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,
We are putting together our business plans for 2023. Our team has undergone a great deal of change this year. We lost one of our senior advisors to COVID early in the year. We had another one go through a devastating divorce and take four months off to recoup. One of the newer team members who joined us in April left and stole some of our clients. I know “life happens,” but it has been challenging for us to regroup and orient ourselves to what we need to focus on.
I’m charged with planning an offsite for mid-September to discuss what we want to accomplish next year and to make plans. I’m struggling to figure out how to manage the emotional overtones of what we’ve been through. Do I develop an agenda and launch into the meeting as though nothing has happened? Do I take a few minutes to recap what we’ve been through together and how much it has hurt all of us? Do I let people share their thoughts and feelings about what they are experiencing? I’m not a shrink – I’m an operations manager who cares a lot about the people and the team.
I don’t know the right balance to strike so people won’t think I am weak, but they also won’t think I am cold and unfeeling – neither of which are true for those who know me.
B.V.
Dear B.V.,
Navigating the intersection of business – work that needs to get done and the human component – where people have thoughts, feelings, reactions and stressors is not easy for most people. No one is a robot, but people are also getting paid to do a job. At the workplace, the focus has to be on the work at hand. Ignoring that people have reactions and emotions, however, makes it harder for them to do the work at hand. It’s a conundrum for sure.
The fact you are thinking about this and trying to figure out the way to be most supportive to your team speaks of a very high level of emotional intelligence (EQ) on your part. You aren’t ignoring the experiences people might be having. But you also are not causing an issue where one might not exist. Trying to figure out how best to address this on your own is very challenging. You probably have a pretty good pulse on the firm; that’s why you are concerned about these factors weighing on people. But even though you are the one tasked with planning the experience, I’m not sure you have to be the one solely figuring out how to deal with something like this.
You don’t say how large your financial advisory firm is. But taking a quick peek at your website it looks like about a dozen or so people. Poll people on this issue as you plan the offsite. Don’t make the survey about just the level of emotional upset; consider adding a few questions such as:
1. What is the most important thing for you to walk away with from this offsite?
2. What are some of your biggest concerns for our team going into 2023 and throughout the year?
3. How do you think we should handle talking about the personnel issues and employee trauma we’ve experienced throughout this year?
4. Should a portion of the offsite be devoted to discussing how people are feeling toward the end of 2022 and going into 2023?
Questions along these lines will provide insight into what the team wants to do. I wouldn’t ask a long list of questions. Stick with 4-6 and keep them as open-ended as possible. Reach out to a couple of team members where you have strong relationships and ask them to review the questions before you send them. Offer to follow up with people and talk in a bit more detail about the decisions you are trying to make about what to cover, and how best to do so.
Every team is different. Some like to talk, share and support one another’s feelings. Others are more buttoned-up and business-like and leave the personal talk to outside of work. Others bridge the gap depending on what’s happening in the firm. It’s impossible to give you a certain “This is how to do this.” Engaging your team and getting their input is your best approach to managing the offsite well.
Dear Bev,
We have a team of advisors who are the kings and queens of gossip. There are seven of them and I’m not kidding when I say they spend a good deal of their days talking with one another about everything from their opinions about our clients and their decisions, to team members in support departments to the lifestyles of the three owners of the firm and even their personal relationships outside of work. It’s like anyone they know is fodder for the discussions. Most of the gossip is not very nice. It’s negative and judgmental. You can overhear them in their offices and in the conference rooms. I don’t know if they realize the rest of us can hear a lot of what they say or if they just don’t care, but it is awkward.
The camel’s straw for me was when I heard them talking about my opinion about another colleague and the colleague was sitting at my cubicle while we were listening to them. She looked at me and I shrugged like I was saying I didn’t know what they were talking about. But I had mentioned something derogatory about her to the advisor who was repeating what I had said.
Is there a way for me to get them to stop disrespecting my confidences and stop being so negative about everyone around them?
K.E.
Dear K.E.,
My question to you is going to come off accusatory and potentially disrespectful, so I will ask for forgiveness in advance. But if you know these advisors regularly get into a room and share gossip with one another and you know they are more often than not negative toward the people they are talking about, why would you choose one of them to share something about a colleague that you didn’t want repeated?
In my coaching work, I’ll often point out to a client that the behavior of others is predictable. As an example, If I’m working with you and I’ve experienced you as someone who repeatedly tells me you are going to do something but you never follow through, the next time I ask you to do something I either will call you out on our previous experiences so I make you aware I will be waiting and watching or I will choose not to ask you in the first place!
You know these team members gossip. You know they speak poorly of others. You told one of them something about another team member without ever sharing with that other person that you were upset or had a problem with them.
I don’t know if it is possible at this point, but you need to repair the relationship with the person you spoke ill of in the first place. They likely know these advisors gossip; they likely know there was some truth to what was being repeated, and they know you were unwilling to own the fact that you said something. If you can do so, take that person aside and apologize for a lack of judgement on your part. Explain you did not mean for anything to come back to them the way that it did and if there is something you need to address with them, then address it.
This gossip is creating a negative culture and if the rest of the team (including you) doesn’t step back and refuse to participate in the cycle of gossip and negativity, you are all going to get caught in it one way or the other.
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.
Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
