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,
Do you believe it is possible for someone to truly change their style and approach? One of our senior advisors has hired a very expensive coach to work with him to become a better person, whatever that means. I had an opportunity to see the cost and was stunned at how expensive this guy is without clear goals attached to what he is doing. This advisor had received feedback that he isn’t sensitive enough. He has gone through three assistants in the last two years who just couldn’t work with him. The head of our firm decided he needed a coach to help him change his behavior. Is this possible? So far what I have seen is a lot of expense but nothing changing. He is still an irascible coot who calls the assistants “girls” and is demeaning and insulting to most everyone around him.
S.W.
Dear S.W.,
It’s hard for me to answer this without knowing how long this advisor has been working with the coach, how much the coach is pushing him to be self-reflective, how willing the advisor was to engage in the coaching and how much the advisor can see about the impact of his behavior. But the short answer is “yes,” it is possible for someone to become more self-aware and change their behavior and approach. That said, there is also wiring – sometimes called “behavioral DNA” – where we have certain preferences and styles in the way we approach situations. All of us have a preference on how we want to solve a problem, or how much energy we get from interacting with people, or our views on steady pace and process (like it or not) and how important we find procedures and following rules. We can shift the approach, but we’ll prefer to do things a certain way.
A good coach can often help someone like your advisor to see how his choices and his approach might be negatively impacting someone else. A style that works great in one situation, say with clients or prospects, might not be so effective internally when trying to get things done.
If your advisor is open to learning more about how his style comes across, there is the hope for change. However, if he is narcissistic and believes it is someone else’s fault, or his actions are not as extreme as people make them out to be, or he is in the right in his approach, it will be much more difficult for the coach to have impact.
I liken behavior change to any good 12-step or multi-step program. No one makes change without first admitting they have a problem, and they need to alter their approach so the problem no longer impacts their life. If your advisor does not admit to something wrong, the best coach (and most expensive) in the world isn’t going to get anywhere with him.
One suggestion, you might want to ask your colleague going through the coaching if he would mind if you spoke with the coach for another point of view. I know, from personal experience coaching, that sometimes the person portrays themselves one way to the coach, but people internally see another side. It isn’t always that they are being disingenuous; it’s two different sorts of environments. People who open up honestly to their coach may feel they have to hide something about themselves in the workplace. Or someone who can be open in a coaching session which should be a safe place, might be pressured and stressed in the office environment and act out. Having that third party experience can be helpful for the coach to understand how the behavior plays out when the coach isn’t around.
Dear Bev,
We started the year with a number of clear initiatives that are important for our firm. We need a marketing story and updated website. We have to revamp our compensation structure, hire an office manager to replace someone who left last October and we are moving our office to a downtown location from the suburbs where we are now. Everything is clear and agreed to by all of the partners.
But we are wasting time and becoming unfocused. Two of my partners believe we should push out some of the initiatives. Others are complaining about the costs. I want to have an offsite and bring everyone together to agree on what we are doing and how to do it. But even that is getting pushback from my partners. Why do people say they are going to do something and then refuse to do it?
E.B.
Dear E.B.,
There are a dozen answers to your simple question. Human beings often make decisions or take steps that are not good for them. They do not do what they said they would do or committed to do and often they get distracted and unfocused when they decide the path forward is too difficult or too costly! We like to say the central component of any change process is the people – if they are on board, they can be stakeholders getting things done, if they resist the best laid plans and processes will not come to fruition.
Did all of your partners agree to the plans and goals you lay out in your note? Sometimes one person (maybe you?) knows what needs to be done, but others have not actually signed on and agreed to fund the changes. Consider whether everyone was on board at the beginning and if you had the agreements in writing to confirm everyone knew what you were all going to focus on, and how much it might cost.
Next, do you have priorities for the items you list? They are all big things and all require their own project plans, funding and human resources. Perhaps your partners realized when looking at everything on the plate that it could not be done all at once. Can you put together a project plan with timelines and make a recommendation for timing and then align costs with each month for each activity?
Did anyone put together a budget for these activities so everyone knew the costs going into the new year and each person could understand impact to their own bottom line on the projects? I also find many times people in business (especially business owners) think something sounds like a great idea until they see the hard numbers associated with it. If the website is going to cost $100k to revise, for example, your partners may not believe the ROI with doing this is appropriate.
An offsite could be a good idea. But take a stab at trying to prioritize and create a project plan associated with each of these activities. If your partners could clearly see the what, who, when, how and how much, they might be able to agree what needs to be done. Be careful too of not biting off too much at once. Ultimately you have limited resources in terms of time, people and money and to do anything well, you have to have focus. It’s great to have an aggressive list of what you want to get done, but tackle one thing and do it well, then move on to the next thing. Success breeds success and once your partners see these objectives are doable, they will be more willing to support the ones to come throughout the year.
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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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
