No. 16: A Modern Day Apprenticeship

As I work through the second book of my Succession Planning series for Professional Service owners, it occurred to me that the training and development of younger professionals today shares some key characteristics with traditional apprenticeship models. One of the key themes in both books is to build on the foundations of knowledge, work and experience from a prior generation. How does one generation best transfer a career of knowledge, skills, and experience to the next generation?  

We grew up learning about apprenticeships in grade school, and how such guided learning impacted our lives many generations later in one way or another. Benjamin Franklin, as you might recall, started as a printer’s apprentice with his older brother, which laid the foundation for his career in publishing and his many other accomplishments. Paul Revere apprenticed as a silversmith, a trade that provided him with valuable skills and a network of contacts that would later prove crucial during the American Revolution. And George Washington apprenticed as a surveyor, learning land measurement, mapmaking, and other skills that served him well throughout his life, particularly in his military career.  

Historically, most apprenticeships were tied to a trade or a craft. Traditionally, after completing an apprenticeship, a young person had several options:

• The most common path was to become a journeyman which means that, effectively, they earned a wage working for someone else honing their craft over the course of their career. 
• Some apprentices, after accumulating enough savings and experience, would set up their own shop, becoming independent craftsmen or artisans.  
• In fewer, even rarer cases, apprentices could succeed their master (a term used in historical context and respectfully so), and potentially become a partner or even inherit or acquire the business.

Succinctly, apprenticeships of old were a method to source and train younger talent, and possibly to retain that talent. (I acknowledge that, depending on the time period, geographic location, and trade, apprenticeships of generations past could be brutal by today’s standards. In the past 100 years or so, federal regulations here in the U.S. have changed this landscape and, today, apprenticeships are actually increasing in number and expanding into white collar professions such as health care and information technology.)

While traditional apprenticeship models may have originated in the trades, the core principles of structured learning, mentorship, coaching, and on-the-job training to develop practical, transferable skills are being effectively adapted by professional service owners today. And in fact, the options and preferred, common pathways taken by next generation professional service providers upon completing their training or on-the-job learning, really haven’t changed a lot in 250 years!  

The point of my two books (Building With the End in Mind (for G1s) and Acquiring Your Future Through a Succession Plan (for G2s) is to help make the case for today’s “apprentices”, in whatever professional services venue they might work, to become a partner and/or acquire the business. I firmly believe that one generation working with and teaching the next, directly and as a career path, is the best way to improve the service professions and, therefore, the results their clients receive in the end.  

The glue that binds the generations today is equity – the ability of a next generation apprentice to acquire a stake in the business where they work and learn. It is the difference maker! This gradual transfer of ownership echoes the gradual and continual transfer of knowledge, skills and experience from one generation to the next. Equity turns a transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next into a career-length investment by both teacher and student, or mentor and mentee.

I do appreciate the entrepreneurs in the middle group who set up their own shop and begin anew, but having experienced that model as an entrepreneur myself, and as a client over the past 40 years or so of this model, I do not think that that is the path to excellence and steady, meaningful improvement and growth of a services business – and I firmly believe that too. I think a multi-generational practice is much better situated to provide great service and continuing service than a sole proprietorship model.

The modern adaptation of an apprenticeship for professional service owners lies in the form of a Succession Plan, which also provides the opportunity to continue the work within the same firm and eventually take over. It cannot remain among the “few, even rarer cases” for a next generation service provider. With equity as part of the tool set, it won’t.  

Thanks for reading,

David Sr.