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,
One of our financial advisors, I will call him Sean, left our firm a few years ago to go out on his own. His wife became ill and he wanted more freedom and felt doing the solo thing was the best approach. She eventually got well and has been doing fine. He decided he did not like working on his own and so has come back into the fold with me and one other partner.
He is a good advisor and has strong investment acumen. But he is a stoic, low-key person. My other partner, who I will call Matt, and I are high-energy, enthusiastic and upbeat people who enjoy our work, our clients and like to have some fun. We work very hard and have strong performance.
But life is too short to be serious and down all of the time. We’ve tried to engage Sean and include him, but he wants to keep focused on the work and then go home as early as possible each day. He tells us it is nothing personal and he wants to be home with his wife. But we think he is having second thoughts about coming back to the firm. We believe he would be more engaged and more involved if he were more committed.
Would it be intrusive to ask him whether he intends to stay or ask what we are doing that is so bothersome to him? We don’t want to alienate him if we can avoid it.
O.N.
Dear O.N.,
Have you considered that he might be telling you the truth? After going through such a scary experience with his wife and her illness, maybe they decided “life is short” and they want to spend as much time together as possible. Or maybe his behavioral style is very different from yours and Matt’s. You both sound like high-energy, outgoing and fun-loving people. That’s great, except Sean sounds like he is more of a loner, perhaps something of an introvert who enjoys his work but needs to go home and recharge his batteries after a day of dealing with clients and dealing with two extroverted individuals.
Behavioral styles are often at the root of our differences or misunderstandings with others. Some people are non-emotional, quiet and like to be the listener or observer. Others are outgoing, upbeat and enjoy talking and having fun. Neither is wrong or right, but they are very different. They are especially different in the way they derive, or lose energy. The upbeat, outgoing ones gain energy and get excited by verbalizing and interaction where the less outgoing or more introverted actually lose their energy by engaging. You two may be fired up and ready to roll while Sean is losing steam and needs to recharge on his own.
It also sounds like the culture might be one of “let’s be nice” and not address differences in opinion. I don’t know all of you, of course, but your comment in your note that it might be intrusive to ask him what’s going on, this suggests you are avoiding any sort of dialogue about your different approaches. Approach him in a less confrontational way, not asking, “Why don’t you want to go out with us?” or “What have we done to offend you?” Rather ask him about his values, his priorities and how he likes to spend his time and recharge his batteries, maybe he would be more comfortable to share his viewpoint. You could observe that for you and Matt, the dialogue and the fun is important – state this as an objective observation – but then state you notice that he prefers more alone time, or to wind down at the end of the day. Say that you’d like to build a culture where everyone’s values are important and needs are being met.
Instead of trying to win him over to your way of doing things, consider that he has his own way and it isn’t necessarily in contrast or in opposition to yours – it is simply different.
Dear Bev,
I manage the investment segment for our advisory firm of 32 people. I have a team of five who provide analysis, do the trading and help craft strategy for the firm.
A couple of our advisors insist on implementing their own investment philosophies. They will say it is because of legacy positions and tax concerns in reallocating, or they might say they have their own research in a certain market segment or industry to defend their position.
But it causes disruption within my team.
My team spends all of their time in research and making recommendations and they take this as personally insulting, as if their work isn’t good enough. To make matters worse, these advisors are not performing as well on average as our overall firm-wide portfolios. This could cause a compliance issue if any of our clients were to complain about their returns and find their portfolios were not aligned with our overall strategies.
Again, the advisors will have rationale for this. But it’s not like they have some secret sauce that is offering their clients any more than we can give them. These advisors enjoy the investment aspect of this business and don’t want to give it up. But it causes disruption in the firm and I’m not senior enough to insist we do it one way or another. The two senior partners won’t intervene and lay down the guidelines on this.
Is this common among other firms? Can I convince them we are strong enough to support their needs?
H.P.
Dear H.P.,
Are your advisors selling a different offering than the rest of the firm who are running these side portfolios? If your team is six people deep, that’s fairly large for a small- to medium-size advisory firm. You clearly have a focus on investing and I would guess it is a key part of your value proposition. How are these other advisors talking about the value of your investment team and the robust offering you have? It would be difficult to portray the value of investment experts but then deny their intelligence around investing on a regular basis!
There are a few dynamics at work here. I wonder whether you have all of the information and whether the advisors have all of the information and you are both communicating clearly between one another. It’s possible that the portfolios in question do have legacy positions or nuances you might not be aware of. It’s also possible that the advisors have industry experience and like to talk about this, but might not actually be making changes to portfolios based on their knowledge and position – maybe they just like to talk.
It’s also concerning that you have raised this to your two senior partners but they won’t intervene and you don’t know why. Maybe there is good reason for choosing not to do so and you are unaware of this.
Is it possible to have a sit down with the two leaders of the firm to voice, in an objective and non-accusatory manner, your concerns and questions and learn their viewpoints? Is it possible to sit in a non-combative way with the offending advisors and ask questions to learn more about what they are doing and why?
I respect that your group is charged with this responsibility and you have legitimate compliance and client-service related concerns. But there might be more to the story and it might be worthwhile to learn more instead of becoming more perturbed.
You might also be right, and these advisors might be going rogue and doing things out of scope relative to your firm’s philosophies and stated direction. In that case, talk to your chief compliance officer or consult with a third-party consultant to get ideas about how to bring these advisors back into the investment fold.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. 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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