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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.
Dear Bev,
I have been in the industry for over 20 years and have recently been promoted to a very senior position in a large financial firm. As a woman I have had to focus on my career even though I have a working spouse (who travels) and we have three young children (eight, 10 and 12). This is a hard note to write, but I feel like I woke up one day and while I have a wonderful loving family for which I am eternally grateful, I also feel like I have no life outside of my work and my family.
Work requires up to 60 hours a week from me and in my downtime I want to be with my husband and my children. I have long-time friends who have given up on me, I hardly see my aging parents and my siblings don’t even speak to me because they think I have “sold out to capitalism” and only care about money.
I don’t only care about money but my job requires an intense focus. With 11 people working for me directly, and several dozens more working for them, I don’t believe it is fair to say I am not going to give it full effort.
I’m actually not writing to ask for advice. I know what I could do – step back, take a lesser role, carve out more PTO, engage with my extended family more and so on. I do yoga four times a week at 4:30 a.m. for myself and I am a fairly self-aware individual. The reason I am reaching out is that I don’t believe we talk about the burden placed on the working parent enough in this business.
We are expected to sacrifice all and we get paid well to do it. But is that a healthy and productive attitude overall? I have a couple of male colleagues who are in the same boat – their wives either hold senior jobs or, in one case, the spouse is quite sickly and they feel the burden all of the time of trying to focus on family while also keeping our boss and senior leaders happy. It’s truly a grind and I think we need to raise it up more and look at what the attitude and work ethic is doing overall.
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
I’m not often at a loss for how to respond, but there are so many things I want to write in response to your insights, I honestly don’t know where to start. I hear this from many, many of the people I work with on a daily basis. Especially in coaching, where my clients might say “Thank you, this was better than therapy,” when they have a chance to express some of what you are talking about. It’s taboo in many cultures to admit you might want to have a life outside of your work, so a lot of people keep it to themselves because they don’t want to be seen as weak, or uncommitted.
For many years I had the honor of doing presentations for a program called WIN (Women Investing Network) for one of our larger clients. I was always heartened to hear the kinds of topics they wanted to discuss – how to emerge with more confidence, how to avoid imposter syndrome, how to accomplish something that looked remotely like work/life balance, how to engage your senior leaders and how to find time for oneself. Most topics I was asked to present on had to do with growth, teaming and how to market yourself effectively, so it was refreshing to hear senior colleagues who wanted to talk about more personal things. We would often have numbers in the high hundreds of registrants, because people need an outlet and want to share what they are experiencing.
One thing I have found helpful for myself and have coached many of my senior clients to do is to find a buddy who might share the same experiences as you. With them, you can be honest and forthcoming about what you are feeling and thinking. It might not change your situation, but it really does help to have someone to talk with, and to hear that others are having the same struggles. I know this requires more time, but you can find 30 minutes once a week to have a Zoom or a call if it matters.
The other thing you could consider, depending on your relationship with your boss or senior leaders, is to discuss with an HR contact or Employee Development person about how to raise this within the firm. Having forums to talk about people’s strategies to handle work and life outside of work could be a positive thing for the firm overall. Showing you care about these issues as a firm might even be a positive recruitment tool. Having the dialogue might also highlight for senior leaders just how much they are requiring of their employees. I’m not saying they will change anything, but it might create some awareness.
Be careful of talking about “balance” in any dialogue you have. I don’t believe balance is obtainable and I ask people to purge their vocabulary of the word. It connotes struggling to stay upright on a thin beam without falling! Instead talk about being present – present at work, present with your children, present with your spouse/significant others, friends and family. If you can be focused where you are at any given time, whomever you are with will get the best of you. It’s a reachable goal and benefits everyone.
Dear Bev,
I am trying to understand whether working in a financial advisory team is the right decision for me. I loved finance in college and am quite good at it. I wanted to find somewhere that my financial skills were valued but I am finding it distasteful to have discussions about how many new clients we can obtain, how much revenue we are getting and where we need to focus next to “grow assets.”
Sometimes I think we don’t even really care about doing a good financial job anymore; we only care about who is coming through the door next. We do good work here, and I am proud of the portfolios we run. But I am tired of being pulled into meeting after meeting about revenue.
I’m not someone who wants to work for a nonprofit, but how do I determine if this environment is right for me? If I decide it’s not, where do I go next? What other industries value financial acumen as much as this one does?
A.A.
Dear A.A.,
You are keying in on something that is vitally important and unfortunately often gets missed when we counsel people in college on what career path to choose – that is the importance of culture. We focus on areas of talent and interest and how these match a given job’s responsibilities. But we don’t talk enough about the “fit” within a given firm and how the cultural aspects determine whether you will be happy there or not.
I advise you not to discard the industry in its entirety. I work a lot with something called “driving forces.” These are people’s values or motivators. You can find an advisor or a senior team with high altruistic values. People who are altruistic care deeply about others. They express empathy and take other’s thoughts and feelings into account when making decisions. There are also many people who are resourceful (ROI-oriented) and more business-revenue oriented.
You might have a mismatch between what you care about and what your firm cares about. It sounds like you are doing good work and you are proud of it. Rather than assume every firm operates this way, do some exploration and talk to others about the culture in their firms. You may find you fit somewhere else. The other option would be to work in a larger organization where you could be in the investment or analyst role and not be asked to engage in discussions about “the next dollar.”
Don’t despair. I believe you are simply in a culture that is in opposition to what you care about. There is one out there which better fits you. Take careful steps to explore and engage with others. You might also find the culture you are in isn’t as bad as you think it is! I’m a believer in exploration, either to prove yourself right or to learn more about aspects of your current situation you are not considering.
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, 2023 and 2024. 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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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.