Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
I recently joined an advisory firm I had researched and learned about before accepting its offer. I have a deep background as an advisor, team leader and in sales. I felt this firm offered me the chance to utilize my experience and knowledge and become engaged quickly. The people are great. The firm is top-notch.
But I can’t get my supervisor to acknowledge I can add value, even though I’ve only been here for three weeks. Every time I ask to take something on, follow up with a client to provide information, or generally contribute an idea she literally shoots me down on it. She doesn’t quite say I have not earned the right to speak or be involved but that is how I take it on.
I’ve reminded her of my past experience and her reply is “That was when and then and this is now – we’re different from what you have done in the past.” I have also showed her the job description I was hired in to do. It is mostly a support role providing backbone to five of the senior advisors who could be (should be) leveraging me more.
The firm doesn’t pay people in my role commissions – my only bonus would be from meeting my management-by-objectives (MBOs), so it isn’t like I am upstaging or reducing the compensation of team members if I helped with a client situation. The supervisor ultimately decides whether I have met my objectives.
I am starting to feel I made a mistake in coming here. I don’t know what else to do to help her see I am competent and interested in contributing.
L.V.
Dear L.V.,
It sounds like you were very thoughtful in taking this role and in joining this company. It’s always hard to find something that looks different from the outside than the inside! That said, you have only been there for three weeks, and, in the scheme of things, that isn’t a lot of time. Many advisory firms have people who have been there for decades and it’s not uncommon to have a “pay your dues” type of mentality. I’m not saying it is right to have this approach, but it isn’t entirely unusual.
That said, you sound like you want to contribute, and believe you could add value now, so sitting around and waiting for the day your dues have been paid is not the best option. Without knowing why the supervisor is holding you back, I’ll offer a few options you might try to see if you can garner a different response:
- Ask her to sit down with you for a friendly check-in on how he sees your progress, where you need to improve and what your focus should be. Let her know you are interested in constant improvement and would like to keep the lines open to receive feedback on what’s working and what’s not. Sometimes if you ask directly, someone will answer directly (but not always, of course….). Don’t assume or operate from conjecture – ask her, in a non-threatening and non-accusatory way for some early feedback.
- See if you can also discuss a progression journey with her. Ask her about milestones – what should happen when, and how success will be measured. If you weren’t given a roadmap when you were on-boarded, you might want to ask about this. Tell her you want to be sure you are on track and it would be helpful, just as clients have financial plans, to have a career journey plan so you can track to it.
- Make yourself useful without being asked. Yes, I admit I was always one of those “ask for forgiveness not permission” people and, yes, there were times it got me in trouble in a large rules-based company, especially in some of my more senior roles, but taking the risks and simply doing things that need to be done usually does get recognized. Don’t do anything that would be offensive, of course. But can you see something that needs to be done and just do it – being helpful and responsive? Are there ideas you have but haven’t been comfortable raising – if so, see if there are steps you could take to just start to make them work. Again, do this cautiously so as not to offend, but maybe they need to see you know what you are doing instead of just hearing you say it.
Dear Bev,
What is the point of having a performance-review process when the leader of our firm never reviews anyone? He hired a high-paid HR consultant to put benefits plans in place, work with him on a bonus program and the final piece was the performance process that was supposed to correlate to the plan. But we don’t set goals and have measurements, and we never meet to talk about anything. What is the point? He gets so excited about new ideas and then never follows through. We’re a small firm, only about 12 people, and there isn’t anyone who wants to broach this with him.
A.A.
Dear A.A.,
Would it be helpful if I told you this is common? Many advisors running firms know they need to take steps to create infrastructure and consistency in their business but they aren’t good managers. So great plans fall apart. One of my clients describes it as the “chase for the next shiny object” – she readily admits she likes to find new ideas, harness them, and then move on to the next thing. I work with a lot of advisors like this. It’s not a great leadership practice, but it is reality in many firms.
If you don’t have anyone you can ask about this or a sounding board who might be able to step in and take this burden off your leader’s shoulders and do it for him, you probably aren’t going to see much progress.
Before you totally give up, you, and hopefully some others, should approach your leader in a non-threatening way and let him know how excited you all were about the opportunity to have personal goals, to sit with him and review performance and hopefully gain coaching and mentoring from him. I would be really positive about the experience and let him know you are all looking forward to getting it implemented! Maybe he thinks no one really cares so it gets pushed to the side of the desk. Let him know you are enthusiastic and maybe it will spur him to action.
If that doesn’t work, status quo is probably in the cards.
Beverly Flaxington, The Human Behavior Coach® co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. She recently launched the Advisors Sales Academy to provide business building tools for advisors www.advisorssalesacademy.com. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility and Entrepreneurship 101. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
