I wanted to share a pattern I am seeing more frequently in my work.

I am being brought into a growing number of firms in the 100 to 500 person range and asked to help coach their Controller into a CFO role.

Not because the Controller is not capable, but because no one has really shown them what the next level looks like.

That’s an uncomfortable statement in many employee-owned firms. And I am sure I will get some flak for putting it out there.

Because the instinct in employee-owned companies is to be inclusive.

Most leadership teams I work with would say they are aligned.

And on the surface, it often looks that way. Their meetings are constructive. There is little visible conflict. Decisions appear to move forward.

But when you spend more time in the room, a different picture starts to emerge.

Most professional services firms track the same things.

• Revenue
• Backlog
• Utilization
• Profit

All important.

But there is one number that matters just as much, and almost no one is tracking it.

I see this pattern often in growing professional services firms:

• A clear ambition to grow.  

• Strong hiring plans.  

• New markets identified.  

• Energy and momentum behind it.

Strategy-making is hard in most organizations. But it gets uniquely harder in long-run, evergreen, employee-owned engineering consulting firms.

Here’s why that is and why it matters.

They’re about how the owners want to live.

I’ve been working with several firms recently that appear stuck in an ongoing debate about growth.

On the surface, it sounds like a strategic discussion.

That’s not an easy sentence to write.
But it’s one I keep seeing play out in professional services firms.

In professional firms, we spend endless hours talking about leadership.

Who’s ready.  
Who’s not.  
Who needs development.

Most professional firms don’t fail. They stall. And they tend to stall at the same points.

Over the years I have noticed a common pattern in professional consulting firms facing generational leadership transitions as they approach the 150 to 200 person mark.

“We’d love to transition ownership internally, but our younger people just aren’t ready.” Or: “This generation isn’t interested in ownership.” I hear versions of this often. 

If you think employee ownership is primarily about motivation, you are likely missing its real power.

Dispatch from the road: I keep seeing the same growth ceiling appear at 150 people. It isn’t a strategy problem.

In working with founders and leaders of employee-owned #AEC firms, I often observe a critical distinction between ownership transitions and leadership transitions.

We’re a sector that values numeracy. We like the clarity that comes from measuring inputs, outputs, and everything in between. And more often than not, companies in the industry are linking their KPIs to reward and recognition systems.

As I hit my own exercise program harder these days, I’m reminded of David Maister’s brilliant book Strategy and the Fat Smoker.