Why do companies and especially public accounting consistently promote the wrong people and how can we fix it?

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We have to make sure that those in charge of promotions know that this is not a sports team and we don’t care about who is a great athlete. We are here for accounting and consulting. Zero athleticism involved. Until we fix this misconception the problem will continue.

likefunny

Curious what your experience is that allowed you to conclude that public accounting consistently promotes the wrong people. Are you talking about who they choose to promote to senior associate, which you basically just have to be breathing to get promoted, or are you talking about the promotion to manager/Senior Manager, which only requires that you be mildly competent and win a war of attrition with your peers?

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Unfortunately it’s being in the right place, right time rather than being the best athlete that wins at end of day. There is lot of BS and politics that play a role. Great athletes end up leaving

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And not all the wrong people get promoted. You could get promoted and someone else thinks that’s wrong too. It’s all about perception and part of being professional is working with what you got and coming to peace with what you can’t change. Do your job and go home, that’s my motto anymore.

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PwC 4 - agreed...don’t know too any “incompetent” partners and executive directors. Some are terrible with people but I havent seen too many that are that way.

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From what I’ve seen at PwC there is a strong adherence (to the firm’s detriment IMO) to lock step promotion. With early promotion being so rare, the good people who should be the ones being promoted leave the firm. The average and under achievers are the ones who predominantly stick it out and therefore get promoted.

The solution is to get rid of the whole idea of lockstep promotion. I doubt that will ever happen, because the firm seems adamantly against promoting a high achiever over an average person who was hired before them.

likesmart

At the same time, the Peter Principle also applies: one rises to the level of their incompetence

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Its because as long as you aren't the worst, you get promoted. Titles in the big 4 through senior manager are about endurance and not skill (not to say that those that endure can't be skilled, but their is no correlation between the two). Then, those whom make it to partner from senior manager get there through luck, kissing a$$, or a combination of the two. Once again, luck and a$$ kissing are not correlated with skill level but they also aren't mutually exclusive. Moral of the story: the big 4 model of promoting based on tenure rather than skill lets a lot more terrible employees through the cracks and into upper management than other industries.

smart

I agree the bad ones get promoted especially seniors and managers. I have always worked with awesome directors though.

Hey I’m not wrong!

Interesting. Following

I don’t think the “wrong" people get promoted, I think 90% of the time it’s right, but when the 10% get promoted we focus on that.

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