In this interview, Bob London and Erik Linn discuss how their consulting firm differentiates itself from large, 100,000‑person firms by putting employees first. They emphasize giving staff a voice in choosing the types of clients they work with, enabling rapid shifts between service lines, and fostering a "coach family" structure with monthly check‑ins to continuously reorient career goals. The firm’s people‑first culture is presented as a key factor behind its repeated inclusion on the Inc. 5000 fastest‑growing companies list and its growth to about 600 employees, allowing professionals to advance faster and more humanely than at larger firms.
Chapters
If I was walking the halls in cross-country and I ran into someone and said, hey, what's better experience? What do you want them to be saying? What do you think they'd say?
Well, I want them to know that their leadership cares deeply for them. And so that starts right there. The way that translates into their day, hopefully they have a voice about what types of clients they get to work on.
So not possible. So what— timeout, sorry. So that sounds unique from the 100,000-person consulting firm. You don't have a choice and you don't have a choice of traveling. You know, the partner or whoever it is points their finger, lightning comes out and the person's on a plane, you know, the next 5 minutes later. So this is different. What you're doing is different.
That's right. So thank you. That was a good contrast. Having a voice and being able to actually express what you're interested in and then, you know, orient your career towards doing those things, whether it's clients or learning new capabilities. We have lots of people who shift service lines over the courses of their careers. That is not easy to do with a bigger firm. Switching service lines or practices can take a couple of years in the larger firms.
Wow.
Um, yeah. And that we have— I talked about coach families earlier. We are, uh, firm is structured such that every employee is part of a coach family and we expect that there, there should be a monthly meeting with your coach. And so throughout the year, as you set goals, you should be able to reorient your, your career, not just year to year, but throughout the year as you're accomplishing your goals. We like the family-oriented feel, the deep caring for our employees, but also we want people who are excited to be here to grow professionally, that, that do have aspirations to grow their careers and add capabilities and skills and hopefully progress into our organization up to the leadership level. And since we're a fast-growing firm, there are big opportunities to grow at an accelerated pace at a firm like ours.
That's fantastic.
We're proud to see people grow at a much better, better and faster clip than they might at some of the bigger firms.
In my summary would be you crack this code of the ability to say you're people first because you are actually people first and act that way. Yet the proof of landing on the Inc. 5000 fastest growing companies list multiple times, getting to 600 employees, you've managed to grow in a way that's sane and humane.
Yes.
As you say, kinder, gentler. So that's, that's fantastic.
