Make your advice firm a team, not a family

Speaking on the latest episode of the ifa podcast, Corey Wastle, chief executive of Verse Wealth, explained why the advice firm builds its culture around being a team, not a family.

“[High-performance culture] is another term, kind of like culture that just gets thrown around and bandied around, sometimes half-heartedly,” Mr Wastle told ifa.

“A lot of businesses talk about a lot of these things, but the talk and the follow through, there’s a disconnect between those two things. It’s one thing to say you’re this, but maybe in reality your team are saying something else.

“For us in terms of high performance, one of the things we talk about is the fact that we’re a team and not a family.”

He noted that while there can be a fair share of “commonalities” between a team and a family, there are a few key distinctions.

“The reason why we’ve documented it in that way, I think, is a lot of businesses talk about the fact that they are a family. I’m not here to say that’s wrong. They can decide who they are and what they want to be,” Mr Wastle said.

“But we think about ourselves as a team in the sense that if you’ve got someone in family represents unconditional love, like if you’ve got someone in your family that is a couple of hours late to every family dinner, and they never buy anyone a Christmas present, and they’re a bit of a tire kicker and so on, you don’t kick them out of the family.”

Not so in a team, he said, which have different standards when it comes to performance.

“But if you’re a team and you’ve got someone that’s two hours late every day, they don’t follow through, they don’t have high standards, they let other people down, they’re focused on themselves, rather focused on the team. You don’t keep them in the team, you move them on from the team to create the space for someone that’s going to fulfil that role,” Mr Wastle added.

“Teams can still have connection and love and respect and alignment. Great teams have all these things, but they also have standards, expectations, and accountability and teams need to maximise team results. That’s one of the philosophies that underpin how we hire and who we keep on board and so on.”

He explained that for Verse, creating that culture is a way that they bring in more talent and retain those already on board.

“Create an environment that attracts great people, has high standards, people love working there, they feel respected and appreciated, their ideas are valued, they want to improve things, you’re aligned philosophically, you want to work together, it’s selfless rather than full of egos,” Mr Wastle said.

“If you can create an environment like this, good things happen. Because if you’ve got people that are happy, they do their job at a higher level, they’re more willing to go the extra mile for clients, or they’re more likely to be selfless in a moment for the team, or they’re more likely to share their idea or to take a risk or be open minded to someone else’s perspective.

“When you create this environment, you attract good people. And when you attract good people, you get good results. And when you get good results, you attract better people. And you get better people, you get better results and a better culture, and everything’s this big melting pot.”

To hear more from Corey Wastle, tune in here.