Are We Too Focused on Making Money?

Dear E.W.,

I’m curious what the markers were for a strong team culture before COVID. What evidence did you have that your team was close, which now is so different that you are seeing something entirely new? I ask because I wonder whether you might have perceived a team connection just because people were meeting in the coffee room and talking or standing at one another’s cubicles. I’ve found, post-COVID, many people value getting things done while in the office and a lot of the internal chatter has diminished because team members don’t want to stay as long. They realize those conversations might have been distracting them from getting things done and leaving at a normal time.

You are having team huddles and pizza days. Your team is coming together on a regular basis. What are these situations like? Do people engage with one another? Are they talking and sharing? Could it be that they are getting enough stimulation and having enough dialogue during these sessions they don’t need to have a lot of additional conversation? If these are “new” post-COVID, perhaps you have implemented something that allows for sharing in an informal manner and this is meeting their need for interaction. If you didn’t get a lot of feedback on your survey, consider this could be the case.

As for the focus on the financials, I would pose this at your pizza get-together and ask in a very non-threatening manner. The conversation could go something like this:

I am very interested in making sure this culture is team-oriented and supportive. I become concerned when I don’t hear as much interaction and sharing of ideas daily in the office as we used to have. To that end, I prepared the survey and one piece of feedback I received was that we’ve become too focused on the financials. I want to better understand this. Please share thoughts on how this is coming across and what I need to examine. I am open and interested to learn.

You may not get the response from the person who submitted it, but if one person did, then others have discussed it and it won’t be news to anyone. Keep it open and underscore that your intention was to learn. Don’t – yet – explain why you are sharing the numbers. This could come across as a shutdown to those who might have observations you need to hear. It might make sense, after you learn of their concerns, to explain why you are doing this, but refrain until you learn more about their perceptions and insights.

I received a heartfelt letter from an advisor from the article last week about living your values. I share it in its entirety because it well illustrates how money and making more and more of it often isn’t what brings contentment and happiness. I hope you enjoy this from a colleague who took the time to share his journey with us.

Just read your response to the gentleman who had built the large firm and was trying to figure out what to do next. The title of the post was “How to Navigate the Crossroads of Success.” Very good advice from you. Thank you.

A story of my experience, for what it is worth.

We haven’t hit the AUM milestones that H.J. has. Nothing close.

I started over in my late 40s after making a series of very poor business decisions in the 2000-2001 time frame. In 2004, at age 48, I started over personally and professionally. At that time, I was seven figures in debt, had just eight clients, and my personal life and in particular my marriage, was a shambles. The debt did not include a mortgage as we lost our home to foreclosure in March 2003 and about $250,000 of the debt was owed to the IRS.

At this point, and by God’s grace, which is the only explanation I have, our personal and professional lives look completely different. My wife and I are still married. She retired two years ago. We have bought a home. We are personally debt-free except for a mortgage, which is well in line with our income. The four of us at the office have the opportunity to serve about 90 clients and our installed recurring revenue is about $1.1 million.

My wife and I have time to travel, we have a wonderful team at the office, and serve wonderful clients. And like H.J., we have people who want to be clients reach out to us on a regular basis. Though we haven’t experienced the financial success of many in the financial space, we live well and are very comfortable. And I am in awe of the way we live, the things we have done, the places we have traveled, especially compared to my dad’s parents. They were uneducated, black dirt farmers who spent most of their lives as tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Incredible people, but very much a Grapes of Wrath story.

But all that isn’t the point of this email. It’s simply the backstory.

In 2016, my wife and I hit several milestones. We both turned 60 that year. We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. And the first of our four parents died, which was her dad.

During our annual planning weekend (an exercise the two of us do over Labor Day Weekend each year), we spent some time discussing the next phase of our lives. Our question was simply, “What are the things that matter, and where do we want to invest our time, talent, and treasure, in whatever years we have left?”.

We came away with three themes. Those were:

1. Share from our abundance.
2. Influence the influencers.
3. Prepare the next generation.

As we live our lives, both personally and professionally, we filter what we do and how we live through those three themes. This has given our lives an overarching purpose and a reason to continue to engage.

We are grateful. And thanks for reading this. – R.B.

I end this column today with a sincere THANK YOU to everyone who reads and contemplates what I share here. These are real stories of real people all traveling this interesting journey in the financial advisory space. I am honored to be part of your journey.

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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