Stronger Together: Turning Pressure into Performance
How Alignment Between Tax Firms and Their Clients Drives Better Results for Everyone
By Mitchell Schuckman, PCC | Founder, The Schuckman Group
The Pressure Everyone Feels
Spend time with any corporate tax department and you hear the same story. There are no quiet months. Filing deadlines overlap, reporting never stops, and new regulations arrive before the old ones are fully implemented. Expectations are constant, and the pace keeps rising.
Tax teams sit at the crossroads of the business. They manage compliance across jurisdictions, national and local taxes, direct and indirect obligations, and complex transfer pricing documentation. They are expected to deliver transparency, control, and precision while creating value through planning, structuring, and process efficiency. Leadership expects predictability. Regulators expect speed.
Across the table, external firms are feeling the same pressure. Rules are shifting, technology is rewriting workflows, and the promise of AI is outpacing its integration. Every engagement carries the challenge to deliver faster and cheaper while keeping quality, judgment, and relationships intact. At the same time, firms are under constant pressure to show their own leadership teams that revenue is growing and margins are holding strong. That mix of client expectations and internal demands makes alignment with clients not just desirable, but essential.
Both sides are filled with capable professionals. The real challenge isn’t technical skill, it’s connection. When information stays in silos and communication turns reactive, the relationship slips from partnership to protection. The goal is not we versus them but we plus them, a mindset that creates exceptional value, stronger ideas, and smoother results for everyone involved.
In my years leading major tax engagements, I saw this pattern repeatedly. The work got done, but not always in rhythm. Now, as a coach, I help leaders recognize how that rhythm can be built and sustained so everyone performs at their best.
The True Nature of Alignment
Alignment is not a slogan or a process checklist. It is what happens when professionals on both sides move in rhythm toward a shared outcome. It shows up when priorities are understood, when timing feels natural, and when both sides know what success looks like.
In practice, alignment means open communication, shared visibility, and mutual respect. It means understanding what matters most to the business and how external teams can make the internal team look strong in front of their leadership.
That point is often underestimated. When a firm helps a client present a clear, confident report or board update, it builds deep credibility. It shows shared purpose, not service delivery. Alignment turns complexity into coordination, and coordination into trust.
Research confirms what most experienced professionals already know. Studies from leading institutions and consulting organizations have shown that teams with shared goals and mutual understanding perform faster, deliver higher quality, and report greater satisfaction. These findings match what I’ve seen throughout my career. When alignment is strong, teams move from firefighting to foresight, spending less time chasing data and more time solving problems together.
How Alignment Actually Happens
Alignment begins with leadership. The head of tax sets priorities, clarifies risks, and defines what success means. Those expectations cascade through the department so every specialist and manager knows what matters most.
The external firm mirrors that clarity. Engagement leaders translate those priorities into their own workplans so everyone understands who owns what and how each part connects. Meetings become purposeful. Information flows on time. Decisions are documented before they drift.
Technology helps only when it reinforces collaboration rather than replaces it. Shared trackers, portals, and review tools build confidence when everyone uses them consistently. The goal is simple: both sides see the same information at the same time.
Consistency builds trust. Weekly touchpoints keep projects on track. Monthly sessions focus on coordination and improvement. Quarterly reviews bring senior leaders together to celebrate wins, fix what is not working, and reset goals.
Ideally, both sides step back once a year for an accounting of the relationship to assess what worked, what didn’t, what improved, and what’s next. The best annual reviews are framed by the client’s definition of success. When the client can use that same review in their own internal performance discussions, it shows everyone is operating in sync.
When I coach engagement leaders, this is often where we start. I ask how they are leading these rhythms. How often are they stepping back to check alignment rather than output? The answer usually explains the performance gap.
Seeing Through the Client’s Eyes
A Fortune 100 company I once worked with faced mounting tax pressure after a series of acquisitions. The head of tax, highly capable but stretched thin, worked closely with a tax firm’s partner she trusted. Their first year together was rough. Missed hand-offs, late data, and competing assumptions created friction.
They decided to reset. Together they mapped what truly mattered: predictability of timing, audit readiness, accuracy in the face of rapidly shifting rules, and positioning the tax function to have a stronger voice in business decisions.
From there, they built new habits. Weekly check-ins replaced last-minute scrambles. Review calendars were locked early. Drafts circulated ahead of schedule so there was time for judgment, not just review. Technical updates were connected to their business impact. Before each board cycle, the teams prepared a concise joint summary highlighting progress, issues, and decisions needed.
Within months, trust returned. The internal team regained confidence, the partner’s team was viewed as proactive rather than reactive, and both sides began operating as one. By the following year, when another acquisition arose, tax was at the strategy table from the start.
That is alignment in action. It is what happens when both sides look through the same lens and move toward the same story of success.
The Evidence and Leadership Behind Alignment
The link between alignment and performance is well documented.
A Harvard Business Review analysis found that teams with clearly defined shared goals outperform unaligned teams by up to 30 percent on speed and delivery quality.
Research from the MIT Sloan School reported that organizations with strong cross-functional collaboration are 35 percent more likely to exceed financial targets.
A 2024 McKinsey & Company study showed that high-alignment teams experience about 40 percent lower turnover and significantly higher engagement.
Across industries, the pattern is clear. When objectives are understood and communication is open, performance rises. For tax leaders and their external advisors, that alignment translates directly into higher accuracy, fewer surprises, and smoother compliance cycles. It turns technical execution into strategic partnership.
Alignment, however, is not sustained by process alone. It lives in behavior. The most effective leaders model it. They respond quickly, explain decisions, and stay steady when pressure rises. They coach their teams to listen first, anticipate needs, and raise issues early.
Today’s tax leaders face a new kind of strain. Regulations shift constantly, and AI is transforming how data is analyzed and reported. The expectation is that AI will enable both clients and firms to do more with fewer people. That promise creates pressure to deliver more with less while keeping teams connected and engaged. It also amplifies the need for alignment because technology cannot replace communication, trust, or shared purpose.
When alignment is strong, everything changes. Deadlines hold. Surprises fade. Conversations become direct and constructive. The client’s tax department feels supported rather than managed. The external firm feels trusted rather than tested. Alignment does not make the work easier. It makes it meaningful.
Why It Matters Now
Tax work is evolving at record speed. Global minimum taxes, digital reporting, and AI-enabled analytics are redefining expectations. Technology can process data faster than ever, but it cannot sense tone, build trust, or coach judgment. Those human qualities still determine whether a tax function performs well under pressure or struggles to keep up.
The firms and tax departments that thrive will treat alignment as a daily discipline. They will plan together, measure together, and adapt in real time. Their reports will read with one voice. Their leaders will talk about shared wins, not divided responsibilities. That is what turns technical excellence into trusted partnership.
The Work Ahead
Alignment is not a one-time initiative. It is a leadership discipline built on clarity, trust, and accountability. It starts when leaders define success clearly, build trust around it, and keep that trust visible every day. Weekly and monthly rhythms sustain it. Joint metrics and transparent communication make it measurable.
In my coaching with tax and consulting leaders, I see how quickly alignment can change the energy of a team. When leaders make space for honest discussion, reward collaboration, and hold people accountable to shared goals, the culture begins to shift. Pressure stops feeling personal. It becomes performance.
For both internal and external teams, the next step is simple: pick one engagement this quarter and make alignment the measurable goal. Track it, talk about it, and celebrate progress.
Because when people choose alignment every day, they do more than meet deadlines. They build trust, deliver value, and turn pressure into performance.
That is the kind of work I help leaders and teams do every day.
Sources
Harvard Business Review, “The Secrets of Great Teamwork,” June 2016. Research by Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen found that well-aligned teams with clear shared goals outperform less-aligned teams on speed and quality of delivery by approximately 30 percent.
MIT Sloan Management Review, “How to Build a Culture of Originality,” Vol. 63, No. 2 (2022). Analysis of cross-functional collaboration across 120 organizations found that companies with high alignment between functions were 35 percent more likely to exceed financial targets.
McKinsey & Company, “The State of Organizations 2024,” April 2024. The study reported that organizations with strong alignment and open communication have roughly 40 percent lower voluntary turnover and substantially higher employee engagement.