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 Readers –
My firm was recently honored to receive the WealthTech award for best training solution provider. It is always humbling to be recognized for a lifelong passion. In today’s column, I’ll share some of the insights we have gained over the years in hopes you can apply these to your own financial firm, be it large or small.
1. As an animal lover with five dogs of my own and another 800 that I’ve fostered over the last 12+ years, I know that training (dogs) is important. Without training they don’t make the best family members! However, while training dogs is useful in the right way (i.e. positive reinforcement and patience), I can’t “train” people in the same way. If someone isn’t willing to listen and understand, you can deliver the best information and it won’t make a difference. Rather, to bring about behavior change, create an environment where they can learn. Show them the benefit of understanding and applying new concepts; illustrate how what they are learning connects to their life, their culture and their needs. Switch the thinking from pure training, to creating a learning environment. It is an important reframe.
2. Talking at someone is not training, nor is it conducive to learning. As a college professor in both undergraduate and graduate tracks, I’m always interested to hear my students share their experiences of the professors who simply talk at them – sometimes for hours. The students lose focus. They can’t concentrate and they do not learn. It is no different for adult learners in financial services firms; if a “trainer” is simply presenting and enjoys hearing themselves talk, the learning will be very limited. A better approach is to have your participants learn a small new idea, and then practice with it. Not necessarily role play, but work with other colleagues to share ideas, and apply to their situation. I like the 35/65 rule where 35% of the time the presenter is talking and sharing insights, and 65% of the time there is practice, discussion and inter-activity. Most trainers don’t like this because it is easier to simply deliver information and think the job is done, but engaging the audience allows for real learning to occur.
3. Make it interesting. Use multi-disciplined learning opportunities. This can be slides, breakouts, worksheets, discussions, practice sessions and engagement with the trainer. Explore the new information in a number of different ways. Adult learners won’t accept new information unless it can connect to something they recognize and care about so help in as many ways as possible to make connections happen.
4. Allow for personalization. In many cases participants are looking for the script – “just tell me what to say and what you want me to do and I’ll do it.” That doesn’t work well. We are all wired differently in terms of our background and experience, our communication style, and our beliefs and values. There are many programs that might give you the steps and what to do at each step of whatever new learning you are applying, but it might not work for you. I remember years ago hiring a professional organizer to help our business office develop a smooth and easy way to find information. Her style was to box many things up and label them and then put them in a storage closet in our small building. Of course those boxes were never again opened and I found myself bringing out materials that we needed and leaving them where I could find them. Years later I learned about the importance of being a visual person – I need to see it to remember it. It is no different with learning and applying new ideas. You have to use your own voice, hear yourself speak it and use language and an approach that fits you. The leader of the learning can say something a dozen times but until you try it on and see how it works for you, it won’t become real. It is fine to modify, to explore different ways and to do it your own way – when you do so, the real learning begins.
5. Try one thing. In a day-long (or longer) learning, a great deal of information gets exchanged. Participants then return to their lives wherein they have emails and voice mails waiting for them. Life will quickly revert to the norm. Ask participants to try just one thing from the learning and apply it. Research tells us it takes a minimum of 21 days of – consistently – trying something new before it becomes habit for us. Choose the one thing you will do and then do that until it becomes your new normal. Once that takes hold, go back to another thing you might have learned and try a new approach for the next 21 days. This is how behavior change happens. One thing at a time, over time.
6. People will learn when the learning is beneficial and meaningful to them. Make it matter. Make it interesting. Connect components for people so they are able to get their own “a-ha.” A good learning leader spends time getting to know the environment, the culture, the day-to-day business and the participants’ obstacles and concerns. If you don’t know, they won’t care about what you have to say. And care about their obstacles. If someone sits in a learning experience hearing new ideas but thinking to themselves the leader/trainer doesn’t understand their life and work and what they are confronting, the participants are not going to be open to take in new information. Simply put, care about the participants. Have empathy for them. The leader needs to raise their EQ and put the focus on the people who are there to learn.
Learning is a lifelong journey. Improving and incorporating new ideas is fulfilling for professionals who are seeking to improve. Make sure the learning environment is conducive to helping them do so.
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.