Some accounting firm owners and partners occasionally need coaching and mentoring. This can help tweak changes in the way the owner or partner conducts themselves, how they come to terms with their situation, how they want to spend their time now, and possibly where they want to be in the future.
Coaching and mentoring are less immediately results-oriented and more for fine-tuning, so you can be in a more pleasant place at your current stage of life while preparing for the next stage. Consultants can offer substantial help, but I find that the process only works when there is a resolve to implement what was determined to be the best way to act and proceed further. It needs follow-through.
A problem with this is that the consultant’s job is usually completed when the plan is presented and agreed to by the owner or partner. To be successful, the consultant needs to be further retained afterward to serve as a prod, reminder, taskmaster, field coach or monitor to chart the progress. This is similar to a workout trainer. The customer knows what to do and how to do it, but the trainer’s support makes it happen. Some adjustment is occasionally needed, but the regular “appointment” with the trainer is what keeps the process working.
I have developed a method of self-coaching and self-mentoring using a 12-step process:
1. You need to make a “promise” to yourself that you want to make changes.
2. Write out what you want to change or add to what you are doing.
3. Resolve to follow through with the changes you decide you need to make.
4. Schedule a set time to review, refine and assess the changes. In effect, make a standing appointment with yourself and keep it. Try for a half hour a week.
5. Concentrate on a single area at a time and work on that as often as practical between your “appointments.”
6. Jot down your change actions (or missed opportunities) in a small journal you can easily fit in your pocket or purse.
7. Review your journal at your weekly meeting with yourself.
8. Not that this is an evolving process and you do not need to have your plan perfected when you start, but you should start.
9. Make changes, additions or deletions as you go about your usual activities.
10. Once you start, you will be in a continuous improvement project, and you do not need to set a completion date. Keep at it until you feel you’ve accomplished the changes you want and are satisfied with the results.
11. Become your own coach or mentor and become accountable to yourself.
12. Get started.
One valuable input from a consultant that is not built into my plan is a sharing of experiences from others in similar positions. To accomplish this, I suggest reading articles and books, and listening to the plethora of podcasts by the many accounting firm consultants.
Later this summer, I will be conducting a series of joint retreats and have an 18-page checklist and questionnaire that will be provided to the participants. These have the questions you can ask yourself to start your own self-coaching or self-mentoring program. Email me at
If you want to read more about this process, read Benjamin Franklin’s 13-point self-help program in his autobiography. I’ll also include that chapter with the questionnaire I will send you.
Make this summer profitable by self-coaching and self-mentoring yourself.
Do not hesitate to contact me at
Edward Mendlowitz, CPA, is partner at
