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 read many of the letters you get and am always interested in your responses. I don’t know whether I would be as balanced as you often are. My personal belief is that people have more power than they exert and they leave it up to others to clean up their messes sometimes.
That’s why I wasn’t sure if this note to you would be important enough to read or if you would disregard my thoughts and not respond. But here goes:
I have been promoted three times in the last five years in a very large financial services firm. I am in a COO position. I don’t have the title, but the responsibilities are very COO-related. My background is on the operational side. I have been running the back-office systems for a large division of the firm for many years. I am supposedly in charge of several areas. But no one listens to me outside of those in the operations department where I came from. I have financial responsibility, I liaison for sales support and I am supposed to keep a list of the projects and timelines with accountability. But getting an answer from anyone is impossible, and my boss is going to think I’ve received a promotion beyond my capability this time even though I excelled at my last two roles.
How do I rise up as a leader and show people they need to respond to me when I need something and it isn’t a choice to ignore me? And I don’t want my real initials used.
A.Y.
Dear A.Y.,
Sometimes when I am doing sessions on how to give good and effective feedback I talk about the need to ask permission in some cases. For example, “Are you open to hearing some feedback?” That’s what I would like to be able to ask you before I share my insights in response to your inquiry. The reason I start this way is because your note has a theme through it that others are the problem, and you are deserving of better from them.
For example, I am always dubious when someone tells me that “no one listens” or “… getting an answer from anyone…” which are blanket statements that would encompass single individual with whom you connect. All-or-nothing thinking often tells us we aren’t looking at the whole story and we are missing important emotional-intelligence (EQ) components about ourselves. You use language such as “…supposedly in charge…” meaning you either aren’t clear on your responsibilities, or others are not clear or your boss and leader have not given you clear direction.
I get a picture of someone who is flailing, not because of talent or lack of knowledge and experience, but more because of limited direction on what you need to do, lack of clarity about the support that should be working with you and a potentially shaded view of whose job it is to help you when you need it.
Talk with your boss about the desired outcome for this role. Confirm from a quantitative and qualitative viewpoint how success is and should be measured. Ask them for clarity about who the primary and secondary stakeholders are to be working with you. Understand how you are best expected to interface with them and gain support.
Try and look at how you are coming across to others. Again, perhaps your note is not indicative of how you typically come across, but the tone implies you are doing everything right and everyone else is at fault. I teach a lot about EQ – self-awareness and self-regulation. Consider whether you are being as aware as possible and if you are regulating so as not to judge or insult others.
I had a boss years ago who would say, “No one gets up in the morning and looks in the mirror to ask how they can be a problem and mess up for the day.” I always took thatto mean there is probably something we don’t understand about the other person’s actions or something we could do differently to forge a better connection when we are having difficulty with someone. “Rising up as a leader” does require one to look at themselves to see where they need to make modifications in style and approach and to take the necessary steps to make those modifications!
Dear Bev,
We have to make significant changes in our organization and have a lot of plans and many priorities. Some of the advisors are resistant to change – they don’t see how everything we are doing is going to benefit them and their clients. What strategies should we be considering to make the necessary changes?
J.H.
Dear J.H.,
It’s often interesting to me how I will talk to someone who wants me to respond to a question in this column, receive an email like yours or have a learning experience where something comes up. Then I encounter the same issue at the same time in working with an advisor. Your note arrived as I was finishing up a coaching call with an advisor who is in an organization undergoing significant amounts of change. Many things will be affecting his clients – new custodian, new fee schedule and timing, new systems etc. I listened to all he is going through, and then I read the first line of your note: “… a lot of plans and man priorities.” This led me to wonder what the advisor experience is in your organization. In other words, are they clear about all the plans, priorities and what is supposed to happen when, and how to involve the clients in the steps and communicate most effectively?
Do the advisors know why the plans have been made? Have they been given context and background for the changes? Can they see clearly not just what the outcomes will be, but what steps have to be taken to get there? Do you have a project manager for each new idea so that someone is overseeing the implementation and communication and ensuring everything is happening as it should and when it should?
In most cases, it isn’t that advisors are resisting change for the sake of being difficult. They are the front line to the client. They hear the feedback, have to answer the questions, have built the trust over time and want to be sure whatever is being done is, in fact, in the best interest of the client. If you are encountering resistance, I’m going to guess you haven’t clearly laid out what is going to happen, when, who will be doing each step, what is expected of the advisor and why what’s happening is beneficial to the clients. Rather than trying to push the change and ignore their concerns, probe with them for deeper understanding about why they are raising the pushback and how you can help them by addressing what they are worried about.
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. The firm has won the Wealthbriefing WealthTech award for Best Training Solution for 2022 and 2023. Beverly is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. She 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. 
