Wipfli

Wipfli ranks among the top 20 accounting and business consulting firms in the nation. They have built a solid reputation as industry experts and trusted business advisors to more than 44,000 clients across a wide range of industries. An integral ingredient of Wipfli's success has been the proactive investigation and implementation of future-facing business adaptations, including changes to their leadership development strategy. But navigating these transitions can be difficult; it requires leaving behind familiar routines and adjusting work processes, even those which had previously been successful.​

Product-Focused Pitching, Not Problem-Solving

Before becoming a multi-service industry leader, Wipfli had to transition from its primary identity as an accounting services provider. With accounting services becoming increasingly commoditized, Wipfli had both the opportunity and need to expand their offerings. But the firm's approach was stuck in old patterns. "We were very, kind of, product based. And you know I've heard one of our other partners always talks about showing up and throwing up," Terry explained about the firm's sales approach.​

"We're going out and we're just kind of demoing software. We're demoing a solution. We're talking about something that we can do, but not really understanding what their needs are. It just doesn't cut it," he continued about the ineffective methodology. The firm knew they needed to deploy an integrated business model, one that mixed traditional accounting services with other high value offerings like consulting and outsourcing.​

Trust Issues Preventing Cross-Functional Selling

Even when partners recognized opportunities to serve clients better through collaboration, territorial behavior and trust issues got in the way. "How do I trust that this person's going treat my client the way that I would? Because if they don't, then who looks bad?" John asked, articulating the fear that prevented partnerships.​

The siloed mentality extended beyond trust issues. "We can be our own stumbling blocks if we're not surfacing those relationships or at least introducing folks to the folks that can help clients, but it's just going to sit there and wait and wait until we do something about that," Mark G. noted about missed opportunities. Another partner added: "We can get caught up in our own four walls and trying to do all of the work for certain clients, using just people in one location when maybe the best people for that client are sitting in Green Bay or they're sitting in Minneapolis or whatever."​

Complacency Blocking Growth Culture

In order to achieve this new organizational vision, the firm required a major mindset shift. They needed to shake off the complacency of narrow service delivery and devote energetic attention to growth and cross-functional selling. Kim summarized the fundamental challenge: "The complexity of that is getting people to work together to go places. How do we get everybody on the same page and moving in the same direction as a firm?"​

The firm set a key strategic initiative to build a "tenacious growth culture." In addition to spreading this shift in mindset and company identity within the partnership ranks and across the organization, Wipfli required organizational restructuring to drive the growth envisioned by leadership. In substantive ways, Wipfli needed to shift and expand its identity, culture, and practices. Eventually, these changes would create a firm reimagined.​

Top 30 Leaders Workshop and Reorganization

Successfully shifting the mindset and culture of an entire professional services firm requires the buy-in and commitment of key leaders. Effective organizational transformation is deeply intertwined with effective leadership development strategy. Hence, Arbinger began working with Wipfli by spending three days in a workshop and consulting environment with the firm's top thirty leaders.​

Knowing of Arbinger's expertise in mindset transformation and leadership development strategy, Wipfli engaged the institute to help spark and establish their vision of a "tenacious growth culture." Mark K. explained the vision: "What we're really trying to do is kind of change the culture a little bit and to get people focused on how we can all work together to help grow the firm. Which then led to the event at the full partner meeting in October, which was quite powerful."​

Honest Self-Inventory Over Hierarchy

Arbinger tools were utilized to productively frame discussion around the firm's new key initiatives. Traditional organizational practices relied on hierarchy as a default means of establishing responsibility for new objectives. With an Arbinger lens, Wipfli's top leadership was able to clearly identify which leaders had the necessary capacities, positively impacted others, and possessed the energy to productively direct the diverse range of initiatives.​

This guided the reorganization process, dramatically reshaping how the firm approached the transition and laying crucial groundwork for future success. The innovative delegation of responsibility was made possible in the Arbinger-led workshop as leaders took honest self-inventory and set aside personal ambition in pursuit of organizational progress. By the end of those intensive initial workshops, the firm's entire leadership was fully committed to realizing a tenacious growth culture through Arbinger's ideas and methodologies.​

250-Person Partner Meeting: $85M Identified

The transformation accelerated at the full partner meeting in October. "To have everybody in the room at the same time, 250 people, our top relationship executives for the firm, all focused on that issue," Terry described the scale of the gathering. The focus was clear: "Identifying kind of who the top clients are and the top prospects that we're all pursuing and collaborating with each other on where are the relationships and how can I help somebody else solve a problem for that client."​

Liz witnessed the breakthrough in real-time: "All these people going around the room and looking at these charts and going, 'Hey, I can help with that.' Or, 'Hey, I know somebody at that firm.' So you could see the opportunities where there was so much collaboration. I was like, holy cow, this is really cool. This is going to work."​

Mark G. captured the cultural shift: "Because then you really get that one Wipfli feeling and kind of that tenacious growth culture that we're looking to expand upon right there in that room." New levels of cooperation were reached even in the initial training session, where a contingent of company leaders identified $85 million in client revenue opportunities for the next year.​

Customized Training Program and Common Language

In order to help ensure that the new tools, information, and mindset would be fully integrated throughout the firm, Wipfli requested that Arbinger create a customized training program. The resulting training program adapted Arbinger's training and tools to the specific challenges Wipfli faced and provided employees of the firm with a common language, approach, and orientation towards their coworkers, clients, and collective mission.​

Within a very short time frame, this training sparked cross-functional and regional collaboration to a degree unprecedented at this stage of the firm's history. The next two levels of the organization were able to identify an additional $44 million of opportunity.​

20 Internal Facilitators and Success Stories

Due to their employees' immensely positive response to Arbinger's process, Wipfli enrolled twenty of their key leaders in Arbinger's train-the-trainer program. These in-house facilitators then worked to keep positive momentum building as Arbinger principles were disseminated throughout the entire firm as a key strategic initiative.​

As teams started employing the new way of working, Arbinger helped capture their success stories. These became a series of customized online video clips that helped drive continuing implementation and sustainment across the organization. From structural reorganization to the redefinition of leadership roles, Wipfli continued to use Arbinger methodologies to inform their leadership development strategy.​ 

Armed with a transformed mindset and the tools to build accountability and collaboration, Wipfli was able to quickly achieve remarkable results. Over several years, Wipfli leveraged Arbinger's principles and tools to help sustain their growth and expansion. The firm views these changes as being key strategic differentiators in the marketplace.​

Operationalizing Collaboration Beyond Events

The challenge became sustaining the breakthrough energy. "We actually ended up with a whole list of who could help with that in that relationship. So names appeared up on the wall in our sheets of paper, right?" Terry recalled about the tangible outcomes. He then asked the critical question: "How do we take that, what happened in two or three hours, and really operationalize that and make that happen all the time throughout the year?"​

The answer required commitment beyond the initial excitement. "I think we have to be committed to it too. It's not the flavor of the day," Mark K. emphasized about the ongoing work. He continued: "Let's do this right away. Let's get everybody excited in the second week of June and now we've got 12 months of our fiscal year to really go out and kick butt."​

Small Actions, Big Impact

For many partners, the transformation revealed how simple collaboration could be when the mindset shifted. "That was a real aha moment for me to say, it doesn't take a lot," John reflected about breaking down the barriers. The realization that helping colleagues serve clients better didn't require massive effort—just willingness—unlocked partnerships that had been waiting to happen. 

From Accounting Firm to Multi-Service Leader

The transformation enabled Wipfli to successfully transition from its primary identity as an accounting services provider to a true multi-service industry leader. With accounting services becoming increasingly commoditized, the firm's ability to integrate traditional accounting services with high-value offerings like consulting and outsourcing required more than new service lines, it required a fundamentally different way of seeing clients and colleagues.​

The customized online video clips capturing success stories became powerful tools for driving continuing implementation and sustainment across the organization. From structural reorganization to the redefinition of leadership roles, Wipfli continued to use Arbinger methodologies to inform their leadership development strategy. The firm successfully shook off the complacency of narrow service delivery and devoted energetic attention to growth and cross-functional selling.​

Managing Partner Rick Dreher summarized the strategic impact: The firm views these changes as being key strategic differentiators in the marketplace for years to come.​

Wipfli proved that professional services firms can't grow beyond commoditization through new service offerings alone—they need to transform how partners see collaboration. When a top 20 accounting firm needed to transition from product-based "show up and throw up" pitching to integrated consulting, trust issues and territorial behavior blocked cross-selling even when partners recognized opportunities. Traditional hierarchy-based responsibility assignment couldn't drive the tenacious growth culture leadership envisioned. By bringing 30 top leaders through Arbinger workshops that enabled honest self-inventory over hierarchy, then deploying customized training to 250 partners simultaneously, Wipfli identified $130M in collaboration opportunities in initial sessions—$85M from leadership and $44M from the next two organizational levels. Training 20 internal facilitators sustained the mindset shift that became the firm's key strategic differentiator. The lesson: you can't build a growth culture by mandating collaboration while maintaining siloed, territorial mindsets. Transform how people see colleagues and clients first, and cross-functional selling follows.