The Realities for Consulting Partners in 2025: Juan Pablo Gonzalez on the Culture Matters Podcast

Jay: Hello Culture Matters podcast. I’m so excited to introduce you to our guest. Before I do that, here’s a quote just for this episode:

“The purpose of management, leadership, parenting, or governing any form of organizational leadership is to solve today’s problems and get ready to deal with tomorrow’s problems, and that means managing change.”

That’s from Ichak Kalderon Adizes.

 Our guest today has been managing change throughout a decades-long career, helping companies from the inside and the outside.

They’re a friend of one of our friends of the Culture Matters podcast, the one and only Alan Whitman. He started his career in leadership management and human resources, working inside companies like Baan, Constellation Energy, and with some of the greatest consulting and management firms around the world. He’s authored books and contributed to Shockproof and The Talent Management Handbook.

Juan Pablo Gonzalez, thank you so much for coming on. Senior Partner at Kinavic, a firm that advises the advisors, working across the U.S. and beyond, helping companies navigate partner evolution, leadership, and growth.

Juan: Jay, thanks so much for having me this morning. It’s terrific to spend some time together.

Jay: Now, when you were studying in school—industrial and labor, right? Was that your background? Labor relations and industrial education?

Juan: Industrial and labor relations. Curiously, most people who do what I do get here through various paths. I didn’t know this would be my career, but academically, it’s exactly the right foundation. Industrial labor relations is basically the study of work and how people interact in the workplace.

Jay: How long has that been something people have studied?

Juan: The program I went through at Cornell started in the 1960s. It was the first of its kind. It has roots in organizational psychology and industrial psychology. As the labor movement grew, people realized there was something to study there. Originally it was more about how labor and management engaged with each other. Over time, and in my work especially, it evolved to really focus on how people interact and work effectively—whether they’re on the shop floor, in service, white-collar professionals, bankers, you name it.

Everyone who works—or nearly everyone—works with or for someone else. They have peers, bosses, customers, subordinates. So understanding motivation, human dynamics, organizational behavior—those things are critical. And it’s always fascinated me.

Jay: Do you think that’s more important now than ever? Or just a continuation of what’s always mattered?

Juan: I think it’s more relevant now than ever. A few years ago, people started talking about the “future of work.” Flip open any paper, and there’s something about AI, about remote work. How people work and engage is changing radically. We used to get in cars or hop on a train and go to work—then come home and be done. Now that boundary doesn’t exist. That shifts the relationship between employee and employer, and among colleagues. I had coworkers I didn’t meet for three years—we only knew each other from video calls. That was unthinkable when I started my career.

Jay: What does that shift do to motivation and team dynamics when people aren’t physically together?

Juan: It has a big impact. People build relationships more quickly in person. You get to know them more fully. There’s that hallway time, the coffee grab, the “How was your weekend? How’s the dog?” Those little things build trust. That trust helps you operate more effectively.

When everything’s on video, it’s transactional. You hop on, exchange a few pleasantries, and then someone has a hard stop. It becomes a string of 30-minute meetings with no buffer time. That erodes mentorship, learning, collaboration—all of it.

Jay: Is that part of why it’s harder now for firms to elevate their partners? That disconnect between senior leaders and mentees?

Juan: Totally. Especially in professional services—law firms, accounting firms, consulting firms. That’s been my world for the past 20 years. I learned from great mentors. I got staffed on teams with senior partners, we traveled together, went to pitches, came back and wrote proposals, went on-site with clients. All that windshield time, airport time—that’s where you learn.

Every partner I know has a story about a mentor. Someone who took them under their wing and helped them learn the ropes. That’s changing now. Larger firms with more resources are trying to recreate that with events, trainings, even their own internal universities. But for people who joined firms during the pandemic, there’s a gap. And for those coming in after, they’re hearing the old stories, but experiencing something new.

Jay: That makes me think of someone who’s listening to this podcast right now. Maybe they’re in that upward trajectory, and you become that mentor—virtually. They’re listening to you but don’t know you. It’s a one-way relationship. I’m curious what your thoughts are on that dynamic.

Juan: Great question. Context matters—every firm is different. But ideally, you learn from people you’re actually working with. You go to a meeting, come out, and get feedback: “You did great here. You could tighten that up there.” That real-time coaching is gold.

But yeah, there’s also value in broader coaching. That’s what we do a lot of at Kinavic—performance coaching, especially with partner candidates. We start with a psychometric assessment. We use the Hogan Assessments and our own Verity Leadership Assessment, which is back-tested for professional services. We look at your strengths, gaps, and how those affect your work. If you have strong executive presence but challenges building trust, we dig into that.

For example, maybe you don’t trust people to trust you—so you overcompensate, talk too much, and don’t ask questions. But asking great questions is the superpower of good consultants. So we help you reframe, prepare, and ultimately perform better.

Jay: When you were at Baan, that was a Dutch software ERP provider, right? How did you prepare and execute that major severance and restructuring?

Juan: Yeah, I was head of Total Rewards in the Americas. We were highly acquisitive during the tech boom. My job was to harmonize compensation and benefits across all these acquired companies—so we could become one company, one culture.

Then the bubble burst. We had to make cuts. I wasn’t choosing who got laid off, but once the targets were set, my team figured out how to execute—severance policies, benefits, outplacement support, legal compliance. We worked with outplacement firms to help people get resumes and job search strategies in place.

The hardest part, though, was flying to cities to deliver the news in person. I met people for the first time just to tell them they were out of a job. It was heartbreaking.

Jay: How do you do that in a way that reduces shame and treats people with dignity?

Juan: You put yourself in their shoes. You want to be calm, prepared, respectful. You can’t control the uncertainty of job loss, but you can provide clarity. Here’s the severance, the benefits, the next steps. Answer their questions. Offer support.

I’ve seen every reaction—people who packed their boxes ahead of time, people who broke down in tears. But the goal is to make sure that, years later, they can say, “They treated me well. I’m at peace with it.”

Jay: Why is that important?

Juan: Because work is human. These are people who gave their time and energy to a company. They deserve to be treated with dignity on the way out. It’s also about the company’s reputation. You don’t want to be known as the firm that did layoffs via Zoom with no warning.

Jay: Many of our listeners run small businesses and might not have worked with a consulting firm. What is a consultant, really?

Juan: A consultant is an external advisor. Think of a doctor: you come in with symptoms, they ask questions, do tests, and offer a diagnosis and treatment. I’m a human capital consultant. So if a firm is struggling with partner dynamics after a merger, I come in, diagnose the root cause, and help them solve it.

Sometimes that means helping partners cross-sell, or adapt to new performance metrics. My job is to apply experience and expertise to help the client solve problems they can’t solve on their own.

Jay: As more private capital flows into Main Street, does that create more opportunity for advisors like you?

Juan: Absolutely. Investors want returns—and quickly. That amps up pressure on firms. I had a friend describe private equity like this: they show up with a big bag of money. Then they show up with a big bag of conditions. Now you’re accountable.

That changes everything. Suddenly you need to grow faster, sell more, expand service lines. But the people doing that work often weren’t part of the deal-making. So there’s a huge translation gap. That’s where we come in.

Jay: And what kinds of tensions show up in that situation?