As a client-facing advisor, it’s important to recognize that eventually all clients are destined to use narrow framing with their financial situations and to avoid or disregard the less obvious wealth-management decisions that their success has created.
How Can an Advisor Help?
Financial advisors face two big challenges with a client who has resorted to narrow framing his perspective on his wealth. The first is a resistance to any attempt to broad frame his perceptions in order to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Narrow framing is a natural attempt to protect the investor from the pain of too much information, so simply introducing more data reactivates the pattern and doesn’t allow him to see the big picture.
The second challenge is that understanding and sorting through complicated problems require the expenditure of energy. If you expand the client’s attention to the larger framework of his actual situation, he exhausts this ability to stay focused.
A tactic that will help you address narrow framing successfully is called “Yes! And….” Start by listening to what a client thinks she wants. Then ask questions and explore her thinking. By paying attention and listening actively, you will notice both the scope of what she is thinking and everything she is editing out of awareness and ignoring.
After you understand her thoughts, repeat them in your own words. Begin with “This is what I heard,” describe what you heard, and then wait for confirmation. This represents the yes by making the client feel understood and respected. It also builds a bond of trust.
Once you’ve demonstrated that you have heard the client, you can add new information to help her see the bigger picture. Continue by saying, “And you should also be concerned about these things….” In most cases, the client will be able to tolerate the added complexity long enough for you to explain why these new ideas are just as important or even more so than her original concerns.
This step helps the client cope with the mental exhaustion that occurs from getting too much information and keeps her from reverting to the simpler idea. A written checklist is a great visual way to catalog the important issues that need addressing and to keep the focus on the big picture.
Request more information on wealth-management checklists and other resources from the AB Advisor Institute by visiting http://alliancebernstein.com/go/abai.