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Dear Bev,
We have an advisory firm that grew out of an accounting practice. We are able to offer combined services and, as long as clients consent, we can share information across the firm. There is still a wall because sometimes a client is just using our accounting services, sometimes our advisory work. The problem is the difference in culture which creates issues when a client is cross-pollinated.
The accounting team doesn’t operate with the same sense of urgency we do on the advisory side. They might wait for weeks to let a client know they are waiting on documents or need more information. By the time they tell us, the client is frustrated because we are doing the outreach. Conversely, we might have a situation where a client needs something quickly — we only use an “urgent” designation for our largest clients. They will push back and tell us something like “urgency is our middle name,” and then they’ll ignore the request until it becomes a fire drill for both sides.
I’ve seen you write a lot about style differences, and I am sure there are differences in how we are all wired. However, I don’t know that understanding each other would solve the issue. We are going to have a summit to discuss this as a firm, and I’m looking for ways to bridge the differences without offending my colleagues on the accounting side.
L.C.
Dear L.C.,
I admire your desire to have a productive meeting and consider ways you can have a professional discussion with offending anyone. I also agree with your commentary that wiring is wiring, so simply asking someone to change and look at things differently is never going to work. I’ll outline some steps I often recommend when teams are trying to come together and bridge differences in their approaches to working with clients.
Before I do this, I ask you to be self-reflective and make sure your team isn’t guilty of the accusations of bringing a number of “urgent” issues to your colleagues without specifying which ones are really most important! It can be easy to see the foibles of others, sometimes harder to take responsibility for our own.
- Start with the end in mind. I talk about this all of the time in my SHIFT model; any team trying to come together needs to define what a successful outcome looks like for everyone. You should start by defining what you want clients to expect and receive from your collective efforts. Further, you should be as specific as possible about communication, timeliness, clarity of requests, etc. on behalf of clients. Then you should define what a successful outcome looks like for the team working together. How much contact? How often? How should information flow? This could take you quite a bit of time to define — and agree upon — but it is a crucial place to start.
- Have each side outline a bit about process — what steps are necessary, how long they take, etc. Share insights about your day-to-day so you can see the world through one another’s lenses. Also share insights about what you hear from clients and how they approach you, i.e. what happens to make a situation urgent or less urgent. Take the time to try and get into one another’s shoes so you know what each other is dealing with from a daily perspective.
- Highlight the obstacles you each face in working with one another. I have this as the second step, the “H” in SHIFT, to help teams learn about what goes awry and makes working together effectively more complicated than it needs to be. Once you highlight obstacles, categorize them — what you can (together) control, what you can influence vis-à-vis communication and expectation setting with one another and with clients, what is out of your control. Have an open dialogue about this so you can look at the obstacles together and come up with solutions.
Once you have done these three steps, which may admittedly take quite a while, I think you will both have good insights into what’s going off track and where. Brainstorm together how you could each do something differently and — very importantly — how you will hold each other accountable to the agreements you have made.
You are right: there are style differences, but there are also differences in the way the two segments run and how they work with clients. That’s not a bad thing — it just takes a deeper understanding so you can find ways to bridge these disconnects and work together most effectively for your clients.
Dear Bev,
Is it possible to change the culture in a team where there are long-time employees who have always done something a certain way but younger team members would like to try something different? How do you raise new ideas without being insulting?
G.N.
Dear G.N.,
I put these two questions together this week because both were great examples of seeking to understand in the interest of deepening relationships with team members, rather than only complaining about them. This question was interesting to me because, in my Leadership Lab graduate class this past Friday, the students had a case study about a company with 50- and 60-somethings who were resisting change, and they were challenged to come up with ways to help those employees open up a little bit to new ideas. I’ll put aside the student who said to fire them, and give you some of their examples of what you could do:
- Have a group discussion about what’s working well and what’s not. See if you can get the longer-term team members to admit some things are not going perfectly and there is room for improvement. This should be an open discussion and exploratory, not accusatory.
- Ask the longer-term team members to work with you to examine how something is being done today, and seek their input on whether there could be efficiencies and other changes implemented to make it better. The idea is to facilitate more broadly based open discussion. The meeting would be a one-on-one (team member to team member) on a certain topic.
- Come up with a clearly thought-out suggestion for change — break down the steps, the cost, who should be involved and so on. Sometimes people don’t embrace new ideas because it is just an idea rather than a plan of action. You have to gain agreement for sure, but sometimes you have to help people see all of what could happen and how.
- Be respectful of people who have been in the role a long time. When you suggest something new, acknowledge they have more experience than you do and defuse objections by saying things like, “I’m not sure if this idea has been suggested before…” or “This idea might not work, and I’m open to how to modify it…” Or “You may have a better way to implement this, and I’m open to hearing it…”
So, crediting my students, I agree these are all excellent things to try, and I am happy to recommend them to you!
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, 2024 and 2025. 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.
