Optimizing the Talents of Your Team

We have found that the single greatest challenge in leading and managing people is to ensure that they're focusing on their Critical Few objectives. And we define that as the three to five things that only they can and should be doing that will have the greatest impact on their practices, their clientele, and ultimately their teams. Now, the larger and more complex your practice is, the more challenging this will become. Why? Well, because size breeds complexity, and quite frankly, complexity defuses and detracts our focus. Now, the ultimate goal in this exercise for any team, in our view, is to have your team members spending approximately 60 to 70% of their week on those three to five mission critical things that only they can and should be doing to move the business forward.

Now we want to look at your entire practice through the same lens we looked at each individual member. In your next couple of team meetings, collectively collaborate to list the team's three to five critical objectives that only the team can and should be doing. Break it down by current hours per week and the ideal hours per week that would be required. Remember, just because the team can do it, doesn't mean the team should. Next, list the obstacles and potential solutions to remedy or redirect. And finally, create a team action plan on the three to five critical objectives for what you need to start, stop, and continue.

Too often, we find that financial professionals who form teams, often do so with individuals who enjoy doing the same things they do. While this is great and it's often what brings us together as friends in the first place, it's not always the construct of a great truly synergistic team. We don't need another you, quite frankly, one is plenty. We don't need your counterpart, we need your counterpoint. The objective of this activity is to take a look through the metaphorical lens of those four rooms of your house, and identify the areas of specialty for yourself, your potential partners and all of your teammates. To complete this activity, simply place a check mark in the boxes below those areas that represent your specific areas of specialty. What most teams will often find is a lot of the similar boxes are checked throughout all members of the team, that's great. You'll also notice some open boxes there, which show some opportunities for growth within the current group, and also some things to think about for the future roles as you continue to evolve and grow your business.

Have you ever had the experience where you walk into a room, meet someone for the first time, and immediately hit it off as though you've known them forever? I'm guessing you probably have. My next question is have you ever had the opposite experience where you walk into a room, meet someone new, and immediately start sneaking glances at your watch because you're wondering how quickly you can get out of there and when you can get the next cup of coffee? Those are both pretty common experiences, but I'm going to challenge you to think about why you have one reaction or the other. And the answer really is personality dynamics. Because in this situation, there's no backstory, there's no empirical reason why you would have one reaction or the other. And yet we all do. And sometimes they're very intense reactions. So the role that personality dynamics plays in our lives is significant. And make no mistake, it influences situations like that one. And it also influences situations where you're interacting with clients, with prospects, and certainly with your own team members. And so, if you've been part of corporate America for any length of time, perhaps you've taken a personality survey. Most of us have by some point in our careers. But if we can refresh that, if we can take a new look at that and look at how our personality style interacts with everyone else's, it can really be a game changer in terms of increasing the efficiency of your team. There are four dominant personality styles that we look at when we look at the quadrant theory of personality. The first one is called the dominant style. These are people that are type A, very competitive, very focused people, driver type personalities. The next personality style is called influencer. These are really a motivational kinds of style of people. They're articulate, they're persuasive, they're flexible, they roll with the changes, usually very positive people. This final column word as we call it is really more about energy. The third type of style is called steadiness. And these are diplomats, people that create harmony and that bring others together. They're excellent listeners, great to have as galvanizing forces on a team. And then the last style is called the compliance style. These are very analytical sorts that are very detail-oriented and make sure that things work just the way that they're meant to. So these four styles will often look at the same situation very differently. The more that you can understand that, you'll see more and more about the landmines for each personality style, the goldmines that really motivate them, and you'll see ways that you can help your team to work together more collaboratively and create more efficiency on your team. If you're interested in hearing more about how to do this, please reach out to your Invesco consultant and they can arm you with options and information about learning more.

After completing the previous steps, you're likely equipped to begin to align your roles and responsibilities between your various internal and external team members for the greatest impact on your practice. We've provided the most common roles delineated in each of the four rooms of your practice that we believe are necessary to serve your high-net-worth clientele. For guidance in implementing this strategy effectively or more comprehensive help in honing and refining your practice and team, reach out to your senior advisor consultant. Thank you.

Thank you for your time. I hope you found it informative. If you have any questions or for more information on this or other programs from Invesco Global Consulting, please reach out to your senior advisor consultant. Thank you.