“That’s why you have to give newer employees enough opportunities to make them feel they’re making progress in their careers beyond just the advisor role,” Macchia says. “Three of our partners on the management committee started here as interns, so they’ve made that entire career path run.”
Regarding the term-limit idea, it sounds good on paper, but groomed successors sometimes turn out to be knuckleheads … then what? “There could be a situation where there isn’t a good person to step into a particular role, and then we’d have to extend a person’s leadership role beyond the eight years,” Macchia says.