim Causbrook: 0:23

I'm really interested in pushback this one's kind of for Jamie. I had a lot of pushback in my firm. I had about 15 people I needed to bring along on this journey. It was the biggest change we made in 20 years, apart from moving software.

Tim Causbrook: 0:34

Ed, you mentioned late adopters being one of the forms of pushback. I think a lot of people are going to experience that of the staff just kind of ignoring it and just the path of least resistance is to do what the habit is, which is to always work the way they were working before that. On the other end of the extreme, you have aggressive people who are kind of pushback aggressively. I guess they're the two kinds of extreme forms of pushback. Jamie, just while we're on that topic, do you have any suggestions about the best course of action for staff who do pushback on the team structure, whether it be through just kind of ignoring it and doing things the way they always did it or, more overtly, kind of saying now, this is a dumb idea. I think it's better if we just keep doing things the way we're doing them.

Jamie Johns: 1:12

Yeah, there's a couple of tips, Tim. First of all, I think you should choose the most senior people, so obviously that would be a senior client manager. But if you're transitioning to this team design, obviously choose those that you've got allocated for the senior client manager role. So you want to choose the most influential, the most senior people in your team are on your team first to influence them.

Jamie Johns: 1:35

So that'd be the first thing because it's a bit like the 80-20 rule that they adopt, the rest of the staff will see. So if they see they're superior or someone who's more experienced than adopting a certain way to manage the teams, then that will then sort of naturally educate the rest of the people down.

Jamie Johns: 1:54

So, that'd be the first thing. The other thing is, when you go to implement it, don't approach it as a group. You sort of have to be a little bit like a politician, I guess, and lobby each person individually. So I would sort of have a coffee with them, have lunch with them the individual person that you've chosen, and just explain to them why the old model doesn't work. I think I'm still sharing, but the old traditional model is that shallow and wide model. Just logically explain to them, if the team's going to grow, that just one person can't handle all that traffic in that shallow and wide team and you can use some of these resources to explain why it just doesn't work.

Jamie Johns: 2:38

Most accountants or bookkeepers are pretty logical type people. So if you can educate them around the logic from moving to that shallow and wide team, I think on the screen there, for example, there's just a snapshot there of when you go from three to four people, the amount of complexity that increases the complexity is what kills businesses. It really hampers growth. I think if you don't do this deep and narrow team structure, you just can't grow. So here's an example of just the complexity of communication that causes as your teams grow.

Tim Causbrook: 3:11

Yeah, I love that model.

Jamie Johns: 3:13

Yeah. So my other sort of point where there would be is just educate them around why we're doing it.

Ed Chan: 3:19

And.

Jamie Johns: 3:20

I think if this, some people will be early adopters, the senior people in your firm. Some will just embrace it straight away and some others won't. So you'll have to be very persistent and consistent around educating them in the team design and we'll probably get onto it in a minute. But one part of a deep and narrow team design is the no bypass policy, and when you instigate a deep and narrow team design, you can often self-sabotage yourself. I did occasionally when I first started this because old habits break hard. So you've really got to be persistent in your own leadership around a deep and narrow team design and making it work on the no bypass policy when required. And, yeah, be persistent. But that would be sort of my three tips for implementing a deep and narrow team design.

Ed Chan: 4:08

Just wanted to add to what Jamie just said. When you're implementing this, it's so important to not go out there with a group meeting, because if you don't have 80% of them on site, then if they push back in a group meeting, it just derails the whole thing. This creates a negative environment and the people who were not brought in they'll get even strengthened by their pushback. And so the way to do is to have one-on-one meetings with the senior people, the senior client managers, the ones that you've picked to be a client manager, then in a one-on-one meeting you're going to get lots of questions, pushback, and so forth, and unless you get 80% of them agreeing with this, then don't have that group meeting. Once you get 80% agreeing to do this, then in the meeting the 20% who are still negative will get brought over by the 80% who are positive.

Ed Chan: 5:07

So generally in a group environment, the people go with the majority. So the last handful of people who are still not sure about it will come across because the majority have agreed to do it. So if you do it that way, you'll get a lot more success than to just go out there and say this is what I'm doing and they'll feel like you're forcing it down, forcing it onto them, rather than it being their idea. So if it's their idea, then they will run with it and your life is a lot easier. But if it's your idea, then they're going to push back and it's going to make your life a lot harder.