Spotting the Advisory Potential Already in Your Team

There's a big difference between delegating work and developing advisory capability. You may already have a team that handles the bookkeeping, prepares accounts, produces reports and manages much of the day-to-day client work. But when something needs interpreting, a decision needs making or a client needs advice... Does it all come back to you? If it does, you've delegated the tasks — but you haven't necessarily delegated the thinking. In this episode of Advisory Secrets, I look at why building an advisory team means involving people in more than just the delivery of work. They need opportunities to understand the thinking behind the advice, contribute their own observations, ask questions and gradually develop their own judgement. That might start very simply. Instead of telling a team member what you've decided, ask them: "What do you think?" What have they noticed? What questions would they ask the client? What do they think the numbers are telling them? What would they want to understand before suggesting what happens next? Those conversations are where advisory capability starts to develop. Over time, someone can move from listening to an advisory conversation, to contributing to it, to taking responsibility for parts of it — and eventually, where appropriate, leading it themselves. Because if we continue to delegate all the work but keep all the thinking, judgement and client conversations for ourselves, we've simply created a very efficient team... with the same bottleneck sitting at the top. Takeaways Delegating tasks and developing advisory capability are not the same thing. You may have delegated most of the workload while still keeping all the thinking and decision-making yourself. Advisory requires judgement, curiosity and the ability to interpret what's happening — not simply the ability to complete a process. Involve your team in the thinking behind the advice, not just the work that produces the numbers. Asking "What do you think?" is a simple way to start developing independent thinking. Advisory capability develops gradually through exposure, discussion, practice and increasing responsibility. The aim isn't to hand over client relationships overnight. It's to give people opportunities to develop until they're ready for more. If every important advisory question still comes back to you, you may still be the bottleneck. Find Out More To find out more about building advisory capability across your team, visit APX Training. You can also join our free Advisory Teams Facebook community. And if you'd like longer-form podcast conversations, search for Advisory Conversations with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday on your usual podcast platform.