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 have been brought into an extremely successful family advisory practice as president. The goal of the patriarch and matriarch, both of whom were involved with the business from inception to our AUM of $2.9 billion, is to have an outsider to manage the firm to the next phase of growth. The children (four of them) all work in various parts of the firm and have differing skill levels and interests. I am 62-years old and the two founders know I do not want to do this more than seven to 10 years. After seven to 10 years I plan to hand it off to either one of the children or another outsider. I am clear on my mandate and the two founders and I work collaboratively together.
The problem is the children.
Two of them are the issue. The oldest sister runs a big part of our back office operations. She is smart, quick, well-liked by the team and brings new and creative ways for us to do things. She has brought the firm very far very fast and clients appreciate the support they now get. One of the younger children, her brother, is a successful advisor. He is smart and quick and creative. His clients appreciate him and he has a growth mindset, so he has contributed to increased revenue and AUM.
The problem is that, from a historical perspective, something happened between them, perhaps in their childhood. It impacts their ability to work together. In short, they hate each other – I mean, really hate each other. They refuse to be in the same room at the same time. You’re not allowed to say one’s name to the other and God forbid you compliment one you will be attacked by the other for all of their faults and the awful things you don’t see!
I’ve been here nine months and it is exhausting. Other team members walk on eggshells and try and avoid the whole thing. The two other siblings (two brothers) laugh the whole thing off: “Oh, they’ve been like that their whole lives.”
I don’t think a firm should run like this. I suspect one of the reasons the owners brought me in is that they thought an outsider could fix this dynamic. What are your thoughts on what to do? It’s so unpleasant, but I feel I have a commitment to the founders. I don’t want to make a premature exit.
A.A.
Dear A.A.,
As if running a business isn’t hard enough, and managing family dynamics isn’t difficult enough, throw both together and you have some serious headwinds to overcome! This is not an uncommon scenario. When I used to teach small-business management, I had a whole module on family-owned and run businesses. There are so many issues that can arise from interpersonal dynamics that source back to childhood and remain unresolved. Families can carry these everywhere, including into the workplace.
However, your role isn’t to fix their relationship and it isn’t to coach the rest of the team to tiptoe around these two. Call them in and set some ground rules about what’s acceptable and what’s not. I managed a large group during a difficult transition at one time where people were being laid off and the culture was toxic. I used to tell my staff they had every right to have an opinion and to be negative, but they didn’t have a right to do it in the workplace. I told them to go home and complain over dinner, go out for drinks and complain to a friend or call someone in a different business just to vent. But once they walked through the door (when we used to do this….) they were part of a team and they needed to act like it.
On sports teams, not all players like each other and could vehemently dislike each other as your brother and sister do, but they know they won’t win the game if they refuse to pass the ball or puck to their team member just because they don’t like them. They have to put on a “game face” and play the best they can.
Tell this to the brother and sister. Put on your game face. Figure out a way, in the office or working with the team remotely, to find ways to professionally interact and support one another. And warn them about undermining each other. Sometimes a family member will drop hints about the other person and make life difficult without being direct about it. But other team members notice this. Let them know this is also unacceptable.
Tell them to go get some family therapy and let go of the anger and legacy of the past. But I know, from my own experiences working through a number of similar situations, this isn’t always easy. The wounds are deep and the issues resulting from those wounds sustain decades of time. Don’t try and fix their problem. Just solicit from them together ways they can agree to work effectively when at the advisory firm.
Dear Bev,
How do you give difficult feedback to a junior advisor who is your son?
Y.V.
Dear Y.V.,
You do it the same way you would with any other advisor or team member. Don’t assume his intentions just because you have known him for a lifetime. Don’t criticize him in a way that could demean or disengage him. But don’t give him a pass because you don’t want to hurt the relationship.
If you are his direct boss, provide feedback like you would with anyone else:
- Set up a time to talk.
- Ask him open-ended questions to allow him to open up and perhaps see what happened or have you learned what went on from his lens.
- Provide your insights and validate whether what you are saying resonates with him.
- Work together to find collaborative next steps.
- Implement a follow-up plan to help him shift the behavior if you both agree this is necessary.
If you don’t have direct management responsibility, allow the person who does to manage this process. Just because he is your son, it doesn’t mean you should be the person involved in giving the feedback.
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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