Exhibiting investment leadership, establishing a winning culture, building high performing investment teams – are all intertwined.
On Wed., May 27th at the Hotel Allegro, Jim Ware, CFA presented from the new white paper from Focus Group Consulting “”Investment Challenges: Remaining Relevant through Compelling Value”. The 35 people in attendance were given terrific insights into what it will take for investment management firms to be successful in the post-financial crisis era.
Unlike many talks and studies of the success criteria in the investment industry, Jim’s material did not dwell on a benchmark beating strategy or how to become better at marketing. Rather, through the right kind of investment leadership, winning firms will be successful at hiring the right people and developing a strong culture. Improved talent retention and decision making will directly lead to the success of the firm.
Strengths, weaknesses, and inattention to blind spots were discussed. Leadership in the investment industry has tended to fall onto driven, smart individuals with exceptional technical skills. However, developing talent, collaboration and self-awareness tend to be not so strong in traditional investment leaders, yet these areas are most important for creating success in the new environment.
Through audience polling attendees were able to directly provide feedback based on observations within their own firms, and the results were compared to averages compiled by Focus Consulting Group in similar talks both within and outside the U.S.
Regarding leadership, Mr. Ware made an observation that only perhaps 50% of an investment management firms success relates to performance. The other 50% is based on relationship, thus the intangibles that were at the heart of the discussion. He cited a firm that had 7 consecutive years of relative outperformance yet had not grown assets under management due to neglect for the culture and leadership concerns.
A few best practices that were highlighted include that good leaders will get curious about a weakness, not defensive. This requires creating a good feedback channel. Modeling good behaviors, and considering culture and values in employment decisions were also of importance.
In conclusion Jim left everyone with a Checklist for the New Era which is a scorecard of 10 important factors that should be assessed by all senior members of a management team and evaluated on a strongly agree – strongly disagree scale. For more information on this please contact the CFA Society Chicago office.