The authenticity of you : know yourself and others

In ground breaking research by George (The Author of: Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value), Sims, McLean and Mayer (2007) what we thought we knew about leadership was challenged. The notion of authenticity was introduced as a key determinant of leader ship success.

Authentic leaders (they wrote in a HBR artcicle in 2007) are ones that demonstrate demonstrate passion, are consistent especially with their values and their interactions and are not afraid to wear their heart on their sleeve.

Importantly they "establish long-term, meaningful relationships and have the self-discipline to get results. They know who they are." (George et al, 2007).

Some of the key points of this 2007 article were:

leadership emerged from the individuals life stories often reframed so they understood who they were at their core. In doing so, they learned that being authentic made them more effective.
What the authors point out is that "critically many leaders reported that their motivation came from a difficult experience in their lives and rather than seeing themselves as victims, though, authentic leaders used these formative experiences to give meaning to their lives. They reframed these events to rise above their challenges and to discover their passion to lead" (George et al, 2007).

But this awareness and discovery can not take place without and individual having the courage and honesty to open up and examine their experiences. As they do so, it is suggested that leaders become more humane and willing to be vulnerable.

It is only by doing this type of self analysis to become self aware that leaders can develop and express the authenticity that is required to truly lead. Connection with people : really connecting with people is key as is understanding how in any given situation another person may be feeling. To that end George et al, write that these authentic leaders are constantly aware of the importance of staying grounded. They spend time with their families and close friends. They participate in physical activity and refesh and replenish their bodies and encourage others to do so. And further they create environments where a culture of acceptance, or flexibility of telling hard truths, of honesty and support are all accepted norms. All of this is essential to their effectiveness as leaders, enabling them to sustain their authenticity.

So what's your story? How self aware are you? How much have you examined your values? Over and above all of this how connected are you to the people that you lead.....do they see you as authentic?

So if you've read this far....thank you. I wanted to share with you part of my story. The story that, as a child, already influenced the construction of my personal identity and in time was to shape who I was and am now as an individual (Macionis & Plummer 2012, p. 215). What happened was a traumatic event in my childhood that involved sexual abuse.

Thirty-five years later, I am: a husband, a father, a driven and competitive individual,motivated by; making a difference in my career and social life, but also by; a fear of failure and a constant drive for being the best I can be. That drive has delivered a comfortable existence, a residence in the leafy east towards the Yarra Valley, and an office, in the financial hub of Melbourne. My career has provided the financial freedom to embark on further education, adding to an university degree and postgraduate qualifications in financial services. As I reflect now, it seems that I have defied, through design, research that points to lower incomes for male survivors of CSA and a career choice of a ‘female’ occupation (Robst & VanGilder, 2011, p. 350) and fought to join Weber’s concept of ‘party’ to effect power over my social outcomes, seeking class and status to reach my goals (Back et al, 2012, p. 51).

Similar to studies of relationships for male CSA survivors, I found myself, as a child, with very few dependable connections with adults (Kia-Keating et al 2010, p. 679). My relationships ran a course where they were with someone who offered emotional availability and care or where they themselves needed my help. I was drawn to women who were available or had experienced trauma.


Herbert Mead argued that people take on identities that we base on our participation in networks of social relationships and related roles (Merolla et al, 2012, p. 149). How we determine our sense of self is based therefore on social experience. The personalities I encountered allow me today to appreciate another persons point of view. Their problems (that I often sought out), from eating disorders, mental health issues, CSA and rape survivors, provided me with a sense of understanding of what real challenges and adversity are. Perspective was a gift that these people gave to me.

It is that appreciation of the experience of others that has allowed me to enjoy my work role as it is today. Fundamentally my career has been built around understanding peoples motivations and drivers and why they make the decisions that they do. My role involves me coaching and mentoring a sales team in financial services and I am called upon to deliver presentations about positive customer experiences and how to create them.

Financial services, however, in my experience, remains a male dominated industry and presents a boys club environment where the way to get ahead (sometimes) is by managing upwards. But rather than become part of this culture I have steadfastly resisted, seeking out the few female leaders in the industry and working with them. When I found myself in a male dominated organisation I refused to play the political games that were required for career enhancement instead striving for the recognition of personal endeavour. That rebellion against the social stability of those workplaces was in reality a protest against authority figures, particularly male ones. Weber’s assessment of authority and power is incredibly relevant.


In the workplace I do not automatically accept the traditional authority of a hierarchy of managers. Weber’s rational-legal authority and the political life of the society of a workplace (Macionis &Plummer 2010, p. 538) may be the backbone of organisations, but for me they represented the potential for the abuse of power. My association with experiencing CSA from a patriarchal figure saw me in later life avoid engaging in the politics of workplaces. Rather I was drawn to leaders who exhibited outstanding qualities that Weber described as charismatic authority,less attributed to social organisation and more associated with an individuals personality (Macionis & Plummer 2010, p. 538). Throughout my working life I have found those qualities more often in women and tried to lead others in that manner, setting an example of work ethic and relying less on the authority of a position and more on the genuineness of my actions.

For years I struggled with the emotional journey of healing. In Chris Gardner’s book, ‘Start Where You Are’, Chris, a victim himself of childhood abuse, passes the reader some advice:

“…to anyone in real crisis …find a place of calmness and stillness …where you can gain some perspective. Only with a reasoned outlook can you find the solutions and empowerment that are already there” (Gardner 2010, p. 58).

When I reflect on the experiences that make me who I am, I think of Foucault who argued that we are the product of discourses without which there is prior no essential self (Back et al, 2012, p. 95). The social experiences of my life, have developed the characteristics of what makes me, me (Macionis & Plummer 2012, p. 208). I am grateful for where I am in life, for the people I have met and the experiences I have had. It seems incredulous that I could ever look at my CSA experience that way. But finally I can say “Peace! Be Still” (Gardner 2010, p. 61)and understand in that moment the rich perspective my life experience has given me.

The story of your life makes you who you are. If you aspire to lead with authenticity, explore your story, decide what you can share, articulate your values and learn about others. Only then can you lead.

References

Back, Les; Bennett, Andy; Edles, Laura Desfor; Gibson, Margaret; Inglis, David; Jacobs, Ron; Woodward, Ian 2012, Cultural Sociology : An Introduction, e-book, accessed 15 November 2013, .


Gardner, Chris 2010, Start Where You Are ; Life Lessons in Getting from Where You Are to WhereYou Want to Be, Amistad, New York.

George, Bill, Sims, Peter, McLean, Andrew N and Mayer, D 2007, Discovering Your Authentic Leadership, HBR, Feb 2007 Edition,


Kia-Keating, Maryam, Sorsoli, Lynn and Grossman, Frances, K. 2010, ‘Relational Challenges and Recovery Processes in Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 666-683.


Macionis, John, J. and Plummer, Ken 2012, Sociology: A Global Introduction, 5th ed., Pearson, Prentice Hall, New York.

Merolla, David, M., Serpe, Richard, T., Stryker, Sheldon and Schultz, P. Wesley 2012, ‘Structural Precursors to Identity Processes: The Role of Proximate Social Structures’, Social Psychology Quarterly, vol. 75, no. 2, pp. 149-172.


Robst, John and VanGilder, Jennifer 2011, ‘The role of childhood sexual victimisation in the occupational choice of adults’, Applied Economics, vol. 43, pp. 341-354.

How strong is your brand : managing customer psychology

In the current climate with such a focus on the industry, now more than ever before, making clients happy is key: [1]happiness makes us want to share and this is within not only our social circle in a physical sense but now with a site like “Adviser Ratings” - in a virtual forum.

Happiness is achieved by bonding and in the financial planners office when a client is most likely feeling emotions of fear and anxiety, people look to cope with those emotions by bonding with the adviser and the advice process. As researcher Lea Dunn advises us “in the absence of friends, consumers will create heightened emotional attachment with a brand that happens to be on hand.” That begs the question : how strong is your financial planning brand remembering that you and your staff indeed epitomise your brand and it is what clients are looking to bond with?

What is required then is process that embodies your authenticity and most importantly has an understanding of the psychology of the client before, during and after the advice process and how you can use technology to enhance that engagement. Welcome then to “Technoclientology”: the psychology of engaging clients in a modern world, where we combine what we have learnt from neuroscience, modernity and behavioural psychology and when combined with a social world, we can enable clients to make better decisions.

Psychology

Just how do we make decisions and what occurs in peoples minds to help them evaluate situations. What do we need to know about how peoples minds work?

“Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex,” says Jan Glascher, lead author of the study and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, referring to the seat of higher-level reasoning in the brain.[2]

In normal brain functioning people : a valuation network in the brain auto computes what's good and what's bad, before the person concerned has a chance to consciously understand the decision making process has occured. It is quick. It is intuitive and it is automatic.

This highlights the complexities in dealing with customers where you need them to make a considered rationale choice. The choice has less to do with the rationalities of your proposal and more to do with how they feel about you and your brand. In short they have a gut feel about what is good and what is bad for them : and if you have not connected with them then that good choice (rationally) seems the uncomfortable one.

Most people believe that the choices they make result from a rational analysis of available alternatives. In reality, however, emotions greatly influence and, in many cases, even determine our decisions

In a book, Descartes Error, Antonio Damasio, professor of neuroscience at the University of Southern California, puts forth that emotions are necessary ingredients to almost all decisions. What occurs is that emotions from previous experiences attribute value and impact how we consider the options in front of us. These emotions create preferences which lead to our decision. Damasio’s view is based on his studies of people whose connections between the “thinking” and “emotional” areas of the brain had been damaged. They were capable of rationally processing information about alternative choices; but were unable to make decisions because they lacked any sense of how they felt about the options. (ref Dr Peter Noel Murray).

So if you are not using some method of assessing past experiences and values and hierachies in a clients decision making you actually leave so much of your process to chance. When it comes to money : we have values associated with our experiences and these values have been passed to us from our parents. If you are not questioning clients about these experiences your process is like waiting for a magic eye picture to appear.

This all means that what you need to embed in your process is :

- a means of uncovering a clients values

- questioning on past experiences

- determining a clients hierarchy of choice assessment

- looking at their goals and the why of their goals so you elevate a simple statement of a goal or objective to a highly functional progression and pathway that you indeed can influence

- a show casing of you as an individual and your brand

Dr Peter Noel Murray reminds us that The influential role of emotion in consumer behavior is well documented:
•Advertising research reveals that emotional response to an ad has far greater influence on a consumer’s reported intent to buy a product than does the ad’s content – by a factor of 3-to-1 for television commercials and 2-to-1 for print ads.
•Research conducted by the Advertising Research Foundation concluded that the emotion of “likeability” is the measure most predictive of whether an advertisement will increase a brand’s sales.
•Studies show that positive emotions toward a brand have far greater influence on consumer loyalty than trust and other judgments which are based on a brand’s attributes.

We pay more for brand names. These brands have emotionally connected with us. The richer the emotional content of a brand’s mental representation, the more likely the consumer will be a loyal user.[4]



[1] The Science of Emotion in Marketing: How Our Brains Decide What to Share and Whom to Trust : Courtney Seiter

[2] Making Choices: How Your Brain Decides

Two distinct brain networks guide our reasoning and the behaviors we ultimately undertake based on those judgments

By Maia Szalavitz @maiaszSept. 04, 2012



[3] Making Choices: How Your Brain Decides

Two distinct brain networks guide our reasoning and the behaviors we ultimately undertake based on those judgments

By Maia Szalavitz @maiaszSept. 04, 2012



[4] How Emotions Influence What We Buy

The emotional core of consumer decision-making

Published on February 26, 2013 by Peter Noel Murray, Ph.D. in Inside the Consumer Mind

A new way to connect with customers : Technoclientology defined

(This is the preamble and background to a recently published article in my IFA blog. I've set the scene here and then included the link to the IFA article for the "implementation steps")



There's something about plane travel and hotel rooms that gets my mind whirring in a good way. It's not the jet lag that sets it off, or the preservatives in the airplane food, or the lack of sleep from missing my contoured latex pillow. Quite the contrary, for me I find everything about the experience a wonderful array of petri dishes where at worst I get to observe human beings engage in what sadly is becoming a lost art: human interaction, and at certain high points as those petri dishes bubble over with colonies of live clashes of culture, I find the collision of sales, marketing, social interaction, technology and human behaviour truly fascinating.

The simple act of boarding a plane provides an opportunity to assess people and the choices they've made on how to board (using an app, a text message, a frequent flyer card, a good ole fashioned boarding pass - from a kiosk or printed from home or work). How do those choices correlate to their other behaviours and decisions? From luggage (trying to sneak a third bag past the disapproving attendant, or nonchalantly with the utmost confidence), to other items they carry : kindle, iPad, hardcover book, style of headphones, facial expressions, volume and tone of voice : all of this creates a story from which assumptions and rather accurate conclusions can be made about how an individual and consequently how we collectively are dealing with the modernity of society and translating it into our daily interpersonal interactions and decisions.

Now perhaps clearly I have too much time on my hands and am somewhat voyeuristic ("what's that guy in 3C staring at?") but, for me this type of people watching in situations like this is incredibly important. They are a guide to the psychology of how people engage in a world that is changing at a dramatic pace. They give us insights into how we act and utilise technology for ourselves and with others and how we like to be engaged in a service environment.

Apple, do this brilliantly and are a great example to choose as what they are selling is more than the latest and coolest gadget. What Apple sells by means of its Apple Genius employees is empathy and leadership which allows customers to make the right decisions for them. Dr Sebastian Bailey wrote in Forbes magazine how detailed and deliberate Apple have become at grasping and using the psychology of selling. Apple, he points out, use the “feel, felt, found” approach to not only demonstrate empathy but to also enact evidence of social proof to lead a customer to solutions that others like them have made[1]. This embodies what we now refer to as Emotional Intelligence, defined as the ability to monitor your own and others feelings and emotions. Sebastian continues that what Apple do having set the stage thus, is the “Geniuses are not passive” they use “mantras like ‘we guide every interaction’, ‘we recommend solutions’ and ‘we help them discover’. Through the handy mnemonic ‘APPLE’ (Approach, Probe, Present, Listen, End), employees lead customers to a decision that they believe is all their own.”[2] Now this is where the neuroscience of Technoclientology kicks in because when it comes to choice, three is the magic number. As Sebastian reminds us, Researchers at the University of Minnesota used brain scans to show that it’s easier to make a choice between three products than it is to choose between two.

Going deeper here choice architecture is the process of encouraging people to make good choices through grouping and ordering the decisions in a way that maximizes successful choices and minimizes the number of people who become so overwhelmed by complexity that they abandon the attempt to choose. Generally, success is improved by presenting the smaller or simpler choices first, and by choosing and promoting sensible default options.[3]


Can we assess these choices using technology and in particular via social networks? Long have we heard that the future involves us arriving home, activating our giant touch screen wall, being notified that one friend has recorded Entourage for you and 3 others are watching it right now and that your groceries you ordered via an app are 5 minutes away from being delivered and a map indicates where the driver is right at that very minute, etc, etc, etc. The future may be coming fast but interaction with only a touch screen wall is maybe a pipe dream. In a study by the Australian Psychological Society, respondents were asked about their preference for online communication when compared to face-to-face interactions. The majority of respondents reported that they preferred to communicate with people in person rather than using online social networking sites (54%, with 25% neutral on this matter) suggesting that people are not necessarily moving away from face-to-face interactions but perhaps use online social networking to enhance their in person communications.[4] However disturbingly but perhaps not surprisingly if you’ve caught an elevator lately (a place where temporary hypnosis always takes effect) and seen every person staring into their phone, concerns about reduced face-to-face interactions and the loss of social skills have emerged.


Being “social” and using the technology platforms of social media means effective engagement to enhance interaction not to detract from it. Gossieaux and Moran, identify that in a web 2.0 world we are as human 1.0 beings engaging like we always have in that we are engaging in tribes, it’s just that now we can engage with tribes that span the globe and belong to multiple tribes at the same time, but what hasn’t changed is that these tribes have formed as they always have : there is a common connection and there is a transference of beliefs, knowledge and value that affects the way in which we make decisions and ultimately in how we live.[5]

In creating the term Technoclientology, my intent was to guide those in the business of professional services and all service industries for that matter to an umbrella discipline for engaging customers. Technoclientology then is the psychology of engaging clients in a modern world and encompasses the skills, techniques and concepts of sales, modernity, social (read Human) 1.0 and the insights from the field of neuroscience, that when combined allow us to observe, collate data, analyse and draw conclusions about how people will react and make decisions in a given situation faced with competing choices. A Technoclientologist uses these insights to enable people to become empowered and make decisions that are in their best interests. What is achieved here is the working towards a greater good.

So where to from here? Read the rest of this article and the steps you need to really connect with clients at:

http://www.ifa.com.au/blogs/13875-why-you-need-to-be-a-technoclientologist?utm_source=IFA&utm_campaign=IFA_Bulletin06_11_2014&utm_medium=email



[1] Bailey, Sebastian, 2012, The Psychological Tricks Behind Apple’s Service Secrets, Forbes, 2012

[2] Bailey, Sebastian, 2012, The Psychological Tricks Behind Apple’s Service Secrets, Forbes, 2012

[3] Iyengar, Sheena, 2010, The Art of Choosing: The Decisions We Make Everyday - What They Say About Us and How We Can Improve Them. Hachette UK

[4] The Australian Psychological Society, 2010, The Social and Psychological Impact of Online Social Networking

[5] Gossieaux and Moran, 2010, The Hyper-Social Organisation

Connecting with a Clients Values

We love this one inspired by an award winning financial adviser in Melbourne, Australia.

This is about connecting the strategy solutions to what is really important to a client.

If you can do this and demonstrate it in the SOA not only do you maximise the possibility of the prospect becoming a client, but you have also built a framework for choices the client makes that you can always revisit especially at review time to ensure that financial decisions are always in line with the identified values of the client.

Why is this important?

This is because money habits form very early on in our lives. It’s actually between the ages of 6-8 : s we have learnt most of our lessons from our parents and this shapes how we feel and act when it comes to financial affairs.
If you don’t question a client about these feelings you really can not truly know how a client will react to certain strategies, economic events, future financial decisions.

Some simple techniques are:

- Asking a client the three key words that come to mind when you mention a financial topic : superannuation, shares, investing
- Using lifestyle questionnaires that have a list of areas for the client to consider : they can be superannuation, investing but also : main residence, holidays, kids schooling, career, etc and asking them to rank how they feel about it now 1-5 and what they would like in the future
- The use of values cards

Irrespective of the technique : you need then to include a section in the SOA about what you’ve uncovered and connect your advice to these idenitified feelings and values.

Now values cards are used by recruitment agencies, training agencies eg: the “Training WA Career Centre) and it’s all about making better decisions on the premise that life and work decisions are always most satisfying when they fit with the values most important to you.

Mostly we act in accordance with our values to maintain a sense of well-being. But often our values are compromised by circumstances or events and we do things that don’t feel right. When we do things that are at odds with our values, we feel uncomfortable. Living in a situation where it is a constant struggle to act according to our values can cause stress, anxiety and depression.

Being able to align our lives with our values helps us make important decisions and feel grounded and focused. It inevitably leads to more happiness, achievement and contentment. At a team or organisational level, shared values keep the members focused on achieving their outcomes

The Values Cards can assist individuals, couples, teams and organisations to explore what is truly important in life, their relationships or work.

So what happens with this adviser is that you as a client (or each member of a couple) is given a deck of 250 values cards. The kind of words on them are things like : compassion, connection, creativity, achievement, adventure, challenge, health, family.

The client has to select 5.

This then leads to a discussion that is wide ranging and starts to encompass how the financial decisions the client needs to make fit with these values.

So imagine one of the cards is “family” (invariably that one does get selected).

Insurance has to become a key plank of a discussion or at least estate planning and hence then trust structures, business succession, continuity etc etc.

So it becomes the client that actually instigates the direction that the strategy conversation takes rather than the adviser initiating the discussion without being able to tie it into something the client has highlighted is important.

What needs to happen though is this conversation is reinforced and highlighted in the SOA and that each strategy recommendation is connected to a value or values.

Social, Big Data, Technology: run and hide or embrace?

Smart technology (wearable : clothes, watches, eye glasses) that records data on your life and has the ability to tell you what to do.

Voice personality profiling so that call centres can assign the right consultant to you but also provides them with information relating to your basic personality traits.

Companies using that data, big data, to generate value such as a retailer using big data to the full to increase its operating margin by more than 60 percent. Or ever-narrower segmentation of customers and therefore much more precisely tailored products or services.

The emergence of two social classes: the technologically connected and fabulously wealthy 15% and the rest of us relegated to a vast underclass.

"Vast troves of data on all of us and then using that data to provide us with a constant stream of advice on how to live our lives and make better decisions."

It is a policy makers dream. A corporations nirvana.

Will it really make our lives better?

Will this become our Gattaca? : The film of a future society driven by eugenics where potential children are conceived through genetic manipulation to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents. Characters in Gattaca continually battle both with society and with themselves to find their place in the world and who they are destined to be according to their genes.

Will it become our Divergent?: a society that defines its citizens by their social and personality-related affiliation with five different factions.

Will we become the humans of Wall-e? : obese, infantile consumers who spend their days immobile in hovering lounge chairs, staring at ads on computers screens (or Google glass)

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Professor, Oxford Internet Institute, speaks of the power of big data as a tool that has the "potential to shape every part of our society from health care and education to urban planning and protecting the environment." He also notes that But "like every powerful tool, it has a dark side too: It threatens privacy protection and human volition."

As Mayer-Schonberger points out the potential and current positives are plentiful. Data correlations help Amazon and Netflix recommend products to us.

He writes of the medical benefits such as the monitoring of "vital signs from premature born babies discovered that whenever the vitals seem to stabilize, there is a high probability that a baby will suffer from a dangerous infection just a few hours later. Stable vitals are red flags, and recognizing them enables doctors to treat an infant before the full onset of the infection. They know what, not why—but that itself saves lives."

And what of how we catergorise people based on what an algorithm determines. Data can be used to make assessments on people, on communities and characterise them in ways that predicts their life expectancy, their suitability for certain occupations, their voting intentions, their criminality and their purchasing habits. Data could highlight threats to society. But a threat determined by whom? Big data?

All manner of crimes have been inflicted on peoples from a call to arms of national pride, soveriegn borders, or the protection of an ideology. This could be our "Captain America's Winters Soldier", futuristic perhaps, but this is already happening. As Mayer-Schonberger highlights certain city neighborhoods are policed more aggressively because Big Data predicts a high-level of criminal activity.

What of choice, free-will, societal liberty and moreover to what extent will we become slaves to the data itself? Will we give up choice? And to what extent is a choice that is made from options presented to us by an alogorithm?

For me I'm still pondering the benefits which are immense and the social consequences that if not considered may lead us to a dark place from which only the data will determine our fate.

Perhaps I will become Amish. They're allowed Netflix and Wi-Fi yeah?


References:

Manyika et al, 2011, Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity, McKinsey Global Institute.

Reed, B, 2013, Prominent economist predicts smartphones will soon tell us how to run every aspect of our lives, BGR Media.

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, 2013, Big Data’s Bright and Dark Sides, Skoll World Forum.

Social media and financial advice : empire state of mind

Alicia Keys song about New York includes the lyrics

"Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There's nothing you can't do

Now you're in New York!

These streets will make you feel brand new, big lights will inspire you".


The state of mind she sings about : belief, dreams, battling through the sameness to differentiate and make it big : is to me very close to what's going on in the quest to capture the social media space and engage with clients.

There is a sameness that is appearing in the manner in which people are implementing. We are all looking at the same big names in advice who have tapped into social media to engage with clients. Are we inspired? Is anyone really doing it well? If you build it ...will they come?

Broadly the answer sadly is no. Because there is something missing. If you do not have a state of mind that is social at its core then a social strategy is not one for you. If your client base does not suit a social strategy then maybe there are other ways to successful engage clients and monetize the engagement.

For me social, is the embodiment of that very word. It is the across the dinner table dialogue with a client where you get to share hopes and dreams (note there is reciprocation implied here). It is heavily reliant on you knowing your client base, your pitch or unique proposition to an ideal client, having the capabilities to deliver on that proposition and the right service model to truly enact that promise.

No amount of communication with a client be it via a social platform or not can be the solution to engagement if you don't have these components to start with.

Following that whether or not a social platform is the right way to communicate with clients depends on whether this is appropriate for the demographic and whether it suits your business model.

Don't get me wrong : I love social media and think it is a necessary mechanism to communicate with clients to truly tap into the psychology of what is core and innate in all of us : that is we are social beings. We are humans and we have always forged ahead by communication, sharing and bonding. We now have platforms which we can do this on in large scale.

As a student of psychology, the manner in which we as humans, as clients look bond with eachother, the way we look for reassurance and social proof before we act lends itself to a process of engaging with clients that taps into these hard wired drives. This client psychology and management of it embodies everything you do as advisers be it insurance advice, business insurance, Intergenerational advice or aged care. Building processes around the psychological processes that a client experiences in dealing with you and the satisfaction with life and well being outcomes they achieve as a result is critical in any communication with a client : including social media.

Getting referrals from accountants

What's the recipe for success in the quest to get consistent, quality referrals from an accountant?

This challenge arises for even advice businesses that own or are owned by accountancy businesses. Even in these environments the manner in which the client experience is delivered for each businesses means that to align is like forcing two magnets of similar polarity together : they push apart often with repulsive force.

The classic solution : has often been the lunch time education/information session, where we talk to the accountants about TPD and expect them to spread this amazing news to clients. Of course I make light of the value and depth that many education sessions hold, but the expectation we have of the impact and the results of these sessions are often unrealistic. That is not to say they don't work, they can do over time, but often despite their regularity and range of topics the conversations we expect or hope the accountants to have just don't follow.

Also problematic is if the accountant does commence a conversation with a client and the conversation goes for more than 6 minutes ....do they charge them? And what if it goes for 20 minutes? What if they are asked a question they can't answer?

After years of observing, experimenting and some just plain dumb luck these are the techniques we've seen work and why:

1) Lunch works : it's about the one time in the day the 6 minute clock is not ticking and the accountants down tools. Rather than an education session, how about just having lunch with them, in the lunch room over a sandwich and not talking about anything to do with financial planning. It's a lot easier to get a referral from someone who likes you.

2) Training can help and is a must : but needs to be tailored so that life risks are not the forefront but rather risk to the accountancy base is. Highlighting that business expenses cover can protect the accountants fees (they are a valid business expense) is one way of the accountant feeling the need for a valid discussion with a client.

3) Getting exemption from the 6 minutes hence the conversation is "authorised" and the client and accountant are not held to the 6 minute charging regime.

4) Creating a process. A questionnaire that acts as a rating scale ie: scores points for having certain structures and strategies in place: provides a great rationale for a referral to an adviser. As the accountant works on the clients tax issues, the client is given the opportunity to fill in a short one page tick a box questionnaire. Each box attributes a score. The lower the score the more urgent the need to see an adviser. Areas covered include SMSF, Estate Planning, Insurances, Buy Sells. The only thing the accountant has to do is add up the score and say based on the score there are some issues that needs clarification : hence the referral to the planner.

5) Taking a portfolio approach with the client base. Looking at the best accountancy clients it is determined whether or not financial planning revenue is being received (works best with in house financial planning and accountancy services). If not it is an automatic referral where the accountant calls the client and explains that as one of their best clients they have not yet taken advantage (as all their other best clients do) of all the services and it's a concern as when assessing their clients financial health (as per the questionnaire in 4) they have found gaps in their clients affairs.

Why client surveys work

I'm constantly surprised by the low numbers of advisers who surveys their clients. Now before you groan, roll your eyes and move on, let me point a few things out to you:

- the average advice business enjoys a margin (I use the word "enjoys" with a degree of sarcasm) of around 20%

- leading advice businesses experience margins of 45%

- average advice businesses attain net promoter scores in the 50s

- leading advice businesses see their scores in the mid 90s

- average advice businesses obtain a level of referrals from the family unit / social circle that leads to them having intergenerational relationships with less than 10% of their clients

- leading advice businesses generate 68% plus of new clients each year from their existing clients family and social circles

Why the stark difference in results? Process and the client experience that is delivered consistently, repeatedly and sustainably is a massive contributor to the success of these leading advice businesses.

The way in which these businesses can design the client experience that they deliver : and the key word is design : these businesses are not successful by default : is that they simply know more about their clients and their clients walk away from every interaction with a feeling that the advice business "just knows me".

This level of understanding and the display of that understanding of what makes a client "tick" is no accident. It is delivered by meticulous and regular questioning of clients and engagement beyond a standard fact find.

These businesses use processes to find out more about their clients; mind maps, lifestyle questionnaires, psychological profiling. And to refine their process they survey clients. Not just satisfaction surveys : they look at motivators, values, propensity to refer and how well the client has understood and can articulate the advice businesses proposition.

When DoubleTree by Hilton surveyed their clients (using a # campaign on Twitter) to find out the "little things" that made a difference to the hotel stays of their clients : they enacted the feedback and delivered not only tailored experiences but demonstrated they really were listening.

When UBS private clients use the insights they have on their clientele to shape every aspect of the client experience they demonstrate that they truly do understand their clients and in doing so span advice across generations.

When Amazon recommends books for you to read based on your purchase and search history, they (or the algorithm) are listening (and watching!).

It's smart business. It's client centric business.

The first step is about asking yourself and your staff : "what do our clients really want?".

Then ask your clients.

Developing a family advice offer

I always have a slight chuckle whenever I see IG (intergenerational advice) on an education schedule for an adviser planning day. The reason is because of the data used to back up the "why", the method that is put forth as the solution and the marketing call to action that is described as the resource to use.

The reality is that providing family advice requires the development of capabilities, new systems and processes, different CVPs and all up is a 6 month plus journey.

The data that is usually pointed to contains a call to action to address the dire situation of grandparents being the sole carer of children aged below 15 and this creates a threat to retirement incomes and so is a necessary conversation to have with your boomer clients.

The reality here is that those numbers are 17,000 families. There are give or take 15,000 advisers in Australia : so you all have one each to target. That's some niche play.

The method that is put forth as the holy grail is the family tree and by utilising one you will capture the essence of a families total situation and position as the trusted family adviser.

The reality is that family trees do not work if positioned without context supported by capabilities that invite the positioning of a family tree into the conversation.

Finally no marketing flyer will encourage families to share with their loved ones your very kind "gift" of financial advice unless there is appropriate positioning and a defined, meaning and relevant "why".

IG advice works but it works by design. Businesses that have designed the process position as the central hub of a families financial world, but also as the intermediary between the inner workings of the "tribe" and it's external affairs.

Making Business Expenses Easy

How do you position business expenses?

What is key here is to dispel the myths around business expenses cover and to provide advisers with the motivation to start the conversations with confidence. One presentation we like opens with a real life case where an adviser had thought they’d provided holistic advice to their client only to find they were significantly exposed to financial risks.

At this point in the presentation advisers are asked to think of, write down and make a list of the key clients they needed to have the business expenses conversation with. Following this advisers are walked through a project plan to think through how they could start simply positioning business expenses discussions not only with clients but with their referral sources.

Business Expenses cover could almost be called the ‘forgotten cover’ with less than 4% of customers with income protection cover having specific business expenses cover in place. Research shows that less than 8% of business owners have this cover in place and whilst this presents as a great opportunity, we find that less than 2/3rds of advisers promote business expenses cover at all. In fact this number may be even lower with a misperception that business expenses cover is too complex either at underwriting or at claims time.

Take an approach of keeping it simple and looking to at least cover the more significant costs – which also should be simple enough to uncover (as well as justify at claim time).

If you think about covering the main items of rent, lease costs, repayments for equipment etc when it comes to claim, these are very easy to show, without the need for complex recalculations each month - they make the financial part of a BEX claim much simpler.

Key questions to clients:

•What are your lease payments?
•What are your loan repayments – and what are they for?
•What is the rent on your premises?
•What wages do you have for administrative staff?

Also appreciate the indemnity nature of business expenses cover – which is about covering the shortfall up to the insured benefit. There shouldn’t be an expectation that the full benefit will always be paid on claim. Much like contents insurance at home, you wouldn’t expect to be paid $60,000 for your contents, if only $3,000 worth was lost in a burglary.

Thinking better about financial advice

The Guardian in April 2013, published an extract from an essay first published at dobelli.com an example of the work in The Art of Thinking Clearly: Better Thinking, Better Decisions by Rolf Dobelli is published by Sceptre.

In the Guardian extract, Dobelli posits that one of the biggest detractors to our cognitive processes ie: our thinking, is our consumption of "news".

He argues that daily we are fed "stories" in a manner which does not require us to critially analyse what it is we are reading and consequently we don't "think", when we think we are thinking!

What the media does is if we look purely from a financial planning / financial services point of view is publish stories that deal with the negatives of an issue. If we as consumers could recognise or be informed by the journalist what the relativities were, then we could assess the information and make a judgement on the entire situation. The current media reporting of FOFA as an example does not provide people with that opportunity. We are not rationale enough beings to rely on the press. For me the current reporting is a lot like what Dobelli says about the media reporting of a plane crash : "Watching an airplane crash on television is going to change your attitude toward that risk, regardless of its real probability"



The way our bodies react to "news" especially hyperbole, panicked, extreme news stories is powerful: "It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation." (Dobelli, 2013).

This all has a damaging impact on our decision making process and we find constantly that, people, make bad decisions. This has a lot to do with the way we think. It has a lot to do with the two systems we utilize in our thinking.

System 1 : is intuitive and automatic.

System 2 : is reflective and rational.

The automatic system is associated with one of the oldest parts of the brain, and unless we actively override our brain at times, we may lose perspective and make the wrong choices.

In the media reporting of FOFA, the bad decisions that "news" may lead to is the lessening of trust in the financial advice system and process. When balanced with facts : that decision is not rationale. Some of the basic facts around financial advice clearly spell this out and daily we see positive client experiences from the engagement with financial advisers:

•$5billion paid in claims to Australians in 2013
•If it wasn’t because of financial advisers: where else would these people get the money?
•NPS scores : a score in the 50’s for the average financial adviser (Health Insurers and Telco's score in the negatives) and this indicates that once Australians get advice from a trusted adviser they have positive experiences

So how can we engage clients and get them and their social and family circles to stop the ingestion of "news" and assist them to make better decisons?

This is where professional advisers, professional financial and insurance advisers can step in. We can organize the context in which people make decisions. We can influence peoples behavior in order to make their lives better.

Research on what makes up best practice financial advice has also uncovered detail on how clients feel before, during and after the advice process. What becomes apparent is that by tapping into the core motivators of clients, in regard to their values and their innate hardwired human needs, not only engenders the adviser to the client, demystifies the advice process and maximizes the possibility of the prospect becoming a client; but, that the well-being and sense of self of the person receiving the advice is markedly improved. Leading businesses have done this by truly engaging clients with:


•a concept of the types of clients they can specialize in and like working with
•capabilities to deliver needed specialized services and resources to their desired client set
•positioning of the typical outcomes these types of clients have in the messaging and value statements they make about the services they offer
•a process where client stories are illuminated so that the prospective client can associate and relate to the outcomes produced
•the resources for clients to participate and collaborate in the advice process



Increasingly then firms delivering best practice advice are utilizing techniques and tools such as mind maps, lifestyle questionnaires, wealth indices, personality profiles and wealth choices diagnostics, to engage clients, set benchmarks for communication, engagement and outcomes and in so doing are winning the hearts and minds of clients and delivering not only financial but psychological well being outcomes : they are helping their clients to "think".

The Science and Emotion Behind Trauma Sum Insureds

Is there a right way for calculating the appropriate sum insured for trauma? Do you have a rule of thumb based on a multiple of income or a formula for removing debt? Or is there a science to our art whereby we can combine the emotional fall out and the true cost of disease to determine a sum insured? Trauma cover, cover that provides a lump sum payment to assist an individual navigate through the treatment of a serious illness and focus on getting better not the stress of the financial strain, is where and when a quality adviser led insurance process is invaluable.

When my sister was diagnosed with a menigioma (a brain tumour that grows between the skull and the brain) there were a few things going for her:
• She’s a doctor and very quickly she had the best physicians around her
• It was thought to be benign
• It was operable
• She had income protection and trauma insurance

However what she had not had, was: advice. The policy for trauma did not make a payment. The income protection cover was inadequate relative to her salary at that point in time. Only through excellent financial advice post surgery was she able to maximise her income protection claim and secure an appropriate level and breadth of cover for income protection and trauma for the future.

As an adviser I worked with a rule of thumb for trauma. My best and most desired position was a sum insured that allowed for the removal of debt and the provision of one years income. My least favoured but lowest sum insured I would recommend was at least half a years income for the sum insured. Was this appropriate? That depends on the discussion I had with the client and their understanding with my guidance of the risks and outcomes.
Looking at the cost of disease in time and money provides some science to the process of calculating sum insureds. The Health Funds of New Zealand December 2013 report on the time of work due to sickness found that:

• An average of five weeks per person is being lost from the workforce as a result of surgical waiting list back-ups.
• Many thousands of New Zealanders waiting for surgery are having to take extended time off work, and also need loved ones to do the same so they can take care of them.
• 280,000 New Zealanders currently needed elective surgery with the average waiting time from GP referral to surgery in the public system was upward of 224 days.
• Almost a third of those needing surgery reported experiencing significant pain and said they had had to make lifestyle changes.
• More than half said their quality of life had worsened, mainly due to pain and mobility issues but also due to the psychological and financial stress of their ongoing illness.

A Canadian study, (Cancer and Work: A Canadian Perspective, 2011, Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology) reminds us of what we know only all too well that Cancer is a complex array of illnesses that can bring a potentially overwhelming spectrum of physical, psychological, social, emotional, functional and economic challenges. The paper concluded that there are broad reaching effects of having cancer on an individual’s worklife. And sadly that the development in the field of vocational rehabilitation and is fragmented and limited, in part due to its infancy.

This is where trauma insurance cover becomes incredibly important. Not only is the sum insured critical to allow required surgery and treatment to take place as soon as possible whatever the choice of treatment the patient embarks upon, but that they can do so without financial stress and further that upon recovery they have the resources to undertake vocational rehabilitation that can address the impact of the psychological and emotional strain of the disease and recovery.

The costs of disease, the financial cost to the individual and family must be also taken into account. As an example when considering the impact of Cancer the individual may also incur financial and economic costs, which are often overlooked when considering the impact of the disease (Cost of Cancer in NSW, 2007, A report by Access Economics Pty Limited for The Cancer Council NSW). This report found that non-financial costs are also very important – the pain, suffering and premature death that result from cancer. Although more difficult to measure, these can be analysed in terms of the years of healthy life lost, both quantitatively and qualitatively, known as the “burden of disease”.

Their detailed analysis found that, individuals bear around 40.4% of the total cost of cancer, with governments (42.1%), society (16.1%), family and friends (0.8%) and employers (0.6%) sharing the remaining costs. In regard to a dollar figure, the finding was this: that the total expected lifetime economic cost of cancer per person is around $966,000 – of which the burden of disease is $851,600 and the financial cost is $114,500.

Applying the 40% ratio does that provide a sum insured of $386,000? Perhaps, there’s a science to that calculation. Does it match up against my old rule of thumb? In some cases it far surpasses it, whilst in others it falls short. What it does highlight is this: that not all diseases are the same, in fact this Cancer Council report found that brain cancers can be double the calculation above. Not all the impacts on an individual are the same. Psychologically my sister was well prepared, was financially stable and had a good support network. Should these factors, those emotional input,s be part of your fact find and deliberations in determining a sum insured? Perhaps.

What all of this, points to is the value of advice, the matching of the art and science behind providing an insurance solution for a client. As the cost of cancer as an example, increases, as people live increasingly complex lives within complicated family structures, the value of a trusted adviser to shape solutions, bespoke solutions, has never been more important.

Creating Believable Client Value Propositions

The earliest “professionals” arguably were the medicine men and women of tribes, the shamans, who presided at all rites of passage such as births, deaths, marriages. They mediated between the inner workings of the tribe and its external affairs . Today, who holds that mantle? An accountant, the family lawyer? Who has a position as the central hub of a families affairs who could mediate for the family from matters financial to social?

Perhaps this is the future for the “Trusted Adviser”. David Maister, writes of the valued resources and relationship strength that leads to becoming the trusted adviser . The packaging of those resources, and the way to gain that position in a clients world provides the right to win in the differentiation stakes that ultimately leads to satisfied clients and intergenerational relationships. That right to win is the centre of the triangle that requires more than the building of valued capabilities and a service promise that delivers them. It requires the building of a pitch that actually means something to the clients you are trying to attract.

It is that pitch that becomes vital, for not only must it be compelling, but it must be simple to articulate by the advice business and by it’s clients. It is in that way that the promise of the proposition gains life and is shareable.

The simplest proposition we have seen that works because everyone in the business embodies it, is this:

“We know that no-one wakes up in the morning and says this is
the day I’m going to get the families estate, insurance and wealth
plans in place!

But all of our clients want to live well and look after their families.”

It works because fundamentally it taps into a base drive that the clients (that this businesses works with (families)) have at their core : a drive to provide a better and satisfying life for their families.

So for any business it requires some self awareness. Who are our clients? Why do they use us? What wants, goals and dreams do they have? What are the commonalities? This applies for each subset of clients : singles, young families, professionals, mature families, retirees, seniors.

At each stage there may be different drivers and being able to offer differentiated services and a call to action that has meaning at each stage is critical to staying relevant and valued at each life stage across the generational divide.

This is the secret to Intergenerational Advice success. This is also why many attempts at delivering an intergenerational advice proposition have failed:

• The business does not have a believable value proposition or “why” statement.
• The business has not built consistent, repeatable, sustainable capabilities around an intergenerational advice proposition.
• The business does not have a service model for intergenerational advice.

For an advice business the challenge is to understand your clients, construct your pitch, develop the capabilities that are relevant and deliver those capabilities consistently, reliably and sustainably.

The family advice proposition once you do this, moves from a relationship delivered by default to one of design.

Calmness and Stillness at a Time Of Crisis

We can't believe that it has been a month since our last post. Life happens around us often when we are not taking notice.

But while it whirs around us we sometimes get these quiet moments and what can happen in those moments is reflect on what is important, what has shaped us and what we regret...what we fear.

For me when I was younger many years ago something happened that influenced the construction of my personal identity and in time was to shape who I was as an individual.

​Thirty-four years later, I am: a husband, a father, a driven and competitive individual,motivated by; making a difference in my career and social life, but also by; a fear of failure and a constant drive for being the best I can be. That drive has delivered a comfortable upper-middle class existence; a residence in the leafy east towards the Yarra Valley, and an office, in the financial hub of Melbourne.

My career has provided the financial freedom to embark on further education, adding to a university degree and postgraduate qualifications in financial services. As I reflect now, it seems that I have defied, through design,
research that points to poor outcomes for people who have experienced what I did. It seems I fought to join Weber’s concept of ‘party’ to effect power over my social outcomes, seeking class and status to reach my goals (Back et al,
2012, p. 51). My reflection constantly demands a response to the question of how different my
life may have been.


But because of who I was, I attracted certain people in my life and good or bad they were part of my healing.

Interestingly my relationships ran a course where they were with people who offered emotional availability and care or where they themselves needed my help. George Herbert Mead argued that people take on identities that we base on our participation in networks of social relationships and related roles (Merolla et al, 2012, p. 149). How we determine our sense of self is based therefore on social experience. My social experience of relationships would not have been as diverse and my personality would surely have changed as a consequence. The personalities I encountered allow me today to appreciate another persons point of view. Their problems (that I often sought out), from eating disorders, mental health issues, CSA and rape survivors, provided me with a sense of understanding of what real challenges and adversity are. Perspective was a gift that these people gave to me. A life without a deep perspective of the best and worst of human beings is what I may have lived without my own traumatic experiences.

​
​It is that appreciation of the experience of others that has allowed me to excel in my career. Fundamentally my career has been built around understanding peoples motivations and drivers and why they make the decisions that they do. My role involves me coaching and mentoring a sales team in financial services and I am called upon to deliver presentations about positive customer experiences and how to create them.


​In Chris Gardner’s book, ‘Start Where You Are’, Chris, passes the reader some advice:

​“…to anyone in real crisis …find a place of calmness and stillness …where you can gain some perspective. Only with a reasoned outlook can you find the solutions and empowerment that are already there” (Gardner 2010, p. 58).

When I reflect on the experiences that make me who I am, I think of Foucault who argued that we are the product of discourses without which there is prior no essential self (Back et al,2012, p. 95). The social experiences of my life, have developed the characteristics of what makes me, me (Macionis & Plummer 2012, p. 208). I am grateful for where I am in life, for the people I have met and the experiences I have had. It seems incredulous that I could ever
look at my experience that way. But finally I can say “Peace! Be Still” (Gardner 2010, p. 61) and understand in that moment the rich perspective my life experience has given me.

Reality Bites : Getting Back to Basics when providing insurance advice

Advisers and retail insurers could still be the big losers beyond 2014 in capturing the hearts, minds and insurance policies of Australians unless they work together to get back to the basics of what customers really want from an insurance solution.

The reality is that retail sales growth via advisers was in 2013 the lowest in recent memory, whilst retail lapses continued to trend upwards (15%). Some stand out insurers did however buck this trend with declining lapse experiences.

The reality is that the reinsurer claims experience through the group channel has placed some retail insurers on the cusp of significant price increases, a result of prior pricing philosophies that perhaps did not adequately compensate for the risks being insured.

The reality is that faced with the resultant "bill shock" the value, service, and trust equation of advice and advisers is being questioned and a growing chorus of consumers have turned to the direct channel for a "value for money" solution.

The reality is that some non underwritten direct channels do not offer value for money, as they do not offer claims certainty.

The reality is that there is a growing disconnect between what is being delivered by insurers to advisers to distribute and what customers really want.

Customers and advisers want 'sustainable pricing', they want quality insurance products for the right price, reflective of a properly assessed risk and claims certainty. They want less complexity in the process of applying for and maintaining a policy.

2014 and beyond will be a success for those insurers and advisers who recognise and partner towards what customers really want : the right cover for the right price, and certainty that the right money goes to the right people when they need it the most.

It's a simple proposition that hasn't and shouldn't be changed.

The Science and Art of Caclulating Trauma Sums Insured : The Value of Advice

Is there a right way for calculating the appropriate sum insured for trauma? Do you have a rule of thumb based on a multiple of income or a formula for removing debt? Or is there a science to our art whereby we can combine the emotional fall out and the true cost of disease to determine a sum insured?

Trauma cover, cover that provides a lump sum payment to assist an individual navigate through the treatment of a serious illness and focus on getting better not the stress of the financial strain, is where and when a quality adviser led insurance process is invaluable.

When my sister was diagnosed with a menigioma (a brain tumour that grows between the skull and the brain) there were a few things going for her:

· She’s a doctor and very quickly she had the best physicians around her
· It was thought to be benign
· It was operable
· She had income protection and trauma insurance

However what she had not had, was: advice. The policy for trauma did not make a payment. The income protection cover was inadequate relative to her salary at that point in time. Only through excellent financial advice post surgery was she able to maximise her income protection claim and secure an appropriate level and breadth of cover for income protection and trauma for the future.

As an adviser I worked with a rule of thumb for trauma. My best and most desired position was a sum insured that allowed for the removal of debt and the provision of one years income. My least favoured but lowest sum insured I would recommend was at least half a years income for the sum insured. Was this appropriate? That depends on the discussion I had with the client and their understanding with my guidance of the risks and outcomes.

Looking at the cost of disease in time and money provides some science to the process of calculating sum insureds. The Health Funds of New Zealand December 2013 report on the time of work due to sickness found that:

· An average of five weeks per person is being lost from the workforce as a result of surgical waiting list back-ups.
· Many thousands of New Zealanders waiting for surgery are having to take extended time off work, and also need loved ones to do the same so they can take care of them.
· 280,000 New Zealanders currently needed elective surgery with the average waiting time from GP referral to surgery in the public system was upward of 224 days.
· Almost a third of those needing surgery reported experiencing significant pain and said they had had to make lifestyle changes.
· More than half said their quality of life had worsened, mainly due to pain and mobility issues but also due to the psychological and financial stress of their ongoing illness.

A Canadian study, (Cancer and Work: A Canadian Perspective, 2011, Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology) reminds us of what we know only all too well that Cancer is a complex array of illnesses that can bring a potentially overwhelming spectrum of physical, psychological, social, emotional, functional and economic challenges. The paper concluded that there are broad reaching effects of having cancer on an individual’s worklife. And sadly that the development in the field of vocational rehabilitation and is fragmented and limited, in part due to its infancy.

This is where trauma insurance cover becomes incredibly important. Not only is the sum insured critical to allow required surgery and treatment to take place as soon as possible whatever the choice of treatment the patient embarks upon, but that they can do so without financial stress and further that upon recovery they have the resources to undertake vocational rehabilitation that can address the impact of the psychological and emotional strain of the disease and recovery.

The costs of disease, the financial cost to the individual and family must be also taken into account. As an example when considering the impact of Cancer the individual may also incur financial and economic costs, which are often overlooked when considering the impact of the disease (Cost of Cancer in NSW, 2007, A report by Access Economics Pty Limited for The Cancer Council NSW). This report found that non-financial costs are also very important – the pain, suffering and premature death that result from cancer. Although more difficult to measure, these can be analysed in terms of the years of healthy life lost, both quantitatively and qualitatively, known as the “burden of disease”.

Their detailed analysis found that, individuals bear around 40.4% of the total cost of cancer, with governments (42.1%), society (16.1%), family and friends (0.8%) and employers (0.6%) sharing the remaining costs. In regard to a dollar figure, the finding was this: that the total expected lifetime economic cost of cancer per person is around $966,000 – of which the burden of disease is $851,600 and the financial cost is $114,500.

Applying the 40% ratio, does that provide an appropriate sum insured of $386,000? Perhaps, there’s a science to that calculation. Does it match up against my old rule of thumb? In some cases it far surpasses it, whilst in others it falls short. What it does highlight is this: that not all diseases are the same, in fact this Cancer Council report found that brain cancers can be double the calculation above. Not all the impacts on an individual are the same. Psychologically my sister was well prepared, was financially stable and had a good support network. Should these factors, those emotional inputs be part of your fact find and deliberations in determining a sum insured? Perhaps.

What all of this, points to is the value of advice, the matching of the art and science behind providing an insurance solution for a client. As the cost of cancer as an example, increases, as people live increasingly complex lives within complicated family structures, the value of a trusted adviser to shape solutions, bespoke solutions, has never been more important.

The Psychology of Buying Life Insurance

Any client engagement resource (that takes into account the clients age, their budget and provides a visual demonstration of what types of insurance cover and what levels insurance should be considered) is based on research on the client psychology of insurance purchases. Studies show that the way to maximise matching insurance solutions appropriately with clients is achieved by clearly advising clients on their life insurance needs with process and openly discussing a clients budget. In fact a doubling of coverage purchased is possible versus advisers who don't provide this sort of engagement.

Data from the Life Insurance and Market Research Association (LIMRA) allows a glimpse into the mind of the life insurance buyers and provides guidance on what works and what doesn't. In a LIMRA study the buying psychology of 3000 life insurance buyers was analysed and it was found that:

- face to face engagement and a needs analysis that was process driven and utilised social proof provided conversions of 73%
- communication effectiveness : the right communication channels with the right clients has a strong correlation with insurance purchases
- online offers were less effective without the opportunity to use visual triggers
- effectiveness was increased when using processes that defined what the types of insurances do and what they can provide when faced with life traumas

But importantly the data took into account the consideration of what the client could afford. When this was not discussed, prospects felt pressured. Using a tool that openly considered and classified budget issues mitigates these negative perceptions and emotions.

The robustness of process was also found to have an impact in a manifestly positive way on the propensity of a client to refer.

Overall however three keys came out of the research that bring us to the core of why clients buy insurance after being advised in a meaningful way:

1) determining if they are getting their money's worth for the cover they are buying versus the risk they face
2) being able to understand the types of cover they have been recommended
3) being able to understand the reasons for the amounts of cover they have been recommended

High income earners raised these three areas as the top of mind considerations.

Risk advisers are faced with the challenge of engaging clients in a meaningful way that not only produces the best outcome for a client in that they are adequately insured but that they are also compelled to refer their social circle to the advisers services. That's the way to ensure that Australians are adequately insured and we address the mis and underinsurance issues. Education and demystification of insurance is key. The value of insurance and the demonstration of such is absolutely paramount. The way to do that is remembering at our core what it is that we are providing. Clients may buy and we make talk about and insurance policy, but what we are selling and what they are buying is simple : it is the peace of mind that when faced with one of lifes risks that the right money goes to the right people at the right time. That's it, it is no more complicated than that and it is what great insurance advisers know and focus on doing well.

When a client is seated with their adviser the core drive they are seeking to meet is the drive to defend, and it is by engagement, communication, storytelling of lifes risks and the proper positioning of an insurance solution that meets and fulfils this drive. The research into human behaviour shows that people who are able to fulfil this drive have greater life satisfaction than those who have not. Remember what we do at our core as life insurance providers and putting process around this conversation and engagement in a way that is meaningful in the context of a life risk discussion is something not to be distracted from are we as an industry to be successful in ensuring more Australians have the vital cover that they need.

Greater Success And Sales Using Emotional Intelligence to Engage Staff and Clients : And What's This Got To Do With Intergenerational Advice?

Research studies have related team performance and team characteristics to effective leadership behaviours. The leadership behaviours in play encompass emotional intelligence and further, emotional intelligence becomes a precursor for the demonstration of transformational leadership.

The conclusions that can be drawn drawn are that facets of brain dominance and emotional intelligence may be potentially useful predictors of transformational leadership behaviours.

So what is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is described by Herbst and Maree and again by Schelecter and Strauss as a cognitive ability that involves the processing of emotion.

Other models define emotional intelligence in terms of behaviours and skills, including stress management skills (such as stress tolerance and impulse control), self-management skills (such as self-control, conscientiousness and adaptability), as well as social skills (such as conflict management, leadership and communication).

Overall however what is critical in understanding how effective a persons level of emotional intelligence is, is the requirement to understand how an individual perceives, understands, utilises and manages emotions.

Leadership comprises both intellectual and emotional facets and both these facets need to be attended to during the training of managers in order to equip them with sufficient leadership skills.

Transformational leadership behaviour has been found to be positively related to team-leader emotional intelligence and both these are said to be positively related to trust (both in the team leader and in team members) and to team commitment.

It seems that leaders are important creators and sustainers of the processes and dynamics responsible for effective teams.

So in the financial services world - effective client engagement and client servicing comes from having exceptional teams, team members and team dynamics that support a culture of ownership and empathy with the client.

Further the team needs to be crystal clear on the outcome that the business is creating for the client.

Without a leader that can define in client terms the vision for the business with a meaning and relevance that staff can not only believe in but also share the vision and help create it - then the business is only positioning itself for transactions with clients and not transformations of clients and the business itself.

Businesses that are not defining a vision, purpose and message for clients, sharing that vision with staff and building capabilities to deliver on the promise may do well in the short term in purely a transactional sense.

But the businesses that are shaping messages to win the hearts and minds of clients will be the businesses that truly capture the attention and the longevity of client loyalty.

The longer they are able to do this, then the longer they will be able to build their capabilities further to provide true family advice, true intergenerational offerings that deliver on providing the unspoken needs of clients.

Finding Balance : A ReFocus on Priorities

Perspective.....the ability to find perspective allows you to see things as they really are.
It's that ability in any given moment to step out of yourself and have a birds eye view on a situation and assess it for what it is. Perspective allows clarity of thought and that mindfulness leads to better decisions, more creativity and greater satisfaction with life.

The greatest challengers to perspective are time and awareness.

In today's unrelenting modern lifestyles the time for perspective is seldom allocated. Secondly with our minds bombarded more than ever before with information at speeds never before experienced in human history our awareness of our feelings, of situations is challenged and ignored. We become expressions of that which we have knowledge of but not necessarily understood. And that knowledge without understanding applies to ourselves.

We all understand the problem. What's the solution? Awareness is the key. But to give awareness an opportunity to change our direction, our perspective we need to allocate the time to gaining perspective.

Our advice is simple: time block it.

1) Allocate to start 10 mins in the morning and 10 minutes at night to mindfulness. This may start as simply a quiet spot where initially you don't think of anything. So don't take your smartphone with you. Now if you can't find a quiet room at work or home, then multi task. In all seriousness this might be time spent in the lavatory or in the shower. If that's all you can grab then take the opportunity.

2) Move next to assessing your life and how you feel about it. Ask yourself how you feel about certain aspects of your life, rank it on a scale of 1 to 5 and then write about what you want in the future and how you want to feel. This is a great exercise to do as a couple. The areas you are assessing include : relationships, health, fitness, philanthropy, community involvement, friends, spirituality, hobbies, work, house and home, finances, personal space, education and personal development.

3) Identify the three most important areas for you and assess whether you are spending enough time and resources in these areas.

4) By now that 10 mins hopefully has moved to 15 now you need to start a dialogue with your self and significant others : try setting time aside and this may start as only once a week that you and your partner just talk about your world and perhaps it's just as simple as a download of the week. Take turns. Listen don't solve.

5) Start focussing on what's really important (identified in 3)

Your thoughts don't need to define you

Especially if they're negative! We love the work by Susan David (CEO of Evidence Based
Psychology) and Christina Congleton, an associate at Evidence Based Psychology on how effective leaders manage their negative thoughts and feelings (Harvard Business Review November 2013).

They recognise and remind us that all of us have thoughts and feelings that can include criticism, doubt, and fear.

Where this becomes an issue is when we start believing what our inner voice is saying. What that voice is often doing is looking at a situation and working through the scenarios : akin to a process like De Bonos thinking hats, this happens though often without our conscious control and is our brain at work navigating solutions for us.

Where we come unstuck is when we don't recognise the thoughts and emotions for what they are : thoughts and emotions : they do not have to become the defining feature of us in that moment or determine our outcomes.

Being able to practice mindfulness and consciously assess the thought for what it is, is a great first step in determining our outcomes. Realising we are having a negative thought is ok as is how we feel about that thought.

David and Cohen put forth that effective leaders don’t suppress their inner experiences but rather practice emotional agility. A process where according to David and Cohen they recognise patterns; label thoughts and emotions; accept them; and act on their values.

What this relies on is a base of values that define who you are as an indvidual as a human being. What you stand for and the committment you have to those values are incredibly powerful drivers of your ability to practice mindfulness and in doing so be able to enact positive changes in your and others worlds even when the voice of doubt and potential failure enter your head.

This is about being true to yourself and that comes with the first step of knowing who you are.

Who you are is a construct of your experiences and interactions : the socialisation and combination of social structure and social engagement : but it's deeper than that : it is the very essence of not only who you are as a result but who you are wanting to be.

That's when you can reach for the positive affirmations, and the picture of the ideal you and understand where the gap is between the self you are now and the person you want to be. That defines the values you need to stay true to and the ones that will be challenged along the way.

With that clear understanding when you are challenged, fearful, anxious, conflicted or have just made a bad choice you will have the mindfulness to recognise the feeling that is out of kilter with your ideal self acknowledge that thought, accept it and take the action the positive action to rectify it and stay or move closer to the values that the ideal you embodies.

Six tips for your clients to create new habits in 2014

Creating new positive habits can make a significant difference in one’s life and provide the skills to turn the impossible into the possible. But it’s not always easy to change our behaviour as Tony Schwartz of the Energy Project(1) reveals with the statistics below…

· 25% of people abandon their New Years’ resolution(s) after just one week
· 95% of people who lose weight on a diet regain it
· Most alarming is that after surviving a heart attack only 1 in 7 people make any enduring life changes around eating or exercise.


So you can see we are indeed creatures of habit and some behaviors become so ingrained, such as smoking or biting our nails that we can’t stop even if we want to. In fact, Massachusetts Institute of Technology research has identified two regions in the brain that are responsible for crystallising habits so it’s no wonder we find it so hard to break them.

Making positive choices to start the pattern of change

In order to break habits, we must start our own patterns of change which according to Chris Gardner (the man on whom the film ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ was based), centers around our ability to embrace the best within and make positive choices for ourselves. (2)

In his retelling of his battle to come out of poverty and homelessness, he suggested four key choices to begin this process of change:


1) Choose to let go of judgment and accept who you are at your best
2) Choose to break generational cycles
3) Choose to accept that you are allowed to be happy and have abundance; and
4) Choose to learn from the past.


Now it isn’t easy to act on this advice, but by simply sharing these choices with your clients, you will be helping them start on their own path to making better decisions for themselves and their families.
Why your expert help is critical in this process

With the stress of daily life upon your clients, applying these choices and making time for what’s important can be extremely difficult. This is where you and your expertise fit into the picture.

When sharing these tips with your clients your role is two-fold. Firstly, you can help your clients understand the importance of freeing up their time as much as possible to focus on the important choices they have to make. Secondly, you can help your clients understand the areas where they can enlist your expert help so they have more time to focus on what’s important to them and what will add value to their lives.

Take John for example. I’m sure we could all relate to him…
John is a small business owner married to Kate a teacher and they have two children 13 and 10. John is trying to: Run the business; be a good husband; be a good father, keep a handle on the finances, keep fit, maintain his friendships, mentor his staff, fit in a family holiday at some point and maintain the condition of his home…..Something has got to give!!

With his energy focused on so many activities, where would John find the time to make better choices and start making changes to his lifestyle?

Today we call it outsourcing, the Babylonians(3) called it “…one of the cures for a lean purse” – either way, the message is clear – John needs to outsource the things that he is no good at or not qualified to do so that he can have more time to focus on what’s important to him and what adds value to his life.

So for John this meant joining a small business peer group, hiring a trainer for his staff, seeing a financial adviser and matching exercise with his friendship group. By doing this he freed up time for what was really important to him - being a good husband and father.

Six tips for your clients to create new habits
John was able to free up his time to focus on making change and you can help your clients implement positive changes in their lives too. But it’s important to remember that change takes time and there will be some resistance along the way.

Try these six tips to help your clients on their journey:


1) Don’t change everything at once: One or two things at a time
2) It takes about a month to lock in a new behavior

3) Be precise about what you want to change

4) Focus on a positive outcome rather than the negatives

5) Expect resistance (especially from yourself)

6) Enlist the support of others


Whether it’s finances in 2014 that are a priority, the estate plan, getting the right insurance cover or even talking about the no sugar diet (and that’s a tough one, I know from personal experience), it’s important your clients know they can talk to you and understand how you can help.
Ultimately for clients and advisers alike, by enlisting the help of others through outsourcing (as you would know), you can free up your time to make better choices and to start the journey towards creating new positive habits that will have a great impact on our lives.


1) “The Energy Project” www.theenergyproject.com
2) “The Pursuit of Happiness” Chris Gardner 2006
3) “The Richest Man in Babylon” George S. Clason 1926.

The Psychology of Positive Thinking

Positive affirmations, "serenity now", calling for that moment of calm in a sea of turmoil….does any of it actually work?

Well apparently the answer is a resounding YES! And even more importantly scientific evidence points to the positive impact on life, satisfaction with life and well being and reduced stress that a positive outlook : optimism can have. Optimism is indeed a key part of stress management.

According to the Mayo Clinic, realistic optimism, allows you to approach daily life stressors in better and sometimes more creative ways. But to do so requires you to eliminate negative self talk.

Negative self talk is borne out of life experience but also from the perception and processing of information with a negative bias. The two are intrinsically linked. Experience of bullying about personal appearance such as freckles, brings with it perceptions of what is and what is not attractive. When layered with messages from cosmetics companies, TV, social media : the initial experience is reinforced and a belief is set. That negative belief is increasingly more difficult to overcome the more ingrained it has become either over time or by the constancy and frequency of the reinforcement mechanisms.

So simply saying to someone "you need to be positive" is really no help what so ever if a belief system is strongly held.

Positivity or rather the ability to see things differently requires the practice of creative and critical thinking about a subject. It requires analysis of why something is this way and what other ways could a subject, issue, thought, action be perceived, processed and assessed.

What is required is multiple thinking lines. While the natural state for many of us is to look at "what is wrong", the mindset shift needs to move to asking "what is right here" or "how can I look at this differently".

It takes practice. And initially it requires some form of imprinting to enable a different thought process to take hold.

Writing the issue down and transforming the thoughts to what is possible is a great start.

So what's wrong with your life right now? Write it down….

And what's right with your life right now? Start writing it down…..

Now if you are in a job that you're not enjoying because you feel undervalued and under appreciated, you are single and want to be in a relationship, if friends around you seem so happy (Facebook tells you so), you're not the weight, shape you want to be, you don't have enough money to do the things you want to do ….and so on and so on…..maybe your list of what's wrong with your life is getting pretty long.

Those are big issues. It may even be worse, there may be trauma and hardship and sickness surrounding you. There is no illusion here that you are not facing challenges.

What we are asking here is to just digest the information differently.

So maybe your "what's right with my life" list is going to start with small things.

….I'm alive today

..I heard a bird chirp the morning awake

..best piece of toast ever

..I saw a smile on a childs face

..I heard something on the radio that made me laugh

You getting the idea?

So what about that main issue you may have? No matter how bad it is, can you get a different perspective? Maybe not now not in moments of absolute desperate grief. No one could possibly ask that. But sometimes thats when gratefulness comes.

It's about changing the process of thinking through an idea and drawing into your life by attraction that which is what you want to attract not what you want to run away from.

Even in your darkest moments : asking for a way through, wanting to feel better …..is a start.

TEAM : what we can all learn from Team Canada

Such a long time between posts! Well everyone deserves a holiday. And we've been fortunate enough to be immersed in the excitement of the winter olympics and specifically being present in Canada as their athletes shone through during the games.

But what really stood out was the team feeling that permeated into everyday life.

TEAM : totally engaged and motivated.

Ads on TV by Canadian Tyre "we all play for Canada", segments on the coverage " My team, My town" and the generally inclusive nature of the Canadians themselves highlighted that the ethos was: let's back our team, our country and that involves all of us.

http://weallplayforcanada.ca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAaOiEvjcGM&noredirect=1

The atmosphere in the centre of Big White ski village as the Canadian Womens Ice Hockey Team with less than 4 minutes to go in the 3rd period came back from 2 - 0 down to eventually win 3-2 in overtime was electric.

It was an attitude of we are all in this together that shone through.

When we thought about everyday interactions with the people around us they were indeed totally engaged and motivated even in the simplest conversation. 'So how's your day going?' was the general greeting and we note the subtle but critical difference between that and "How's it going?' : the difference was with its genuine curiosity and thirst for the answer and it was with the conversation that followed and importantly how the average person just simply listened.

When we think of EI or EQ which are the buzz at the moment to engage our clients : rather than need to look at deep training and development simply looking at Team Canada may assist : a genuine zest for life, competition, caring, energy and inclusiveness.

'You have a good day now'.

Yes thanks Team Canada, we will.