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Hosted by Financial Advisor Coach, Ray Sclafani, "Building The Billion Dollar Business" is the ultimate podcast for financial advisors seeking to elevate their practice. Each episode features deep dives into actionable advice and exclusive interviews with top professionals in the financial services industry. Tune in to unlock your potential and build a successful, enduring financial advisory practice.
Ray Sclafani (00:00.142)
you
Welcome to Building the Billion Dollar Business, the podcast where we dive deep into the strategies, insights, and stories behind the world's most successful financial advisors and introduce content and actionable ideas to fuel your growth. Together, we'll unlock the methods, tactics, and mindset shifts that set the top 1 % apart from the rest. I'm Ray Sclafani and I'll be your host.
Most teams obsess over getting new team member on boarding right, creating the right experience to maximize the success and impact of that new hire. Far fewer, however, put the same discipline into how they say goodbye. Today, I want to talk about the part of leadership most teams avoid, and that's off-boarding with integrity. For top teams, fit and alignment are just as important as skill. I know you get that.
whether it's a new hire or someone who's been with you for years, there do come some moments when the next right step is a separation. And let me clarify from the start here. The content I want to share with you today supports, but it doesn't replace the legal compliance and human resource requirements that you must adhere to. There are times when an employee's behavior requires immediate involvement from compliance or legal counsel, and that's non-negotiable. Today's discussion is more about respecting your culture
by managing the partners with the same professionalism you use during onboarding. And I want you to shift your thinking about this for a moment. Offboarding is not about fixing failures, it's more about stewardship. When done well, it reinforces your culture, it honors the individual and protects the business. And let's begin with the strategic aspect of fit for a moment. Every successful team,
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shares a vision, their values, their accountability structures. And then when someone strays from that alignment, whether in behavior, performance, or mindset, it becomes a splinter that just won't fix itself. The saying slow to hire and quick to fire, I believe is often misunderstood. It's not impulsive. It's more about having the courage to act when the truth becomes more clear. What we know is that
Great leaders provide regular feedback. set clear expectations. They talk openly about performance and they've got a structure for professional development and performance management. There are no surprises that surface when done well. The real challenge arises when your truth and the team's truth are out of sync with the individual's truth. They might believe everything is just fine while the team notices the gaps.
And that dissonance grows until clarity becomes unavoidable. You know, I saw this play out recently on my own team. We were in Park City for our annual offsite retreat and one of our team members who was usually engaged and leading effectively had pulled back completely. The team noticed it immediately. I noticed it immediately. Here we were in this stunning mountainside setting.
planning for our future, learning from what we've accomplished so far during the year. Everyone was focused, however, on this person's disengagement. So I addressed it right away. And that conversation ultimately began that person's transition out of our team. He shared that his contribution didn't match the compensation he was receiving and that he didn't have the skillset or competencies to perform at the level we were expecting.
And he wasn't wrong on a small team. There's no tall grass. There's nowhere to hide. And team members often wear multiple hats. Everyone has to carry their weight. And so as we surfaced issues around project management, clearer career paths, and he received that feedback. He actually, instead of leaning in and elevating his performance, he ultimately chose to step away. It was mutual. It was non-combative.
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And he ultimately made his own decision and that matters. Co-creation is key. As a coaching organization, we gave him the space to make the decision that was right for him and honoring him while also honoring the needs of our team and our clients. That's what true partnership is all about. Even in an off-boarding way. It allowed both sides to walk forward with clarity and respect and dignity without forcing any outcome that neither of us believed would work.
Clarity is the main key to an exit that preserves the dignity and safeguards the broader team and clients. Offboarding should never feel punitive. It needs to be honest and humane and aligned with the values you want your leaders to exemplify each and every day. The Society for HR Management, SHRM, they've got some best practices around this. Those best practices also closely match what we see working with top advisory firms.
And I want to provide you a framework that you can use to either create your own offboarding checklist or take what you currently have and use this structure to think about new and different ways to improve your own offboarding checklist. I noticed most teams will do activities they're aware of, know, unplugging certain computers and access, communicating with clients. You probably do a bunch of what I'm about to share with you.
But what I want you to do is get really good, just like you have a good onboarding checklist. Make sure you're updating your offboarding checklist as well. So here's a framework that every firm wants to think about. Your own firm needs a version that will fit your culture, the size of your organization, whether you have a small team or a very large firm, and depending upon what kind of regulatory structure you're involved with. the first step is really about pre-offboarding the planning around that.
And that's the performance conversations, maybe all prior feedback, the shift in responsibilities, deciding who's going to communicate what, when, and to whom. So all that pre-offboarding planning is essential. Number two is the exit conversation. I'm going to talk more about this in just a moment, but you want to hold a conversation that's private and direct and thoughtful and share the specific reasons for separation. If you've done this right, it won't be a surprise.
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You want to acknowledge their contributions because they are more than likely have made some and then co-create some departure messaging so that you can preserve trust with clients and team members. As Kim Scott says in Radical Candor, care personally, challenge directly, don't sugarcoat, don't shame, tell the truth with care and clarity and always respect that relationship. Number three, post-offboarding communication. So you want to be clear
about who's communicating to whom and what. You want to reinforce your cultural expectations, communicate with the team honesty, avoid all gossip. I know that that sounds so simple, but give the team space to process the change and be able to ask a bunch of questions as well of you and of other leaders in your organization. Number four, knowledge transfer. There are probably some key relationships, whether they're client or vendor relationships, there's ongoing
projects and responsibilities. There's probably some documentation of workflows and processes. So transfer knowledge number five is the realignment and forward planning. Like what's the plan? And most team members will think, well, how is this going to affect me? So communicate the plan for the team structure going forward. I often find it's really valuable at this moment in time to seek team member feedback because the team may have an alternative staffing model.
Some teams might want to raise a hand and team members raise a hand and say, Hey, I want to take on some new responsibilities or maybe we should think about redefining some roles. So initiate all of that new hiring, new structure once everybody's in agreement. So that's the plan moving forward. And number six, technology and security, obviously revoking system and email access, updating permissions, notifying relevant clients and vendors.
through the tech side and security side of all things. So that seems obvious. Number seven is compliance and administration. Obviously finalizing payroll and comp benefits, make sure all that complies with HR policies and regulatory standards and industry requirements. So that whole compliance and administration is number seven. Okay, so around all of this framework, again, go back and look at your own. Are you really clear about your checklist?
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is the one you have about time to get updated and improved. Through your own framework, speed and accuracy will be crucial, especially in this highly regulated industry that we all work in. We followed the same framework within our team during the most recent transition I shared with you. After that conversation in Park City, after a series of conversations with this individual, and when we came to a mutual understanding, we held a brief all hands huddle.
It wasn't a big formal team meeting. It was simple, intentional, quick. The goal was clear, to give him the chance to speak directly to the team in his own words about his transition, and then to offer the team a moment to support him. High performing teams build genuine friendships outside of work, and leaders risk forgetting that. We didn't forget. We honored our values, the relationship we share with one another, and we lived by them.
We co-created the messaging, aligned as a group, and then communicated respectfully and transparently. From there, we moved through the rest of our framework, transferring relationships and projects, updating the CRM, documenting workflows, securing technology access, notified our clients and vendors that needed to be notified. And the team actually came up with an unbelievable new idea and new structure in a matter of five days.
They all had seen the gaps. They all were clear about the training and development they felt like they needed. A number of people on the team raised their hands and stepped up and took on new responsibilities. And it provided a whole new way of working that we're very excited about. Nothing dramatic, no surprises, just a disciplined, respectful process that protected the team, the clients, and that individual. And since I mentioned exit interviews a moment ago, I want to just dig in for about two moments here.
Their importance is worth underscoring. Even when the decision is clear to all parties, somebody should run the exit conversation because the insights can be as invaluable for leadership as anything. A simple open-ended questions such as, hey, what worked well for you? Where did you feel blocked or unsupported? How could we be better prepared for someone new coming into the role? You wanna treat this as a real opportunity to learn.
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not a box to check. Any departing team members perspective can be a gift. It's their truth. As long as you're willing to listen. It also brings clarity when the vision values or direction are not aligned. Sometimes the healthiest outcome is acknowledging that learning from it and just agreeing to part ways. That was true for us at ClientWise in the example I shared. My good friend, Mark Tibergion once reminded me many years ago, people will be joiners to your team.
for the same reasons they will exit your team. And there are four reasons and in this order, nature of the work, do they like what they do? Are they good at it? Are they willing to elevate their performance in the nature of the work, their responsibilities? Number two, nature of the workplace. What's the vibe? What's the culture? Number three, nature of the relationship with those in charge. And number four is money.
If you'll notice that nature of the workplace is really key. And that's where I want to wrap up with culture because off-boarding either enhances it or diminishes it. After every departure, debrief with your team. What did we learn? What should we adjust? Reinforce norms and performance expectations with the team. Clarify the non-negotiables and remind everyone that honoring individuals and maintaining high standards serves our clients.
Straight talk, candid and direct, relationship focused, no gossip, no drama. Many elite teams establish expectations early, including agreements that specify if alignment breaks, we'll address it with honesty, integrity, and respect, and then live by that. Because when expectations are set in advance, departures aren't surprises, and they're part of a shared commitment. Because in the end, how you say goodbye is just as important as you say hello.
When you do this right, offboarding protects your culture, safeguards your clients, and helps your team move forward with clarity and courage. It's not about personal feelings. It's about alignment. Here are a few coaching questions to maybe conclude this episode. Take these four questions back to your team. Number one, what lessons can we learn from this departure to inform future hiring and development? Number two, how can we establish feedback loops earlier to avoid surprises if there are any? Number three,
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How can our off-boarding process better embody our values? So take time out to review what you currently have in your off-boarding process and checklist. And number four, are there patterns emerging in recent departures and what do they tell us? Hey, so thanks for listening today. Stay focused, stay intentional, keep building your billion dollar business. Feel free to give us a five-star review and share this episode with a friend or colleague. Well, thanks for tuning in and that's a wrap. Until next time, this is Ray Sclafani Keep building.
growing and striving for greatness. Together, we'll redefine what's possible in the world of wealth management. Be sure to check back for our latest episode and article.