Who’s in Your Room?: The Importance of Who's On Your Team
I recently read a book by Stewart Emery, Ivan Misner & Rick Sapio, called Who’s in Your Room? It essentially asks the question: What do the people you keep around say about who you are? It challenges you to take a look at the people you’ve let into your life, determine how each of them affect you, and add to or take away from your goals and your ideal vision for your life or business.
It occurred to me while reading it, that a similar phenomenon exists when you’re building a team. The people you choose to bring on board have a great impact on what you do collectively as a team. Each person’s attributes, characteristics, choices, and beliefs affect the environment of your team. So how do you know who to let into your room? It starts by determining your core values through an exercise that takes you through the experiences you’ve had in your life where you felt most proud or accomplished, and from there determine what values guided you in these situations.
For financial advisors, I’d encourage them to do a similar exercise, but with questions that pertain more specifically to their businesses. What values and common traits come up when you consider the following set of questions? If you don’t have a relatable business experience, think of something in your life that closely parallels it.
1) Why did you decide to become a financial advisor?
2) How does this compare to what motivates you in your role today?
3) What was the most difficult situation you experienced with a team member and how did you overcome it?
4) What has been your most successful client experience and why?
5) What client experience provided you with the most growth and why?
6) What challenges have you overcome in your business and how has that shaped who you are today?
7) What characteristics do your favorite clients and centers of influence have in common?
8) What problems exist in the financial services industry and how do you see your business as a potential solution?
9) What changes or advancements do you see yourself making in your business in the next 2-5 years?
10) How do you hope to be remembered by your clients, centers of influence and team members? What impact will they see you as having made?
Go through these questions by yourself, and then with your team. See where the overlap exists in your answers, both from question to question and between your answers and your team members’ answers. What traits, values, themes and characteristics do they share and how do you see these as playing into the dynamic of your future team, or not?
Once you’ve determined your core values, write them down and put them in a place where they are readily apparent to you and your team members. Consider these carefully when you are in a place to welcome new team members, clients, or centers of influence into your room.
Topics: Team Development Leadership