Goals-Based Wealth Management: An Integrated and Practical Approach to Changing the Structure of Wealth Advisory Practices

Chapter 14Teams Versus Individuals

As we just saw in Chapter 13, the genesis of many multi-family family offices and independent fee-only financial advisors has led them to be a collection of a few highly successful and qualified individuals. In this chapter, we discuss the need to think in an alternative manner: develop firms that are based on the notion that clients are better served by teams, not by an individual.

Too Many Disciplines for Anyone to Master All of Them Fully

If we go back far enough in history, prior to the advent of wealth management advisors, wealthy individuals and families hired specialists. Their choice, as we have already seen, was most often driven by the one need they saw as the most crucial. This is what led to an initial advisory industry structure that comprised private banks, lawyers who specialized in fiduciary and estate transfer issues, or tax advisors. I vividly remember attending meetings of family boards or serving on them and noticing that the most crucial advisor was an individual who, although incredibly competent in his or her discipline, was literally “punting” when it came to the others. As an asset manager by professional background, I most often noticed it when the lead advisor was an estate or a tax lawyer who made it appear that he or she knew everything there was to know about investment management, but was rarely much more than a gifted amateur, at best. I even remember when the chair of a family board was an estate lawyer who ...