How strong is your commitment to serve?
I read a very interesting article by Dani Peer in yesterday’s Financial Review here in Australia about the selling culture within the financial services industry. Read here for the full article.
Peer illustrates the issues with financial advisories who have an intention to sell rather than an intention to serve. When offering a solution to the problem Peer says changing from a sales culture to a service culture is the best way forward. I love this quote – “just like culture ate strategy for breakfast when Peter Drucker’s thinking dominated boardrooms, culture will eat ethics for lunch today”.
He states that culture dictates behaviour. While I completely agree that culture dictates behaviour and not education, not compliance, not legislation and not ethics training, I do think that ethics training has a role to play if it’s backed up with a behavioural change initiative that can then feed into a culture change. I can see that just as with our learning transfer methodology, Turning Learning into Action (TLA), it’s the mindset that drives the results – compliance or ticking the box will get sub-optimal outcomes every time in whatever field you are working. With TLA, similar to the approach that Peer is advocating, we challenge participants’ perceptions and ask hard and insightful questions that often create discomfort. That is part of our role and our genuine desire to serve, applicable across organisations. How are you choosing to serve your clients and teams today?