Of course, this must be driven through a top-down strategy and applied across the company. But there is also a bottom-up approach requiring a longer-term view but one that will ultimately ensure that the culture changes, the sector is sustainable, and will continue to flourish and provide our clients with the satisfaction and security they expect.
Training and development
We need to win the hearts and minds of those entering the sector for the first time. This may sound like a war strategy but unless we can develop a core of financial advisers who are professional and knowledgeable, and who grasp the principles and the culture of sustainable business models, we shall fail our clients and inevitably fall foul of the regulators.
This cuts to the heart of training and developing the people entering our sector. Many of the big players already are extending the training programmes for new recruits. In some cases, training programmes have gone overnight from a mere four-week offering to a two-year full-on financial development programme. They can afford to be, is the usual response to this.
Remember, even if you are a small company, unless you are developing, training, and organising for your staff to become professional financial advisers, you will soon not be in business. Our clients have moved on from having a coffee with that “friend” who has a sure-fire way for them to grow their money.
Culture change
There is the danger that companies will use training programmes to simply prepare recruits by providing the requisite knowledge to tick the boxes in terms of passing the regulatory requirements. It’s tempting, it’s less time-consuming and hence less costly, and it’s a lot easier for all concerned.
But it is not sustainable. It doesn’t change the culture. The essayist Michel Montaigne once said that, “we ought to find out not who understands most but who understands best”.
As has been pointed out, having the knowledge without understanding is like having principles without the integrity to apply them. Those who have the knowledge, those that can tick the boxes are, to paraphrase Montaigne, simply repeating another person’s learning; to be wise in the ways of wealth requires a wisdom of your own.
We need to cultivate a new breed of financial advisers and planners. This is not simply a matter of philosophy; it does not mean you should not set specific, measurable, and tangible goals, that you don’t continue manage expectations, or provide opportunities and mentorship.
Training courses must be rigorous, demanding, and quantifiable — and there will always be dropouts. But financial institutions offering such programmes need also to create a culture that develops its employees, that nurtures their quest for wisdom, and that rewards them for their ability to create deep, sustainable, and beneficial relationships with clients.
After all, if you develop those recruits coming through your door today, they will be the ones who keep it open in the future.
