Life planning: comparing Bachrach, Kinder and Nemeth

Diane Weitz of Ashlea Financial Planning road-tested three leading life planning courses to see how they could help her improve client relationships.

Like many financial planners, I have always been keen to improve my communication with my clients and to find ways of understanding what is really important to them.

The three very different courses I outline here have been important for my personal development and will, I hope, translate into a benefit to my clients. Training in our perceptions and being able to listen to our clients, giving them the space to explore what is important in their lives, must be of benefit in building up trust and a more enriched relationship.

So often when a client comes to see people like us, we have an idea of what the solution is before they even open their mouths. The tendency is to present this solution without spending time listening to them. Financial advisers tend to be good at talking, but less good at listening.

Many financial planners dismiss life planning, saying they have always been able to find out exactly what their clients want instinctively. To them, I would say: next time you are in a client meeting, be conscious of how much talking you do and how much the client does.

Bill Bachrach

In 2007 I attended a one-day Institute of Financial Planning conference given by Andy Jervis about Bill Bachrach’s approach to financial planning.

The event, which featured a video of Bachrach conducting a financial planning meeting with clients in which he used his ‘roadmap’ tool, was compelling. Clients are taken through a process in which a questioning technique gradually identifies what is most important to them. Specific goals with dates are added to the roadmap. The technique involves obtaining commitment from the clients to develop the plan and a commitment to progress the plan through quarterly review dates.

This prompted me to explore the process further and in November 2007 I flew to San Diego to take part in a three-day academy given by Bill Bachrach, with the aim of perfecting the interview technique.

Verdict

There is no doubt this process works for those who adopt it fully. For me, the approach was too mechanical and I felt uncomfortable with the need to follow the script religiously. I found there was something slightly unreal about Bachrach – who always appears polished, like a new conker, and unbelievably energetic. I was left with the feeling this was a well-oiled machine that worked like clockwork but left very little room for originality.

George Kinder

I had been aware of George Kinder for some time because he was a regular provider of courses on life planning through the Institute of Financial Planning, none of which I had attended. I received a free copy of his book The Seven Stages of Money Maturity at a Fidelity presentation in the 1990s. It stayed unread on my bookshelf until I heard a talk by Kinder to the Personal Finance Society at a conference in November 2008. After that I booked on to his two-day course on the seven stages of money maturity.

George is a gentle character and extremely well read. During the two days, we were asked to explore our relationship with money, taking us from the early stages in ‘childhood: innocence and pain’, through to ‘adulthood: knowledge and understanding’, providing the vigour to help follow through with a financial plan.

The next stages Kinder puts into a category he calls ‘awakening: vision’, which involves putting something back into the community. There are many examples of great visionaries – including Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King – but many people display vision in their approach to their local communities.

At the pinnacle of the seven stages comes ‘aloha’, the Hawaian word meaning to bestow a blessing. This is really the bestowing of kindness and generosity from one human being to another.

Verdict

The two-day course was an uncomfortable experience at times and I found some of the exercises difficult. Shining through this, though, was Kinder’s passion for what he was doing. He was a thoughtful, perceptive and inspirational speaker.

One striking feature was that Kinder, through his listening skills, was able to take clients to a level at which they opened up to reveal their ‘heart’s desire’.

Kinder relates how this process has led his clients to have the ‘vigour’ to make life-changing decisions, brought about through a realisation of their core values and how this affected what they wanted to do with their lives. This idea is explored in more detail in his book Lighting The Torch.

Some of the people I met on the two-day course went on to complete Kinder’s five-day course ‘Evoke’, which, after mentoring, leads to the full qualification as a registered life planner. I hope to do this later this year.

Maria Nemeth

In May last year, I attended a two-day conference put on by the Institute of Financial Planning entitled ‘The Arts and Science of Financial Planning’. The key speaker on the first day was Dr Maria Nemeth, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who has moved from providing therapy to coaching. Her talk revolved around her first question: ‘How would you like it if your life got easier?’

Her descriptions of the ‘monkey mind’, which we all have as our inner voice and which has an unlimited number of excuses for why we should not do things, resonated with me. When I learnt that Nemeth was going to give a four-day course on ‘Mastering Life’s Energies’ I was inspired to join.

Wide-ranging audience

Unlike the other courses I attended, Nemeth’s attracted a wider audience than financial planners. As well as some high-profile planners, we were joined by two Anglican priests, a number of executive coaches, an urban monk (who was also an excellent painter) and a graphic designer.

Nemeth’s approach is to develop you as an individual so you are provided with the skills to communicate with your clients at a deeper level. Such skills were also important in all the other occupations attending. Nemeth is keen to remove the pressures of working life where, so often, we waste time being busy.

Conquering our monkey minds

There are parallels with Kinder in that both he and Nemeth draw on the philosophy of Buddhism in their approach. Nemeth describes the metaphysical world in which ideas and plans are formulated. Before these embryonic ideas can be put into action, ‘monkey mind’ produces all kinds of objections that generate ‘trouble at the border’. Energy has to be harnessed to conquer this and enable our ideas to overcome these objections and achieve our ambitions.

During the four days we were encouraged to support our fellow delegates and tackle the exercises with ‘clarity, focus, ease and grace’. We learnt much about ourselves and how to look at people through what Nemeth calls ‘the green lens’: a colour-coded way of looking at someone to make sure our approach to them is positive. The opposite of this positive view, the ‘red lens’, embodies a negative outlook.

Maria Nemeth’s green lens view of people:

• This person is a hero, whole and complete.
• This person has goals and dreams and a desire to make a difference.
• This person has his/her own answers.
• This person is contributing to me right now.
• This person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

Maria Nemeth’s red lens view of people:

• There is something wrong with this person.
• This person does not have his/her answers.
• I do and it’s up to me to give him/ her the answers to fix him/her.
• This person’s motivation and commitment are questionable.
• This person is a drain on me.