Work-Life Balance is Impossible

I don’t know how to push back appropriately when one of my partners asks me to stay late on a Friday for an internal meeting (and late usually means 7:30-8 p.m. to start the meeting) or when I am the one expected to travel on a Sunday morning because a client important “to the firm” needs an in-person meeting and the others have golf or boating plans. I am the junior person by far, but I’m not a junior professional with over three decades of work experience. I am newer to financial advisory, having obtained my CFP at 40. I’ve been in the profession only 12 years (compared to their 30-40 years), but I don’t think that draws me the short straw every time. I resent the idea that my family has to be sacrificed in order for me to prove I am a team player.

J.V.

Dear J.V.,

This is a tough situation. You are talking about systemic beliefs, entrenched cultural approaches and partners who have chosen different paths and don’t seem to regret one minute of doing so. I can concur with your suspicion that you likely are being tested, but in fairness it could also be they are unaware and so disconnected from their own family situations, and don’t see anything wrong with what they are asking of you.

Your track record is impressive, and you are clearly selling well and helping with the growth of the firm. You also seem willing to take those trips on Sunday morning and late-night meetings on Fridays so they might not see anything wrong with continuing to ask you.

Two questions come to mind for you to consider:

1. Have you taken a firm stand that your work speaks for itself, and you refuse to continue to put your family in second position repeatedly? Have you been clear and direct – without being overly emotional about it – and stated what you are, and are not, willing to tolerate?

2. Do others in the firm live under the same constraints? In other words, does the firm attract young men and women who might care deeply about balance and managing both a family and a career or are you not able to hire and retain people who want more out of life than 80-90 hour work weeks?

These questions are important. Before we assume your partners are completely unwilling to look at the impact on what these requests are doing to you, you have to give them a chance at redemption. Tell them, in an objective and fact-based manner, that while you enjoy working there, you have to modify the way you are working there.

The second piece is equally important. While I’m sure there are advisors and support team members in firms trying to make a name for themselves and climb the ladder by working long hours, more people lean toward having some sort of work/life connection whereby they put emphasis on things outside of work (be it family, hobbies, charitable endeavors) so they are better professionals and are able to truly focus and enjoy working the more reasonable 50-60 hours of the workweek.

If you have tried talking to them, and you have lost team members because of this cultural approach, then consider whether this environment is the right one for you. Your twins are 10, but with older children myself, I can tell you that you wake up one day and all of a sudden you have adults who are leaving and going with their own lives. The time is short where you can build strong relationships in these important years. That’s probably my value system showing, but it sounds like this is important to you and you don’t want to have regrets 5-10 years from now. Think hard about how you can approach this and whether you can make the necessary shifts for your situation.

Dear Bev,

We have a challenging situation with one of our clients who is worth over $55 million. He is estranged from his two adult children and has recently remarried. His new wife has six children of her own and they are already requesting meetings with us to ask about the accounts, what estate plans are in place and so on. Of course, we have pushed back. Confidentiality prevents us from sharing anything with them, but our client is an older man, somewhat of a weak person emotionally (albeit obviously a great businessman!) and he keeps asking us what the harm would be in having the new wife’s six children become more involved.

We are out of our element here. None of us are trained shrinks and we can’t navigate this family dynamic. What tips do you have from other firms who serve UHNW clients – I can’t imagine we are the only ones confronting something like this.

H.S.

Dear H.S.,

I had to reach out to one of my clients for this one. While I understand human behavior, family dynamics and certainly the business very well, the legalities of what you are inquiring about are very far out of my league! My client suggested the following:

1. It might be good for you to have the meeting with your client, the new wife and the six children to hear what they are concerned about and questioning. He suggested you engage both an outside estate attorney and a family psychologist for this meeting so there are others with more expertise who could help guide the conversation. This should be billed as a “Family Meeting” so you are not committing to anything but rather gathering the family together for a discussion. He said it was very important you are clear this is simply a discussion, not a decision-making forum.

2. He underscored it should be an information gathering session – for you. Don’t answer a lot of questions, see what they are asking about and concerned about and what issues you might need to address. He said you cannot and should not give a lot of information, but find out more about what the stepchildren are concerned about and what his new wife’s role is in the process.

3. After the meeting, have a follow-up conversation with your client to outline some of the legal pitfalls in engaging the six stepchildren – especially without his own children included in the planning. You could potentially give him some options about how to involve the stepchildren, but how to protect his assets at the same time for other things he cares about, including any philanthropic considerations.

My client underscored that keeping the stepchildren completely at arm’s length could be detrimental to you in the long term. He said it is better to keep people like that close and keep tabs on what they are doing with your client, rather than be surprised by some legal agreement that gets put in front of you if your client should die or become incapacitated.

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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