Legendary football coach Lou Holtz once said his job wasn’t coaching football, it was preparing young people to succeed in life.
That idea translates directly to leadership in professional services.
Too often, firms can treat strategy, financial planning, and talent development as separate conversations. They happen in different meetings, are owned by different leaders, and are evaluated on different timelines.
But companies that out-perform their competitors tightly align these elements for success.
Firm strategy defines where the firm is going.
Financial strategy determines what gets prioritized and funded.
People determine whether it actually happens.
When these elements are aligned, companies move with clarity and momentum. When they are not, even strong strategies stall.
Where Firms Get Stuck
Many firms default to managing the business through metrics:
- Revenue growth
- Utilization
- Partner compensation
These are important—but they are outputs, not drivers.
The real challenge is overcoming misalignment:
- Strategy that doesn’t translate into day-to-day decisions
- Financial models that don’t reinforce strategic priorities
- Talent that is under-leveraged or misaligned to where the firm is going
The Role of Leadership
This is fundamentally a leadership issue.
Managing Partners, operational, financial and human resources leaders must operate as a coordinated leadership team to ensure:
- Investment decisions reflect strategic priorities
- Incentives reinforce the right behaviors
- Time and resources are focused on the highest-value work
- The next generation of leaders is being developed intentionally
This is where the right support can be a catalyst.
A fractional CFO brings financial clarity.
A fractional CEO or COO drives focus and execution.
A fractional CHRO ensures the talent strategy supports where the firm is going.
Individually, these roles add value.
Together, they help leadership teams operate as a system.
The 2GO Advisory Group Point of View
In 2GO Advisory Group’s Professional Services Practice Group, we partner across the C-suite—bringing the right mix of strategic, operational, financial, and talent leadership to help firms align and execute.
Our work may, for example, include serving as a law firm fractional COO but it rarely stops there.
We help leadership teams connect firm strategy, financial strategy, and people—so the firm can move as one.
In the end, firms don’t struggle due to lack of ideas; They struggle when these elements are not aligned.
And the leaders who get this right understand something fundamental—just as Lou Holtz did:
The work isn’t just the work. It’s what the whole organization builds—and who it develops—along the way.
Margaret Abeles is a Partner at 2Go Advisory Group’s COO Division. She co-Leads the Professional Services Practice. She is a C-suite leader and operator who makes good companies even better and helps them grow. Margaret creates and executes business and marketing strategy, performs Chief of Staff functions, project manages key initiatives, creates change management programs, and streamlines operations. Her work spans many industries and has ranged from Fortune 500 companies to early-stage ventures.
For your Talent needs in direct hire, full-time or part-time contract staffing, in Professional Services, contact Executive Recruiter, Leesa Meintzer at leesa@2gorecruiting.com.
Leesa Meintzer is an executive recruiter with more than 20 years of experience in talent acquisition. She excels in partnering across various business functions and brings a comprehensive perspective to talent acquisition. She works with Engineering, Healthcare, Product, Finance, Accounting, Business Operations, Sales, Legal, Human Resources, Learning & Development, and Talent Acquisition for corporate and high-growth start-ups.
2GO Advisory Group™ is a San Francisco Bay Area-based pioneer of fractional C-suite services. For 35 years our flagship CFOs2GO® lineage has grown to COOs2GO™, CHROs2GO™, CIOs2GO™, and Talent2GO™, pairing consulting partners with recruiting to deliver tailored executive solutions. We help organizations navigate change and execute strategy across industries in the U.S. and internationally, with local representation in most metros. Copyright.
