In Zach Galifianakis's Between Two Ferns, humor comes from awkward conversations between two people who are fundamentally misaligned.
Public accounting firms are having their own awkward conversation between the firm they built and the firm they now need to become.
Like the show, the discomfort is impossible to ignore.
There are more options today for what a firm can become than at any point in the profession's history. Firms are deciding whether:
- To remain compliance firms (with some advisory) or become advisory firms (with some compliance);
- To continue billing by the hour or move toward value- or outcome-based billing;
- To preserve legacy workflows or automate aggressively;
- To remain fiercely independent or pursue private equity, ESOPs or mergers;
- To deliver services or offer outcomes to clients;
- Technology is back-office support or a growth engine of the firm;
- Partners are producers or relationship builders;
- Leaders are rewarded for having answers or for asking better questions.
Perhaps most importantly, firms are deciding whether they are willing to let go of the model that made them successful in the first place.
Firms are not resisting change because they disagree with the future. They are resisting the discomfort of letting go of the model that rewarded them for decades. They are trying to preserve the economics, metrics, behaviors and operating models of the old firm while simultaneously trying to build a new one.
The result is organizational confusion.
A firm says it has a value-based pricing model but still manages by realization targets. It claims to be advisory-driven while rewarding production efficiency. It expects partners to become growth leaders while burying them in administrative tasks. It talks about ideal clients yet continues to retain legacy clients regardless of fit or fee.
This is what happens when leadership tries to operate between two firms. The new firm cannot fully emerge while the old firm continues to dominate decision-making.
So how does a firm move forward?
Stop trying to "add" the new firm to the old one
Some firms attempt transformation through addition. They add advisory, AI, new service lines, another niche and another pricing model.
But addition without subtraction creates complexity, not strategy. Transformation is not about adding capabilities. It is about making tradeoffs.
Firms need to ask the harder questions such as: "What are we willing to stop doing?", "What metrics no longer align with our future?", "What behaviors are we still rewarding that contradict our strategy?" or "Which clients, processes or assumptions are we defending solely because they're familiar?"
Firms already know what they should do. The more difficult challenge is deciding what they will stop doing.
Start from zero
Brian Tracy popularized the concept of zero-based thinking by asking a simple but awkward question: "Knowing what I now know, would I get into this again today?"
Public accounting firms should be asking themselves similar questions. Would you still structure your firm this way, price this way, organize talent this way, serve the same clients, or reward the same behaviors?
If the answers are no, firms need to stop defending the past long enough to intentionally design the future.
For years, firms could evolve slowly. The profession changed incrementally, and strategic plans could survive for years without major revision. We are no longer in that world. Firms whose strategic plans have not meaningfully evolved in the last six months are likely operating under assumptions that no longer reflect reality.
This isn't a failure of firm leadership. The profession is changing faster than firms' planning cycles. Firms need shorter strategic horizons, faster decision making and a greater willingness to challenge long-held assumptions.
Choose the firm to become
Most firms are not stuck because they lack ideas. They're stuck because they lack clarity.
Leadership, compensation, culture, technology, operations and talent decisions must all support the same strategic direction. A firm needs shared clarity on the kind of firm it is becoming and the conviction to build it intentionally.
In the firm they are becoming, technical expertise will not be enough to stay competitive and historical loyalty will not retain clients. Firms will also need to define the type of leaders the firm they are becoming will need.
The next generation of firms and leaders will place greater value on adaptability, relationship-building, better communication, curiosity and the ability to create meaningful outcomes for clients.
Those are not soft skills. They are strategic differentiators.
Align metrics and accountability with the future firm
Most firms want alignment. Fewer are willing to create accountability.
Compensation systems, metrics, pricing models, client acceptance standards and performance expectations should mirror the firm it's trying to become, not the one it's used to being.
Metrics are directional. They shape behavior regardless of what leadership claims to value.
If the conversation at a firm promotes advisory services, delivery of outcomes, and automation, but the scorecard still prioritizes realization, utilization, and efficiency over effectiveness, the disconnect becomes obvious.
Alignment without accountability is just bad theater.
Remove the partner bottleneck
The bottleneck at the partner level is worse than most firms realize.
It's unlikely to improve while low-level technical work becomes automated and more strategic, relational and decision-making work channels upward. Yet many firms still have partners buried in administrative work, billing, meetings, workflow management or onboarding clients.
That is not leverage. That is organizational drag.
In my own analysis of Accounting Today's
Partners increasingly need this capacity to build relationships, create value for their clients, lead teams, develop people, drive growth and guide strategy for the future firm.
They cannot do that effectively while trapped in an old operating model.
Decide
Many firms are talking about innovation while still emotionally protecting the operating model they know needs to change.
Eventually, every firm must decide who it is becoming.
The firms with a competitive advantage in the coming years will not necessarily be the biggest, oldest or even the most technically capable.
They will be the firms willing to let go of the assumptions, behaviors and systems that no longer serve the future they claim to want.
Because at some point, every firm must stop sitting awkwardly between two firms and decide whether it is finally ready to become the firm it keeps talking about.
