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If vacations don’t boost productivity, then what does?
My recent article, “Is too much vacation bad for your business?” got a big response, partly stemming from my comments about the failure of extensive vacations to make you more productive. That said, my conversations with advisors have identified six changes to the way you work that can give you the productivity boost that many advisors seek.
Are you ready for the challenge of a lifetime?
Last year, seven members of Canada’s financial community climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and experienced the challenge of a lifetime.
They did this to raise funds for Amani Children’s home in Tanzania; this four minute video describes their experience.
A follow up climb up Kilimanjaro will take place next August, for details and info on an upcoming information conference call, email .
In his book, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, the late Steven Covey popularized the idea of “sharpening your saw.” Just as woodcutters need to periodically stop to sharpen their tools to prevent them from becoming dull with use, so you need to invest time sharpening your saw to maintain productivity.
A central point in my previous article was that in and of itself, taking time off doesn’t sharpen your saw – chances are that you’ll be able to saw with more energy for some period of time after a break but the saw itself will be as dull as it was when you left.
So how can you become more productive?
One route is to fundamentally restructure your business: Change the number and type of clients you serve and how you serve them, broaden or narrow the services you provide, alter your compensation model or rejig the quantity, quality and roles of the team that supports you.
All these can have substantial payoffs but also require a fundamental departure from the status quo and typically take time to see results. For advisors not looking to make big strategic changes, here are six categories of saw-sharpening activities that can make you more effective within your existing business construct.
Sharpen your skills
One of my recent articles talked about how some advisors are held back by their voice – in meetings they talk in a monotone, too fast or too slow, too loud or too soft. I received an email from an advisor who five years ago joined Toastmasters and has seen a huge impact on his business as a result. Another advisor took a six-week course on improv comedy to help improve his presence with clients. Both these programs were low cost and high impact.
Whether they involve speaking, time management, presentation training, effective writing or team leadership, there are all kinds of skills that are important to your productivity. One way to sharpen your saw is to pick one skill that you want to focus on and sign up for a course.
Sharpen your investment knowledge
The best advisors are not just effective communicators but students of the business. If you’re in a large city, consider signing on for breakfasts and lunches offered by your local chapter of the CFA Institute; you typically don’t have to be a CFA to attend these.
Another way to sharpen your investment knowledge is to make the commitment to attend one industry conference annually. An example is the annual meeting of the American Economics Society; over three days, you‘ll hear Nobel Prize winners debate the most important issues of the day and you can choose from over 500 breakout sessions. Having attended the past three years myself, I found it’s impossible not to leave energized by hearing some of today’s brightest minds and to fail to walk away with new insights and ideas.
Best of all the registration cost for the three-day program is an astonishingly inexpensive $150; I don’t know of a better bargain when it comes to conferences. The next meeting takes place in San Diego January 4 to 6; note that registration opened in September and you need to book early to get the conference rates on hotel rooms. Click here for more information.
Sharpen your business knowledge
Great advisors don’t limit their focus to investment issues; they also have a deep understanding of the business environment in which we operate.
One way to gain that understanding is to add the Wall Street Journal to your daily reading or to subscribe to the Harvard Business Review. An alternative is to look for speaker series at local business schools. As an example, here’s the fall program at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, where I teach in the MBA program.
Sharpen your intellect
While boosting your investment and business knowledge will make you more productive, some advisors have told me about the positive impact on their mood and productivity from activities entirely unrelated to the business. For instance, I’ve had advisors describe going to summer school at Harvard and Oxford. Another regularly attends TED Talks in California and inevitably comes back energized.
Or if these don’t fit into your schedule and budget, consider signing up for an online course from top academics at 16 leading universities, among them Stanford, Princeton, Caltech and the University of Toronto. Coursera is a site that offers over 100 courses in 16 categories from global history to science fiction, all at no cost.
Sharpen your stamina
The fifth way to be more productive is to increase your energy level. Today’s markets require advisors to raise their game. Here are some ways to do that:
- Start your day off with a workout or a brisk jog
- Take a walk at lunch
- Lighten up your midday meal
- Explore yoga, meditation or other stress-busting activities
Unlike annual vacations, whose benefits can quickly disappear, the key here is to alter your day-to-day routine. And while long breaks don’t typically lead to sustained increases in productivity, frequent three- or four-day weekends can give you an ongoing boost in effectiveness, since you’ll always look forward to a future holiday.
Sharpen your passion
The last way to become more productive is to rediscover your passion.
Many advisors tell me they’ve lost their enthusiasm for the business. At one level that’s understandable – we’ve been going through and continue to be in an incredibly grueling period. Even so, failing to have a reasonable level of enthusiasm is a problem – if you’re not positive about the future, you can’t expect your team and your clients to be.
I’ve talked to advisors for whom a break from their routine has helped rekindle their passion for the business. I’m not talking about sitting on the cottage dock or lying on a beach but rather something that pushed advisors beyond the bounds of their normal day. Sometimes these were stretch goals, in other cases lifelong dreams:
- An advisor who in 18 months went from a couch potato to completing a marathon;
- Advisors who completed ambitious treks, some who ascended Maachu Pichu, others who did the coast-to-coast walk in England or walked long stretches of the Pacific Coast Trail, Appalachian Trail or El Camino de Santiago;
- Seven advisors who last year raised $80,000 by completing a fundraising trek up Mount Kilimanjaro for Amani Children’s Home (a remarkable grassroots charity in Tanzania which I stumbled across during my own trek up Kilimanjaro in 2004 and which I continue to support);
- Other advisors who completed arduous fundraising runs and bike rides for causes ranging from the Bruce Trail to cancer research;
- Advisors who pushed outside their comfort zone and volunteered in unfamiliar surroundings. In the last while, I’ve talked to an advisor who went to India with hands-on charity Sleeping Children Around the World, one who worked on a Habitat for Humanity project in Costa Rica (where he owns a retirement home) and another who travelled to Bolivia with still another grassroots charity, Hands Across the Nation; and
- Advisors who took leadership roles in making fundraising events happen for a variety of great causes, from a local hospice to Plan Canada Because I Am a Girl and the African children’s home I’m involved with.
All these advisors emerged with a huge sense of accomplishment; as a result, they returned to their businesses with heightened enthusiasm and a renewed sense of purpose.
As you think about your business going forward, by all means focus on the ongoing activities that keep it running smoothly. Just don’t get so absorbed in your day-to-day routine that you neglect the saw-sharpening activities that will maximize your long-term success and long term satisfaction.
Since you’ve read this far, why not go back through these six categories and commit to one new activity that could help make you more productive? If you do that, please let me know how it goes, so I can share your experience with other advisors. Or if you have your own story of something that gave you a dramatic boost in effectiveness, I’d love to hear that as well – drop me a note at .
conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written and video commentaries, go to www.clientinsights.ca. Use A555A for the rep and dealer code to register for website access.
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