Richard S. Hawkes - Navigate the Swirl: 7 Conversations for Business Transformation

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 7
6. Chapter 8
7. Chapter 9
8. Chapter 12
9. Chapter 14
10. Chapter 16
11. Chapter 17
12. Glossary

The 7 Conversations is a unique model for organizations to grow and innovate in a team-based way with a powerful transformation accelerator.

Penny Pennington, Managing Partner, Edward Jones

ACTIVATE YOUR PURPOSE

ALIGN YOUR TEAM

ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

CONVERSATIONS for BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

RICHARD S. HAWKES

FOUNDER, GROWTH RIVER

Copyright 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hawkes, Richard S. (Change leadership expert), author.

Title: Navigate the Swirl : Seven Conversations for Business Transformation / Richard S. Hawkes.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2022] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021059924 (print) | LCCN 2021059925 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119868798 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119868811 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119868804 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Organizational change.

Classification: LCC HD58.8 .H389 2022 (print) | LCC HD58.8 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/06dc23/eng/20220113

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059924

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059925

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: ricochet64/Getty Images

For Christina, the love of my life.

by Penny Pennington, Managing Partner, Edward Jones

On January 1, 2019, I became the managing partner (as a private partnership, this is our corollary to a CEO) of Edward Jonesjust the sixth one in our firm's 100-year history. The age and endurance of our firm is just one dimension of the moment we found ourselves inwe were a new leadership team, stewarding a storied company into the future.

Our firm was doing extremely well when I began my tenure. Edward Jones had experienced remarkable growth for decades. After starting with one financial advisor in 1922 and growing to 100 financial advisors in the early 1970s, the firm reached the milestone of 1,000 financial advisors in 1986, then added its 10,000th in 2008and has nearly 19,000 financial advisors as I write this. In terms of number of financial advisors, we are one of the two or three largest firms today.

By almost any measure, the firm has been successful. Edward Jones is listed on the Fortune 500 and is the largest privately held financial services firm in the industry. We serve 7 million clients and care for $1.8 trillion of their assets as of the end of 2021. Our more than 50,000 associates consistently rate us highly as an employer, leading to 22 consecutive years on FORTUNE's Best Companies to Work For list.

At the same time, I was acutely aware of the fact that we are on the verge of unprecedented changeand it's change that was already underway before the COVID-19 pandemic began. The investors we meet with are often looking for more than traditional financial advice; what they're seeking looks more like advice about holistic financial wellness. They're interested in a very human-centered approach that is quite different from the way financial advisors have traditionally worked.

What this all means is that the role of the financial advisor must evolveand the value of their role has changed. Clients are placing even more value on having a personal relationship with their financial advisor than ever before. Fortunately, at Edward Jones, that's been our competitive advantage from day one. We've always put our relationships with our clients at the center of what we do. But other firms have started to see the value in it, and they're working hard to close that gap.

In addition to these pressures, there are other elements of change creating great impacts for us. Regulatory changes are rightfully requiring us to serve our clients and their best interest. The economics of our business model are also under pressurethe transaction of purchasing securities has become a commodity and is nearly a free good. Competitive forces have lowered the breakpoint at which clients can purchase certain products. These pressures have an impact on revenue and compensation. Perhaps your business and model are undergoing the same kind of metamorphosis.

With all these factors in play, it was clear that our firm was at an inflection point. To me, it also meant that the conditions were ideal for transformation, and for putting conditions in place for our firm that would allow us to continuously improve over time. It's important in this context to recognize the difference between change and transformation. Change occurs in linear, predictable, and incremental waysa change to a digitally enabled value proposition, for example. Transformation, on the other hand, is more vertical. It's often about multi-stakeholder (rather than single-stakeholder) impact, and it fundamentally impacts the purpose, culture, leadership, strategy, capabilities, and operating model of a company simultaneously. Transformation is riskier and more unpredictable than change.