It’s been ten years since we began working closely with leaders across Northwestern Mutual (NM). A decade is long enough to see cycles. Long enough to see firms stall, reset, and surge. Long enough to watch young advisors become owners, and owners become CEOs.

When I think back on the early days, I remember many design conversations with the home office about the newly forming ensemble initiative (there is an artifact of an ensemble guidebook we wrote in 2016 for NM to be found somewhere). Discussions centered on the definition of a team and the advisors building practices or firms.

That distinction changes everything.

We would present to the first teaming advisors on the ensemble platform, and they would argue they were a firm; however, they lacked clarity about how they would combine their old business and split new business. They talked about their staff and their business partner’s staff. They didn’t know how the future would be better together, but they had faith that it would be…

These weren’t firms in the early days. They were too dependent on one person, didn’t do enough sharing of staff, ideas, and income. The advisors had built practices to be their own boss under a nicely packaged collective brand.

Fast forward to today and the conversations are steadily changing over to discussions of how to grow the firm’s value larger than they could ever have accomplished on their own. How to develop staff into owners, how to transition clients and manage capacity, and how to run a firm with endless energy. The collective goal to grow together has been a step of trust, founded by faith, built on continuous learning, and rewarded with income, freedom, and fulfillment. That is a firm.

Over ten years, a few truths have become clear to me:

Structure isn’t administrative, it’s strategic.
Compensation systems, reporting lines, and equity paths are not simply management mechanics. They shape behavior. They signal what matters. They determine whether collaboration is real or just rhetoric.

Growth without architecture creates stress.
Many firms hit revenue milestones and assume they’ve “made it.” But growth without role clarity, capacity planning, and leadership depth often leads to complexity that outpaces capability. The firms that scale well are intentional about leverage and about developing their next generation long before they “need” them.

Leadership must be built before it’s required.
Technical skills don’t automatically evolve into ownership mindset. That’s why our G2 Leadership program has been so meaningful to me. Watching next-gen advisors shift from “How do I produce?” to “How do I build a business?” is one of the most rewarding parts of this work.

The Ensemble Practices mission in our work with Northwestern Mutual is to build large teams that thrive in the distribution system. No corner of the industry owns the best practices for running a good firm. We’ve seen amazing advances by the field and home office, and we have been honored to be a trusted partner.

The work isn’t done. There is more to learn, and good firms are always learning. What a large firm does is a habit, but not always a best practice. There is room to improve and continue to learn and advance ensembles at NM.

Firms thrive when leadership and structure evolve together. That belief drives both:

• The G2 Leadership program for rising leaders within NM firms. The G2 program focuses on developing next-generation leaders who are ready to think like owners — not just advisors. It’s immersive, practical, and designed to build both business acumen and peer accountability.
• Our Ensemble Executive Forum for firm leaders. The executive-level consulting program is built for firm leaders making high-stakes decisions about growth, compensation, equity, and organizational architecture. It’s less about theory and more about decision design that gives leaders clarity and confidence in the choices that shape their firm’s future.

Ten years in, I’m grateful for the trust NM leaders and firms have placed in us.

And I’m convinced of this: the firms that will thrive over the next decade won’t be the ones chasing tactics. They’ll be the ones building intentional businesses, with a deep bench of leaders, and never stop learning.

If you’re ready to think more seriously about the future of your firm — whether you’re stepping into leadership or shaping it at the top — I’d encourage you to explore both programs. The next chapter belongs to firms that build on purpose.