Are technical skills enough?
Many accountants assume non-technical skills can be developed on the job but is this really the case? Mark Lee makes a case for soft skills training.
Most accountants are justly proud of their technical skills. It is also common to find that firms rarely invest time and money in ensuring that partners and prospective partners have all the business skills they require to be profitable in the short-term and valuable in the longer term.
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grow your people, grow your firm...
Great article Mark - i couldn't agree more.
It is clear how the accountants who invest heavily in the soft skills you describe also get a return on their investment - in the form of long term financial success.
There could easily be a debate on which skills but you capture four eloquently-put groups. Managing Partners who work out processes for growing their people in these four areas will ultimately grow their firm. What is also clear is those firms who don't grow their people will not grow their firm.
Paul Shrimpling
-- remarkable practice... inspires remarkable results
Non-technical skills development
These areas all break down into a number of skills which can be learnt by watching others, being coached, training programmes etc. I would add two fundamental skills which I believe underpin the other skill areas:
Those you've suggested as "Binding" and mostly not relevant to sole practitioners, I might put a different way. Many sole practitioners use subcontractors, outsource certain services and have arrangements with other providers for areas they don't cover. They still need to work as a team, motivate others and delegate effectively. I would also say that if you are doing "everything", time management is critical.
Sue