Every day, partners face a dilemma in their offices: should they prioritize the client, dedicating more team time and setting difficult deadlines to meet expectations? Or should they protect work-life balance, building a culture that respects the personal lives of professionals? In theory, any management manual would say that both are equally important. However, in practice, many decisions force us to prioritize one over the other. When a client demands an urgent delivery and the team sacrifices their weekend to comply, it seems that the client is in charge. But when the firm decides to take care of its people and offer above-market compensation, even at the expense of profitability, the associate becomes the priority. This dilemma is not circumstantial: it is structural.
At Black Swan, we address this dilemma through what we call the virtuous circle of management, a model in which three markets converge: clients, professionals, and partners. On the one hand, clients demand quality service and develop loyalty when they feel well cared for. On the other hand, professionals seek satisfaction, opportunities for development, and fair compensation. And finally, partners must ensure the firm’s profitability, internal cohesion, and sustainability. When these three actors are aligned under clear leadership, the firm creates value and progresses.
Our experience shows that risk arises when one of these three markets is neglected. Impeccable customer service cannot be sustained if professionals are unmotivated. A generous compensation policy loses its meaning if partners do not share a clear culture about how things are done at the firm. And a motivated team cannot reach its full potential if the organization fails to attract and retain clients. These three elements are interdependent, and when they become unbalanced, the firm’s sustainability suffers.
A firm’s culture is shaped through relationships and communication between partners, both with their peers and with professionals. That culture, in practice, is what tips the balance in the dilemma between client and partner. Sustained prioritization of the client alone guarantees short-term revenue but leads to a “slow death” caused by talent attrition and loss of cohesion. On the other hand, when partners model behaviors of respect, transparency, and collegiality, they convey to professionals that success is not achieved by sacrificing people, but by integrating their development with customer service. Thus, culture becomes a reinforcement system that either reproduces patterns of individualism and short-termism or sustains a virtuous circle in which clients, professionals, and partners strengthen each other.
This approach is based on a key premise: professional services firms are, above all, learning organizations. Professional development does not occur solely during induction, but rather on a daily basis, observing how partners make decisions, manage priorities, and balance the demands of clients and teams. “Learning by doing” remains the primary school of leadership. Therefore, when partners send mixed signals, such as talking about work-life balance but only rewarding billings, what associates learn is not the official discourse, but actual behavior.
The real challenge is not choosing between client or associate, but building management mechanisms that consistently balance those priorities. There are practices that show that the intangible can be made tangible: periodic feedback systems, team satisfaction metrics, or leadership assessments turn motivation and cohesion into measurable information, as valuable as hours or billing. The value of these tools lies not only in the data they generate, but also in the consistency of their use. Isolated initiatives, such as a 360-degree evaluation once a year, have little effect if they are not integrated into a system that consistently reinforces behaviors.
Ultimately, the dilemma between client and associate is a false dilemma. The firm’s business model is only sustainable when clients, professionals, and partners function as cogs in the same value chain. This integration, sustained over time and not as a one-off effort, is what guarantees the firm’s cohesion and long-term sustainability.
Antonio Gómez Montoya
black.swan consultoría.