When, in 2004, Scott & Paterson's bank suggested it meet an Australian business coaching company, Shirlaws, that had just started operating in Scotland, there was some scepticism among the partners.

Scott & Paterson is one of the largest and longest established, independent chartered accountants in Edinburgh, mainly focused on working with owner-managed businesses. The partners had decided on an expansion strategy, but, based in a very competitive city environment it was agreed there was a need for more focus if growth targets were going to be achieved. At the beginning of 2002 it had merged with a smaller practice which had created a business of 65 staff, including 10 partners and its client base was smaller, traditional SME businesses.

The partners met with Fergus King, who was part of the Shirlaws' team in Scotland. Shirlaws was established in Australia in 1999, specifically aimed at coaching mid-tier businesses with from 20 to 1,000 employees, to achieve sustainable and profitable growth. It had been recognised as one of Australia's fastest growing businesses*, also opening operations in New Zealand and the US, alongside the UK.

Douglas Russell, one of the partners, recalls how at the first meeting he was impressed that Fergus understood the issues the practice was trying to grapple with. "Although the firm had been in Edinburgh for over a hundred years, there was poor recognition amongst the business community of our size and capabilities, which we obviously needed to address, and we wanted to expand the type of clients we worked with. The partners also realised that we needed to address how we managed the business as we grew. We were in a situation of having senior people around a table, where ‘paperclip' discussions were taking up as much time as discussions on the future growth strategy and direction of the firm."

As business coaches, Shirlaws' core premise is that to sustain business growth, there has to be a balance between addressing commercial issues - such as the drive for revenue, achieving efficiencies and maximising profitability, and cultural issues - such as communication, team alignment and work/life balance.

Getting the balance between strategic and people issues is fundamental to moving a business forward and Shirlaws has developed a range of tools, or frameworks, that its coaches use to support businesses at various stages of their development, providing a commercial and cultural vision for a business.

Initially Fergus King conducted a fact finding project, interviewing all the partners who, as Douglas explains, threw up a good deal of common ground about how they thought the business should operate, but also hit a few raw nerves. "It became apparent that the partners were prepared to be honest with Shirlaws about their views - more honest than we had been amongst ourselves. With

Shirlaws' help we agreed a more functional structure than we had worked with previously, which shifted the composition of the decision-making group within the firm and assigned clear responsibilities to each partner." Douglas took on the responsibility of heading the strategy team, looking at future business planning.

Clarifying the function of the rest of the staff then took place, which has given a broader spread of real responsibilities within the firm and ensured that the right people are doing the right jobs.

The situation that faced the partners at Scott & Paterson is not an unusual one, according to Shirlaws' Fergus King. "Our clients are already successful businesses, but they are also businesses that have reached a transition point. They recognise that, going forward, they now need to do things in another way in order to achieve a different set of commercial and cultural outcomes. While the products, industries and people differ, we see common issues across all our clients. Our job as our clients' business coach is to help them get clear on the issues that are affecting their development, help them make conscious choices and help them take action towards achieving their new vision."

The next stage for Scott & Paterson has been to work with Shirlaws on three areas of strategy, looking at how the company is positioned in the marketplace, how a new business development programme can be implemented and how the business should be managed in the future.

"As a result of working with Shirlaws our management style has definitely changed" comments Douglas. "We describe our approach as open, honest and safe and it has made a real difference, not only within the organisation, but also improved our service levels, and how we communicate with our clients. And as a management team we are now focused just on top level discussions and the right people are dealing with the administrative issues. In my opinion we have made more progress in the last year than in any of the previous 10 years.

"We still have much more we want to achieve, and Shirlaws works alongside us at every stage. They are not here to tell us what to do, but they have given us the skills to make better decisions."

*Business Review weekly (BRW) listed Shirlaws as the 7th fastest growing small business in 2002.