Hitting a milestone like 20 years is both shocking and humbling – shocking in that the time has flown by and humbling that I’ve been so fortunate to have found a home at HawkPartners. But it also provides a rare opportunity for reflection. How did we grow more than five-fold in my time here yet continue to be the rare place that strikes the delicate balance between adaptation and consistency?
The fact that HawkPartners has not only met but also thrived in the face of multiple challenges is reflective of our ability to build and maintain such a strong sense of culture. In considering the last 20 years, it seems that beyond just knowing the values we aspire to there are three key success factors that have enabled us to maintain our collaborative and caring culture.
Challenge Convention
The very foundation upon which HawkPartners was built rests on two career consultants asking themselves, “given the extraordinarily high employee turnover throughout the consulting industry, what if we design our firm to be the opposite of what we’ve experienced everywhere else?” This idea has resulted in a series of innovations in consulting management, including no time sheets, one title (and no promotions), and shared performance goals for all. It has also provided everybody with a license to offer ideas on improving how the business is run while being mindful of taking steps that feel the most authentic to us and our culture. The results have been profound – not only enabling strong, steady growth, but also attracting extraordinary people and keeping them here for the long haul. While a strong culture requires consistency, the foundation of that culture can still be a departure from the norm.
Assess and Adapt
And what if those experiments don’t work? What is the mechanism to take an honest look at how circumstances have changed and what we might need to do differently? HawkPartners has done an admirable job of continually revisiting key decisions to understand what’s working and what’s not, adapting the organization as needed. Whether it’s our strategic vision, business offerings, management structure, or even our values, taking an objective, dispassionate view of the question at hand and engaging in a debate on approaches for the future has been one of the hallmarks of my experience at HawkPartners. It’s a culture that actively listens and has the humility to change.
Engage
One of my key concerns as HawkPartners continued its steady growth was how we would maintain our unique culture as the size and make-up of our firm changed. A key factor in doing just this has been the level of engagement from the top down in the activities that maintain and sustain our culture. We recognize that in order for an ever-growing group to buy into our culture they need to first understand it, then actually believe it, before finally being able to live it (and demonstrate it) on a daily basis. HawkPartners has many mechanisms for this engagement, from semi-annual retreats that bring everyone together to learn and socialize, to weekly firmwide calls that keep everyone abreast of key decisions, and brainstorming sessions where we pool our collective knowledge to tackle client and internal challenges to arrive at novel paths forward. In a people-driven business, HawkPartners has and will continue to prioritize a culture of engagement.
We often say people who have worked elsewhere have the truest appreciation for HawkPartners, as the cultural contrast to prior companies can be stark. And as I look ahead to the next 20 years of HawkPartners, I remain highly optimistic that our unique culture will continue to propel us to future growth by challenging convention, adapting, and engaging all our Partners.