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 realize the times are tough for a lot of people: working parents, more work piled on and lots of stress due to worries and concerns about health and so on. I get it. But what I don’t get is that everyone seems to have lost their ability to deal with adversity and figure out a way around it.
Every day I get a call or have a meeting where my team brings up issues and things making their lives difficult. I am a fairly open manager and have no problems listening to the troubles. But I think about my own kids, in their 40’s, who have gone through tremendous challenges and they are problem-solvers not problem-makers.
How do I get my staff to realize they have the power to effect change and they don’t have to come to me with every single problem?
S.M.
Dear S.M.,
This is such an integrated issue – there are often many factors that lead to the frustration you are experiencing as a leader. A few questions to consider:
- Are you a “just do it” type of leader? By this I mean that you take the problems and things that need to be addressed and you just do it on your own without helping team members work things through. I have often found that leaders with a strong bent toward action will sometimes punish themselves because they are essentially teaching their team to be reliant on them, and that they will fix things or deal with things.
- Have you helped your team work through the obstacles they are raising to ascertain the ones they can control, which they can influence and which are out of their control? This is a very effective process for leaders. Instead of seeing what they bring up as “problems” or “Issues,” consider them to be obstacles in the way of their ability to do the job as effectively as they need and want to. How can you help them identify those obstacles without getting defensive about them? How can you help them isolate which ones they can take steps to fix, and which ones are not worth the energy to fixate on, because they are out of their control?
- How many times have you asked your team member to come back to you with two or three options they believe might solve the obstacle they are raising? They might believe they do not have the power granted to them by you to actually do something and they hesitate to do more than raise the obstacle. If you want them to problem-solve, ask them for their ideas. Help them work through pros and cons of each one. Yes, it takes patience, but it helps your team to think things through.
- Are there penalties in your firm for doing something wrong? Sometimes it isn’t that people aren’t able to overcome the obstacles; they have learned (and been trained) there is a risk in doing so. I’ve seen many cases where the firm wants people to step out and take a risk, but then they are punished if things don’t go well. Be sure your culture supports the actions you are hoping your team will take.
Have a full team, “success and obstacles meeting.” I often recommend this to clients and here in my column. Bring your team together and ask them to define success for the remainder of 2020 and then throughout 2021. What would the quantitative and qualitative measurements be to ensure success for everyone?
Once you have identified the success factors, ask people to raise the obstacles that are getting in the way of them being most effective. Take the team through the exercise I previously mentioned. Have them, together, organize the obstacles into the three categories: in their control, in their influence and out of their control. Ask a subset of the group to work together on these obstacles.
You are right that many people have not learned how to overcome adversity because they have not faced it. However, if you guide people, give them the right questions to consider and help them to take power back to solve for something, most will rise to the occasion. It’s often not solely the team member; the manager has to take steps to guide them with how to do this and let them know it is okay to fail when they do.
Dear Bev,
What’s a good way to give a send-off to a long-term employee of a smallish advisor firm (around 25 people) who is retiring during COVID when we aren’t able to be together? She has been a right arm to many of us and she is dearly loved within our firm. She has expressed the desire to leave and not have any hoopla. But I cannot support this with the contributions she has made and how much we are going to miss her. What could we do that would be appropriate during these socially distanced times?
G.B.
Dear G.B.,
How thoughtful of you to be considering this for your employee! There are quite a few things you could do that would make her send-off special and memorable, and might only embarrass her just a tad. This list is not meant to encourage you to do all of them, just to give you some ideas to choose from depending on your culture and her personality:
- Put together a memories book. Have everyone send you (or a designated person) a story or two from their working life with this person. Edit and consolidate these and “publish” a book for her containing them.
- Have a Zoom/WebEx meeting where everyone comes on screen and shares one positive attribute of this person, and one time where she really helped them and made their day. Have people talk directly to her. Record these for her and send her the recording.
- Ask the person in the firm who is closest to her what she loves to do or what hobbies she has. Have everyone contribute something to a “basket” of things that celebrate her hobbies or likes. This could be gardening supplies for the gardener, dog treats for a dog lover, kitchen gadgets for the cook, toys and coloring books for someone with a grandchild and so on. Fill the basket and then give her a nice big gift certificate to include in the basket.
- Create a plaque for her with a few adjectives about why she was so special. This could thank her for her years, with her start and end date, too.
These are just a few examples, I’m sure other advisors could write in and give you additional ideas for this important occasion!
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. 
