What is it like to be a pioneer in a field that's popping? Ask Dr. Susan Massenzio, consulting psychologist at Wachovia's Calbre Division. After more than 20 years of advising hundreds and hundreds of financial advisors and wealthy multi-generation client families, the Massachusetts-based PhD finds herself and her specialty in great demand.
"The importance of establishing trusted relationships has always been understood," she says, "but now the need to understand clients in a different way, to establish a trust relationship as the basis for the creation of a true client experience is addressed by speakers at most wealth conferences. The stage is ready now."
Since mid-summer, Massenzio's major role has been as associate director of Family Dynamics for Calibre, the division of Wachovia Wealth Management that, with $18 billion in assets, is one of the country's largest multi-client family offices, providing sophisticated and integrated wealth management solutions to families with $50 million and more in investable assets.
Working closely with Dr. Keith Whitaker, managing director of Family Dynamics and a Research Fellow at Boston College who also headed a private foundation for 10 years, Massenzio consults to some 20 senior relationship managers serving 220 ultra-high-net-worth families. Each relationship manager leads a team comprised of professional experts--attorneys, CPAs, CFAs--all "very credentialed," she notes.
Although she and Whitaker are Boston-based, they commute frequently to Calibre's offices in Winston-Salem, Philadelphia and Palm Beach.
A graduate of Simmons College, Massenzio earned her PhD in counseling psychology from Northwestern University. Formerly a professor and director of the Human Services Program at Northeastern University in Boston, she came to Calibre from John Hancock where, as the firm's senior psychologist, she coached and counseled senior officers and their families in leadership development and organizational consultation.
You also had your own private consulting practice. How did the John Hancock association come about?
My degree in psychology was in working with family counseling and some new research on how psychology applies to organizational effectiveness. I was approached by John Hancock because they wanted to provide state-of-the-art consultation to their senior officers to ensure that they and their families were functioning at peak performance. This was very progressive, very cutting edge. I loved applying psychology to people's work and organizations. Now I have the opportunity to work with families that have the greatest ability to impact the world.
Currently, however, aren't some of those families being impacted themselves by the market's nosedive?
Our relationship managers are dealing with clients who are losing enormous amounts of wealth, and how it feels to be responsible for that. It's a completely new situation in terms of what we bring to them. The message is the same; it's the intensity and enormity that are different: How important it is to be there for your clients in these times, to communicate more at a time when people tend to withdraw.
The key to our message is to understand the principles of psychology, but always respect the fact that every family has its own personal needs. The relationship manager's first step is to make an assessment of those needs, like a doctor making a good diagnosis.
Once we understand what the [client family's] core beliefs are, we can help the team design a plan. What are [the family's] goals and how can we maximize them? By clarifying goals and breaking them down into manageable tasks, then building on success.
Like the best in psychology--the relationship between the patient and the doctor--it's a matter of listening, building trust, providing excellence and positive intent.
Your title is associate director of Family Dynamics, but isn't the relationship manager your primary client?
We do work directly with a select number of families, but our focus is on the importance of the client interfacing with professionals who know how to use the core principles of psychology to enhance the [client-advisor] experience--to listen, and listen beyond what the client is saying, which requires a whole different set of skills. In psychology, we call it "listening with the third ear."
Wealth managers were taught [to interface with clients] in a certain way, but now people are beginning to apply principles of psychology. And there's no question they're receptive. Some instinctively know what they need to do. We want them to reflect on how they feel about what's going on in the economy so they can process their clients' anxiety and react from a position where they are sharing their wisdom, their knowledge--not just reacting.
We're also focused on winning new business--retaining and growing present clients and asset base--and helping the relationship managers to achieve their own peak performance and resilience, so they can stay on top of their game. We get them in the best possible mindset; when they feel successful, they can make their clients feel successful.
Is your technique something you can share with our readers, or is it a professional secret?
Actually, we've been asked by membership organizations in the field to do Webinars on how to solidify client relationships. After all, there is a certain generosity that comes from being a professional. We remind them to look at their own past experience with [market] turbulence and transition, and to trust themselves that they'll get through this. The actual tools we use go back to the core truths, supported by the research, about what keeps people resilient:
First, ensure that your mind works FOR you, not against you. Reflect on what you're saying to yourself and on techniques that build up hardiness and a good psychological mindset. Focus forward!
Second, seek wise counsel by connecting with others in a quality way. We get our very senior people to come in for a case discussion because people need people. It's helpful to get a group of people together to share their experiences and their experience.
And third, we encourage our relationship managers to take care of themselves--physically and spiritually. Go for a walk, go easy on the alcohol, and find moments to get away from stress.
Speaking of stress, do you know how or whether Calibre will be affected by the merger with Wells Fargo that's due to be completed by the end of the year?
What's happening internally pales by comparison to what's happening in the markets and the economy. Our work goes on as usual. The most important message we can send our clients is to focus on things one can control. They can't control the economy or the markets, but they can control how good they feel, their own confidence, and the quality of their client relationships.
Nancy R. Mandell is managing editor of Wealth Manager.
