Making the Case for Organizational Change

The case involves Doug Dickey, the managing partner of a large public accounting firm named DRDA, taken from the initials of first names of the founding partners. Dickey’s vision was to expand both the size of the firm as well as the services provided to clients. The problem was that several of his longer-service management employees were not on board with these changes and were putting up barriers to implementing these changes. They had been used to the traditional structure of a CPA firm and were not eager to change their procedures or to learn new consulting areas such as pension planning and valuation services. This was a major obstacle for Dickey because without the support of his most senior employees, he believed that he would be unable to achieve his goal of growing the firm. Dickey needed to come up with a solution fast to convince these employees that was in their best interest to stay and embrace his changes.