Establishing clear goals and business plans is a good starting point for achieving success. To ensure effective execution, leaders need to establish an accountability process for the advisors (and their managers/coaches) to follow as they pursue their goals and business objectives.
ACCOUNTABILITY ACCELERATES PERFORMANCE
Research by the Association for Talent Development found that, on average, individuals have a 65% chance of completing a goal if they commit to someone. Add a specific accountability appointment with the person committed to, and the likelihood of success increases to 95%.
ActiFi has observed that advisors value executional support more than high-level consultative recommendations. By acting as a catalyst that drives task execution, the firm/coach will be viewed by the advisor as a facilitator. In this capacity, the firm/coach gains more credit for helping advisors achieve their goals than they would for simply coming up with strategy and leaving the advisor to figure execution out on their own. Typically, the highest level of perceived value resides in providing advisors with ongoing coaching, feedback, and accountability.
One of the biggest challenges financial institutions face in supporting advisors, is tracking their progress on specific tasks and linking them to their established goals and/or business plan. To effectively support advisor success, a best practice is to have a coach/leader meet with the advisor monthly to review goals and overall progress, with an accountability check-in call occurring bi-weekly to review specific tasks.
A primary constraint within this approach is the time available to conduct the meetings. Assign the check-in calls to an administrative resource who can track the answers to three simple questions:
1. Did you complete the key activity that you committed to in the last meeting?
2. If no, have you allocated time to complete this prior to the next meeting?
3. If no, is the goal still important to you?
If advisors know that a coach/leader will review the answers in monthly meetings, you will have established an accountability process that can be both efficient and effective.