How do you encourage your colleagues to do what you want them to do? How do you influence their behavior? Partner-level stars are a professional service firm’s scarcest and most valuable resource. Success depends on the degree to which the firm’s goals are these stars’ goals – and vice versa. On the one hand, firms must manage their partners. On the other hand, the idea of “managing” partners is an oxymoron. They can be influenced, but they cannot be controlled. No Right Answers There is no one-way to get your partners to “do what you want them to do.” Each firm and its people systems are unique. Your firm’s answers to the questions that it faces influence how people systems are developed. Some of the questions and issues that surface are: How do we influence partner behavior? How do we decide whom to promote to partner? How should we compensate our stars? What should our performance review process be? Guiding, Not Managing Professional service firms must guide their stars, not manage them. Partner-level stars with the most impact lead from within the partnership, rather than above it, even if they hold formal leadership positions. Such influence is derived almost wholly from personal behavior: partners respond to other partners, more because of their trust and confidence in them than because they occupy specific roles. Individuals exercise leadership less by virtue of formal authority than because other powerful partners willingly follow them. You Are Whom You Promote The strength of a firm’s partnership determines the future value of the firm. Partners define the internal and external strategic identity of the firm. It is essential that the right people be promoted to partner. While the specifics of promotion processes vary from firm to firm (and profession to profession), good processes share several characteristics. Explicit criteria and standards A rigorous data-driven process Partnership decisions are firm-wide, not individual or office decisions Compensation: No Single Approach There are no universal best practices for compensation systems, but there are a few common denominators among the most effective. Everyone trusts the decision-making process (and the decision-makers) to be fair The system is designed to encourage partners to take the long view and focus on the firm’s strategic goals The firm is explicit and inventive about the measures they use to evaluate performance and determine partner compensation Performance Management: Units of One Professional service firms tend to have a good grasp of their junior stars’ skills and aspirations due to their senior stars’ involvement. However, this involvement falls off sharply once the stars have been promoted to partner level. Performance reviews provide an opportunity for the firm to influence its stars and vice versa. Whether this actually happens hinges a great deal on how the review process is conceived and managed. Good performance reviews begin by looking backward, at what’s been accomplished since the last review. But even when a senior star is underperforming, the balance of discussion will tip toward the future – to what can be accomplished and what ought to be done.