Five Common
Mistakes That
Teams Make
By Karamjeet Mangat, CFP®, CMC®
DYNAMIC DIRECTIONS
A BETTER LIFE AND PRACTICE
WWW.DYNAMICDIRECTIONS-D2.COM
How to build a
thriving financial
advisory practice
If your success doesn’t look quite the way
you pictured, it might be presenting its own
challenges. Are you experiencing the ceiling of
complexity and not enjoying the work and life
balance you want? Although you want to be a
dominant player in your market segment, you
may not have a well-defined strategy to avoid
the mistakes teams can easily make. If this is
the case, you may not be leading your team to
the best of your ability.
By avoiding each of these Five C’s as you
form or evaluate your team, you will have the
opportunity to think through what you want
both personally and professionally and how the
right team can help you reach those goals.
MISTAKE NO 1: ABSENCE OF
COMMON VISION
It is common to represent a title, but inspiring to
represent a purpose. – T.F. Hodge
How do you know you have built a purposedriven, principle-based and client-centric practice?
What does success look like to the team? Is there
confusion among the team members? Are they
thinking, “What’s in it for me?” when they make
decisions? Is their lack of clarity due to a missing
common vision and mission? Have you neglected
a well-articulated brand promise that provides your
audience with a value proposition?
If a common vision is missing (“Why are we doing
this?”), teams will find it hard to focus on their
business with a clearly defined purpose, let alone
become a dominant player in their market.
People do not buy WHAT you do; they buy WHY you
do it. – Simon Sink
Successful teams have clearly defined their WHY
– their meaningful purpose, value proposition and
mission. This motivates the team members to move
in alignment with the practice vision, and decisionmaking becomes easier as they attempt to deliver
on the ideal client experience. This process includes
consistently reevaluating the client service model
and the systems and infrastructure to run supporting
operations. Clients and prospects know what to
expect and share the same with their friends and
families
This allows the team to constantly monitor the client
experience with feedback and adjust the system and
operations to align with the common vision to ensure
the team’s place at the top.
MISTAKE NO 2: LACK OF
CONSISTENT COMMUNICATION
Communication is the real work of leadership –Nitin
Nohira
Teams must communicate well both internally and
externally. How does the team know what process
it uses to effectively drive the client experience and
to attract the right and better clients? Is there any
confusion about communicating how the process
works, who owns it, what the key message is and
how to convey it to your audience? How do various
systems and procedures integrate with each other so
you can stay on top of important issues in the regular
operations of the practice? Are you effectively using
a model work week, including regular team and client
meetings?
Successful teams have well-established processes
– including the DREAM>PLAN>TRACK model, for
example – that are aligned with their Practice Vision.
They clearly outline key messages of communication
both within the practice and with various media
outlets. Teams should also put in place systems
and procedure alerts to drive the urgency of the
tasks as you deliver on the consistency of the client
experience.
MISTAKE NO 3: NO CLARITY ABOUT
ROLES, RESPONSIBILITIES AND
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR TEAM MEMBERS.
The system is the solution – Unknown
Does your team have a formal infrastructure with
an organizational chart and clearly-defined roles,
responsibilities, goals and career development plans
for each team member? What happens if there is
no scorecard of performance measurement and
no clarity about the performance incentives tied to
achieving personal and team goals? How are the key
employees treated in regard to compensation and
equity participation? What performance and personal
development incentives are attached to each role?
If there is a lack of fairness, the team will operate in
total crisis mode, trust will disappear and efficiency,
productivity and profitability will be negatively
impacted.
Successful teams have clearly defined operations
and employee manuals to work from, and are
driven by competitive measurement within the team
according to industry benchmarking. Consistent
performance and quarterly reviews for team members
are based on clearly defining, assigning and tracking
the key indicators.
Bottom Line: The practice runs on auto pilot.
MISTAKE NO 4: NO COMMITMENT
TO WORK ON THE BUSINESS
“If you don’t know where you are going, you will end up
somewhere else” – Yogi Berra
Just imagine that there is no well-thought-out and
well-articulated business and marketing plan. There
is no path to run on because your WHY and HOW are
not clearly defined.
Do you allot time to go away on a retreat, work on
the business consistently, stay on course and take
necessary steps if the plan moves off track? What
levers do you push more to drive the business,
and what levers need to be reassessed or taken off
the table to stay aligned with the existing business
conditions such as the economy? Is there any
disconnect with the performance incentives and
score cards that drive the firm’s business goals?
Results: Confusion and lost time and loss of
productivity
To achieve the firm’s objectives and business goals,
successful teams document a strategically outlined
business and marketing plan with key initiatives and
matrices to measure success.
MISTAKE NO 5: NO COLLABORATION
AMONG TEAM MEMBERS.
When a gifted team dedicates itself to unselfish trust
and combines instinct with boldness and effort, it is
ready to climb - Unknown
Trust > Relationship>Value and Beliefs>Performance
Does each team member know what to do to
succeed? What are the key initiatives in place for the
firm to reach its key objectives? What expectations
measurement is in place at the individual and team
level? Which tasks are important for cross-training
and which team members will be cross-trained?
Is every member clear about the fairness of the
incentive system that generates team collaboration?
Successful teams know the answers to these
questions and work together to achieve the results
they’re aiming for. They know that their whole truly
will be greater than the sum of its parts as team
members work together like a well-oiled machine.
Successful teams will avoid these five common
mistakes by positively focusing on their common
vision, communication, clarity, commitment and
collaboration. Teams will then be positioned to deliver
on their goals, always with the good of the client in
mind.
The Five C Process is about building an extraordinary
life and practice for financial advisors.
Karamjeet Mangat, CFP®,
CRPC®, MBA, MS, CIMA®
Karamjeet “Kary” Mangat, Certified Master Coach™
has served as a Transformation Guide with Dynamic
Directions since 2006. Dynamic Directions is a
coaching and consulting firm that helps financial
advisors double their GDC in three years or less with
half the clients.
Kary has a comprehensive 30 years working
experience in the financial planning industry and has
earned various designations including: CFP®, CRPC®,
MBA, an MS in Finance from Rutgers University
and most recently the CIMA® designation from the
Wharton School of Business and IMCA. He has also
received a coaching certificate from Strategic Coach
in Chicago.
© 2014 Dynamic Directions-D2, Inc.
www.DynamicDirections-D2.com