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,
How do we find good talent? Our biggest challenge is identifying those who can take the mantle from our existing partners and bring us to the next level.
The young people we meet are all motivated, but seemingly for themselves. They don’t seem to care about our firm and what we have built. They have no respect for our partners. The partners aren’t that advanced in age (i.e., early 50s), but the urgency grows every year to find some way to keep the firm running once they decide to retire. Where have all of the good candidates gone? How do we find them?
A.P.
Dear A.P.,
I’m curious – what does your firm have to offer these new employees? Why would someone want to join your firm and be part of the succession and longer-term growth? I wrote a book years ago called Understanding Other People: The Five Secrets to Human Behavior. The first secret is “It’s all about me.” As I read your note, it hit me that this is your need, your objective and your viewpoint but there isn’t anything about the needs or viewpoint from the candidate position.
I respect that your partners have built your firm and have done a great job – I am also a business owner – but if you want to engage the next generation and have them be excited about what you are doing and show their enthusiasm, you have to influence and motivate them so they want to be part of what you are doing!
I hear a great deal about the apathy and lack of work ethic for the younger generations, but as a college professor who teaches 18- and 19-year olds a course on entrepreneurship, I have a very different viewpoint. Some professors espouse similar views – they don’t listen, they aren’t engaged, they spend too much time on their phones – but many of us have a very different experience. If you can show them why something is beneficial to them, and show your own enthusiasm about what you are doing, many will respond with great ideas and engagement.
Working with advisory firms, I am often asked to get involved in change management. I might be working with people who are in the age category of your partners. From firsthand experience, they can be just as resistant or dis-engaged as any young team members depending on the topic.
Don’t categorize the people you interview and possibly hire. If you look at them as young, dis-engaged, uninterested people – that’s what you will get. If, instead, you share your story, and help them see why they would want to be a part of what you have built and how their future contribution can make a big difference, you will find a very different attitude on the other side.
When publishing your help-wanted ads, be sure it isn’t all about what you need and that you communicate the opportunity for someone to come in and make a difference. One of my advisor clients was struggling to attract the kind of people they wanted for their unique culture. They were in a competitive market vying for talent. I read the job description and it was just that – a basic job description. I had them rewrite it to illustrate more about the firm, the culture and the vision. They started getting strong candidates applying because people wanted to be involved in the opportunity.
Reconsider your views here and shift the dynamic away from focusing on the lack – and instead on the benefits – of the opportunity and the collaboration you have to offer someone young in their career.
Dear Bev,
Our financial advisory firm is a true family effort. I am the lead advisor, my wife is our COO, my daughter runs compliance and operations and my son is doing business development and will probably be my successor when I retire. We had a consultant come in to work with us on our branding and he told us we needed to find people outside of the family to shake things up a little bit.
My son has taken this to heart (the consultant was around his age and they connected well) and has been using his business development skills to recruit candidates. But, we don’t have a role or job description, and we haven’t established a budget. We are not in agreement about whether we should do this or not.
This is where family dynamics come into play. My wife believes we should let my son play the leadership role and move forward. We can always say “yes” or “no” to any given candidate. My daughter wants nothing to do with the conversation and has just put her head down to focus on the back office. I am frustrated because I don’t think a consultant who isn’t in our business and isn’t in our family should be dictating a role we don’t even need.
Is there a collaborative solution to this that keeps our family intact?
H.H.
Dear H.H.,
What was the rationale for hiring outside of the family? It might be a good idea to gather the four of you in a room and review this? Are you trying to solve the right problem? Do you even have a problem? It sounds to me like you have done a good job of allocating strengths amongst family members and in giving each person a clear role and contribution. If this suggestion came out of a problem working together, you might want to solidify the working relationships among the four of you before you add another non-family member.
I work with one family in an advisory firm who keeps hiring, then firing, outsiders. If the people they bring in don’t believe in the family values and the firm culture (which is very religious, and very rules-based), they don’t succeed. Over time, the family has actually expanded their familial reach by adding nieces and nephews instead of “outsiders.” They are perfectly nice people and this works better for them in keeping their valued culture.
An outsider is not a necessity. Depending on how you have structured things, one could be a detriment.
But, as a mother of three, I get the idea of family harmony. Instead of debating your son on this and getting into conflict, you could call everyone into your conference room and establish the desired outcome for this role, the problem you are trying to solve with this hire, the decision-making process you should use and how this position will fit within your firm. Sometimes stepping back and being more objective about what you are doing and why leads to a process where everyone is in agreement and participates.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. The firm launched Advisors Sales Academy to offer practice management resources to advisors, planners and wealth managers. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility. 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. 
