At the start of Kathy Scherer’s career, her path seemed simple. The ladder above had a set direction and a certain length.
“I sort of thought that when you got to partner, that was it,” she says. “You were on a flat-line once you got there.”
Now, after more than 10 years as partner at Deloitte Tax LLP, Scherer knows better. That ladder is more like a lattice because development and growth happen constantly in every direction.
“The really surprising thing to me is how I’ve had to keep redeveloping myself and reinventing myself to do different things,” says Scherer, Midwest regional tax managing partner.
That philosophy of continual development is prevalent at Deloitte. It’s a priority that underlies the culture and feeds the business model.
“Talent development for us is critical because we don’t have hard assets,” she says. “We’re not like a manufacturing company. Our business is really two things: It’s clients and people. For us to be able to deliver to our clients, we have to have the best people and motivated people and technical people and people that think innovatively. So for us, it’s very much a cornerstone of our business to develop our talent.”
To foster growth in her 1,151 employees, Scherer supports development as an informal ingredient in the firm’s overall culture and devotes resources to more formal training to customize each person’s growth track. As employees hone their skills, the level of service they provide continually rises, in turn growing the business.
“At various points in your career, you’re going to need to have different competencies to continue to progress,” she says. “What got you where you are today isn’t going to take you where you need to go tomorrow. You always need to keep developing.”
