None of us are as smart as all of us. This is the reason why teaming is so beneficial, no matter what industry you work in. Learn the benefits of teaming, how to form a team, team architecture, elite team traits, and more. Join Darren CdeBaca as he shares why teaming is so important. Coming together is only the beginning, keeping together is the progress, and working together is the success. Get ready to take notes and start teaming today.
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Teaming - Developing & Ensuring Team Success
If you are not taking notes, do not be afraid to come on back and re-read any part of this to get those meaningful thoughts and suggestions. Back into your day or vision as you see fit about this timely topic of teaming, developing, and ensuring team success. I love this topic. It is very timely relative to what is going on in the financial industry.
It is undeniably important because of the following truism. The strength of the team is each individual member, and the strength of each individual member is the team. Before I start, let me share with you the phrase that best defines our work at DCB Strategies. It captures a result of achieving bold goals with a plan of accountability and purpose, whether in the professional side of the world, personal or athletic world. Are you ready for this phrase?
“Being the best and average have nothing in common.” When you say that to yourself, how does that resonate with you? Typically, your mind wants to draw a line in the sand that says, “Am I best or am I average?” At DCB Strategies, we do not judge. We are in the process of providing growth coaching tools that get you to your most desired goals. No judgment, but we want to make sure you make the best of yourself as you have a high desire and the highest mindset available.
I have had the privilege of working in witnessing the best of the best when it comes to financial advisor teams. It is so evident that none of us are as smart as all of us, thus the benefit of teaming. With that in mind, it is no secret that the power of teams within the financial advisory business is one of the most talked-about discussions in the financial industry. Why is this? “Shorter than long, the industry is certainly more mature as it developed over the last number of decades. It is filled with complexity and variety of wealth solutions that require the highest level of experience and service delivery than ever before.” The following phrase sums it up pretty well.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. That is what the best of the best teams have done. With that said, the focus of team discussions is centering around two vital phases of this teaming program and teaming effort. The number one phase is supporting the existing team so they are able to execute better their initial intentions of forming and achieving their annual growth goals and/or branding. That is phase one. There is a lot there. Phase two is to provide successful improvement development and maps development programs for the teams along with coaching these advisors who are getting on board with others to create the team of their future.
The strength of the team is each individual member, and the strength of each individual member is the team.
Phase one, supporting. Phase two, providing. You will see other phases as we talk about this wonderful map that I have developed as a result of working with teams, thus, how did this topic become alive for a great episode? Over the past number few years of coaching at DCB Strategies, I have worked with a variety of private wealth and financial advisor teams. As a result, DCB Strategies developed a teaming map and it is really being adopted left and right, which is fantastic for all involved with teaming for success.
Let me share with you this map that will walk us through the critical phases in the to-do’s to team up for success. I want to warn you. There is a lot of information coming at you. If you have a pen and paper, write down some of the a-ha’s or give us a call by contacting us at Podcast@DCBStrategies.com or DCBStrategies.com. Visit our website and give us a note.
Come together as a team to achieve a common goal. TEAM, the acronym stands for Together, Everyone Achieves More. There are 6 elements of teaming, and these are the 6 that we have identified at DCB Strategies over the last number of years and witnessed over the last number of decades that are really boiled down to the mark of the best of the best.
Number one, the benefits of teaming for those of you who are thinking about it, number two, forming a team what is required. Number three is the team architecture itself and how it is put together. Number four, the traits of elite teams, which are a by-product of the first three, and also the next two. Also, I include the benefit of DCB Strategies teams uplift information we provide on our website and also through coaching, and then the vital information for team energy and focus. There are six parts. We are going to go through those right now.
Let’s talk about the benefits of teaming. For those of you who are curious, scratching your mind about what if’s, and seeing other teams succeed because the industry itself is over 55%. 2022 is made up of teams of the broker, dealer, wirehouses, and other RIA are teams. Some firms have even more. It is clearly a suggestion of elegance of performance for legacy. Number one, the reason for teaming is it increases production. Revenue growth is up 17% annualized along with asset growth, growing 11% faster than individuals. It improves client satisfaction inexperience across the board because there are multiple hands involved with this experience of providing top-level service.
Number three, it encourages additional specialized roles and responsibilities, thus delivering broader and deeper advice to the high net worth clients with more complex financial needs. That is key when you have a toolbox of individuals able to deliver to the highest level of high net worth clients without missing a beat. Number four, teams have a much lower rate of client attrition and their clients are more likely to share with them their large retirement accounts with these advisor teams. Not only do they have their liquid assets on both the taxable and non-taxable side, but there are lower rates of client attrition, which is key in this business because it is not easy to acquire large and quality clients.
Number five, relative to the benefits of teaming for firms, it is a funnel for different firms for recruiting efforts in terms of recruiting younger or high-level talent to join teams and providing their own expertise. It is a very powerful benefit of teaming. Number two, forming a team. This is where the hard work begins, but it is well worth it. It has to do with the team members. There are six bullet points of forming a team.
Number one, it is vital that initially, the team is determined by size, demographics, what kind of individuals are made up like female, male, diversity, etc., the brand they are trying to achieve, and the goals are trying to achieve at least in their first year of putting together a team. Number two, do they properly have a profile for each team member to have a proper interview with open-ended questions that will allow the individual participating with the team or potential to join the team to express themselves on how they feel about teaming up?
In a variety of ways, DCB Strategies has a profile for that. This has been key because it unlocks many different thoughts that were never concerning the team members initially when they joined hands by handshake versus fairing out some items about the longevity of this person and this team being put together. A breakout profile is key.
Number three is making sure that initial budgeting, compensation, and succession structures are in place. A lot of this is provided by templates at firms. Also, you can look these up in different levels of structures. Number four, and here is the key to the action step of forming a team. You run into what we call forming a team. You have 5, 10, to 15 individuals forming this team. Think about this, highly successful, driven individuals forming the team. The next is storming. This is the most unexpected phrase of teaming. This is where the individuals get to know each other and do not really get comfortable with the nuances, initially, of the habits of each other, not knowing about the habits, the timelines, and when they are made.
None of us are as smart as all of us. This is why teaming is beneficial.
You show a lot of colors when you join a team and the storming part that occurs. That could last and also could destroy the initial forming phase of a team. There is norming. Once you get through the forming and the storming, you get back to norming but at a plus level. That is the whole benefit of a team. For DCB Strategies and other colleagues in the consulting and coaching world come, it is the storming side to shorten that side up. That can be shortened in the timeframe of the storming. Proper profiling, budgeting, compensation, succession structures, expectations, size, demographics, and brand goals have those things set up, so some have a clear understanding.
Again, forming, storming, and norming. Do not forget that one. It is key. You will not forget it if you are involved in a team and you are getting bigger or if you are just about to start a team. Number five, one of the things I have seen about teams having a hardship is they treat everyone the same. That is homogeneously. What we believe in DCB Strategies is that you should not do that. In fact, the best teams treat each other as geniuses, not homogeneously. You get that one. Everyone has a genius. Find it and exploit it for the benefit of the team. Number six, team coaching to set expectations is key in forming a team. I will leave it at that.
Number one, the benefits of teaming, which we have talked about. Number two, forming a team. There are six elements there. Number three is team architecture. What is this about team architecture? What does that mean? You are building and constructing something. You have four cornerstones, and you are going to build on them. You need to develop. I feel that most successful teams undoubtedly have a mission statement of why they are doing this, a vision statement of what they want to become, and strategy statements to support that. That takes a little bit of work to get the team to agree upon that.
That is the first part of developing a smooth cultural mindset. Again, mission, vision, and strategy statements. Part of the team is architecture. Developing the structure and the architecture defines the ownership roles of the franchise’s operating units. These teams have ownership roles, and they make sure that each individual has an ownership play in it. There is a CEO, COO, Chief Investment Officer, and Chief Client Officer are four different roles. Who is in charge of that? Who owns that? Who is running the ship in those four levels? Are they working in cohesiveness?
Number two is the asset management unit. Who is running the asset management unit of the team? There is a lot in there. Financial planning unit for the future. Also, who is running the client marketing for existing and prospects? A client marketing machine is an experience set up, thus leading to who is running the client service and experience unit. Last but not least, there is more, but this is a summary, who is in charge of the education, enrichment unit of the team, and also the community efforts of the team?
This gives you an example of 6 to 10 different areas of ownership roles in a team, thus forming a team architecture and making sure you have the thorough trust of each other’s skillset in those levels and working with each other to make the whole team stronger. We talked about the benefits of teaming, forming a team, and team architecture. Number four, traits of elite teams. As a result of the first three done properly, the personality of the team has traits that are undeniable.
These traits all start with, number one, proper leadership and team participation. These traits do not occur without proper leadership and team participation. Here are your lead traits. We have a whole episode on the elite traits of top teams. I encourage you to take a look and check that out. 1) They have precision-based business models. 2) They have a branded specialty that they are insatiably all focused on from top to bottom as a culture. 3) They surround themselves with high-value relationships. These are networking. These are leverage types of high-value relationships that every category that goes after the wealth in their branded type of niche specialty. 4) Elite teams are resourceful.
They are not looking for more resources. The majority of the firms across the board, 9 out of 10, have all the resources that teams need to be the most successful. Those who are not resourceful run into this climate of they complain, and they remain, “I need this and that.” Elite teams have what they need, they look for it, dive into what they have, and make it work, so they are resourceful. Last but not least, every client of elite teams feels as though the team has either their Chief Investment Officer or their Chief Executive Officer for all of their financial affairs. What a nice trust element that is.
The elite traits of teams result in this wonderful trust as a client holding their partners or their own CEO and CIO. Those are some of the elite traits of teams. I would give a couple of examples of things that teams are looking for to incorporate into their trait and their team leadership. Number one is to get Millennials on board for the transition of the demographic wealth over the next number of years. Also, the last years have called out the need for a fixed income specialist. The reason I am bringing this to the table of ideas is that elite teams think of forward trends that are occurring in global capital markets that are undeniably taking a different shape.
Fixed income has taken a different shape and therefore gives an example of how we lead teams to think forward thought process. Again, benefits of teaming, forming team, team architecture, and traits of elite teams. We are talking about being the best, and the average has nothing in common. This is what the best do. Number five, we talk about team energy and focus. It is important that you know that successful teams require refills of energy and focus. Teams are defined during tough times, not great times. The top teams go through quarterly reboot days with learning and many different modules and intellectual uplifts, as we call them. There is a lot in there. Everyone is on board the energy bus per se.
The best teams treat each other as geniuses, not homogeneously.
Everyone has a high level of energy for success, transparency, learning, talking things through, and making mistakes, but making sure we are better from them, etc. Team energy and focus. Good energy brings positive results. Bad energy brings negative results and a lack of focus. That is the key. This has to lean on the leadership and all the team members themselves, who have an insatiable desire to look for ways to up their energy and be committed once a quarter minimum to revisit this topic of importance to stay on track.
There is always an individual team member or two that has the tenacity and the right to lift the team’s performance bar for the next quarter. That is key. Let’s hold each other accountable for another level of performance. Again, benefits of teaming, forming team, team architecture, traits of elite teams, team energy and focus. Number six, the last one, and the most important because we are involved in it, is DCB Strategy Team Uplifts. There is a host of DCB one-pager Uplifts that we have. He is talking about the empowerment of self-talk with team members. Team leadership and positive self-talk are key to a positive cultural mantra. LIFT or DROP, Life Is For Transformation. There is a lot of transformation in teams.
It is a one-pager that talks about being involved in the deliberate side and progressive side of team development, thus getting out of the comfort zone, which drives teams into a no-focus area that is very nonproductive. LIFT or DROP, a one-pager. We also have one called Rising Above Today’s Level Playing Field. There is a level playing field for teams and the easier way to come out of that is as one of the best teams does.
Also, the variety of podcasts, DCB Strategies, is about team building and success focus. One of them is called Decide Commit Become. The other one is the Top 5 Traits Of The Elite. The other one is The Value Of Your Straw and then also Designate, Dedicate, Elevate. Those are four podcasts off the top of my head that I know have been used very distinctly with teams looking for a 25 to 20-minute uptick relative to what they are doing with their own teams.
There you have it. We went over six elements of what teaming up is all about. Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is the progress. Working together is the success. I hope you enjoyed this timely topic relative to what is going on in the financial industry and the success of teaming. This program is filled with real simplicity. As one of my clients said, “This is not rocket science. This is just effort.” Organized effort gets you to a very distinct framework of precision-based growth, expectations, and success.
Let’s carve it out together and we are here to help you at DCB Strategies. Thank you for joining me on this topic of teaming, developing, and ensuring team success. As we say at DCB Strategies, stay healthy and stay passionate. If you want more information, please contact us DCBStrategies.com or send me an email at Podcast@DCBStrategies.com. Thanks again. Make it a great day.
Important Links
LIFT or DROP - Previous episode
Rising Above Today’s Level Playing Field - Previous episode
Decide Commit Become - Previous episode
Top 5 Traits Of The Elite- Previous episode
The Value Of Your Straw - Previous episode
Designate, Dedicate, Elevate - Previous episode