Opportunities and Challenges for Advisors in 2020, Fourth in a Series
Robert Fragasso
Seeking financial advisors who want to remain or become independent with the support of top tier resources.
Process Trumps Personal Brilliance. Work Bench Work Will Kill You and Make Your Business Obsolete.
What does that long and somewhat convoluted title mean? A slow and thoughtful reading will tell it all. Some people trade on their intelligence to get things done and make it up as they go every day. That is a misuse of that native intelligence which could be more productively employed being creative in problem solving and providing guidance for clients. Making up process steps every time is simply a waste of human capital that could be better employed building upon established procedures.
Here are some examples where the expert should follow established procedures based on hard won and time tested principles. What works must be codified to guide the entire process.
Can you imagine your surgeon making it up as he or she goes? How about your airplane pilot? There is a reason that the military has codified strategies and tactics. How readily would you follow an infantry captain who said, “Every man for himself charging that hill and we’ll see who makes it to the top.”
Or how about the billion dollar bomber captain who says about a crew member, “I hope that new kid figures out his part quickly. Someone show him what he has to do.”
But isn’t that what happens in many investment businesses? Each employee is left to intuit and work on everything as though it was the first time. There are no guides or standardized procedures, and conversation and effort cross and re-cross itself all day. If you are secretly honest with yourself, you will have to admit that there is a lot of that going on.
How much better would it be if processes were established to take that hill or fly that passenger plane or bomber? We will cover what those procedures should look like in our next installment.
At any time that you feel that I can help you with additional ideas and dialogue, feel comfortable emailing me at [email protected].
Bob
learn more at www.fragassopartners.com