Function: Investors

Pricing pressure is first a decision-making test

A leadership team reviews another quarter of respectable results, yet nobody feels relaxed. Despite flows remaining acceptable, performance being mixed (though not alarming) and client relationships holding, the pressure remains there. Fees keep tightening, costs keep rising and every investment in capability now has to fight harder for approval.

That is the point at which pricing pressure stops being just a commercial issue and becomes a leadership one.

In many firms, the first response is predictable: reduce spend, slow hiring, simplify where possible, ask more questions of every budget line. Some of that will be right. But the deeper test is whether the senior team can still make clean decisions when the room is tight.

This is where weaker organisations become busier, but less clear. They make more decisions, though there is less hierarchy between them. Important choices sit alongside inherited commitments, internal politics and historical habits. The result? It’s not usually collapse…it’s drift. So while the firm looks active, it is actually slowly becoming less sharp.

The harder (and more useful) questions are more strategic. What are we truly trying to protect? Where do we still have genuine advantage? Which costs are helping us stay competitive, and which are simply part of the furniture? Where are we underinvesting because the short-term numbers are too loud? And where are we protecting activities that no longer justify themselves?

Those are not finance questions in the narrow sense. They are judgement questions.

Pricing pressure forces leaders to face trade-offs they may have delayed in easier periods. What matters most? What can be simplified? What needs defending even if it hurts in the short term? Strong teams do not just cut. They choose. They become more explicit about where the business intends to win and what it must stop doing.

There is also a communication challenge here. People can usually live with difficult choices better than vague ones. What unsettles organisations is not only pressure, but ambiguity. If leaders are clear about what they are protecting, what they are changing and why, the business has a far better chance of staying coherent.

In the end, fee pressure reveals whether a leadership team can still think properly when comfort disappears. That is often the real test.

Senior Investor coaching to support investment teamwork

The Brief

The individual was an experienced investor who had been promoted to head of strategy and was looking for support to manage complex interpersonal relationships amongst team members, in the context of wider organisational change. These challenges, alongside volatile market conditions and demands on personal time and energy had depleted resilience.

The Engagement

A Goldcrest coach with experience working as a portfolio manager engaged with the client for a 12-month term. The assignment began with an alignment meeting with the organisational sponsor to understand the wider context, individual development areas and desired outcomes. A psychometric was used to generate self-awareness, particularly at times of stress, and continued with a focus on recovering and building personal resilience to better cope with the issues at hand. This foundation, combined with a variety of new leadership and teamwork approaches, was applied to investment meetings, the compensation round and a team off-site.

The Outcome

With confidence and wellbeing restored, the challenges at hand became much more manageable. The newly acquired leadership skills, built from senior investor coaching, enabled improved effectiveness and fostered the environment necessary for a high performing team.

Senior Investor coaching to help better navigate the organisation

The Brief

The individual was an experienced and highly valued individual contributor who was having a negative impact on members of adjacent teams due to their interpersonal style and way of working. The client’s intentions were good and motivated by a desire for the firm to succeed but hindered by a critical attitude and direct interpersonal style.

The Engagement

A Goldcrest coach with experience working as a portfolio manager engaged with the client for a 12-month term. The assignment began with an alignment meeting with the organisational sponsor to understand the wider context, individual development areas and desired outcomes. A psychometric was used to generate self-awareness, particularly at times of stress, alongside an extensive round of 360 interviews with colleagues to identify ‘real-life’ examples of the consequences of demonstrated behaviours.

The Outcome

After regular senior investor coaching, the client had a deeper understanding of self, recognition of the power their voice carried, and development of more collaborative techniques to achieve success a significant shift in behaviour that enabled continued investment success alongside better internal relationships and reputation.

Integrating culture post-acquisition

The Brief

The client was a FTSE 250 asset manager, UK-based but highly acquisitive globally. Recent acquisitions were an operational and financial success but the cultural integration was proving a challenge. There was urgency to address this issue as client surveys reported it was impacting their experience. The task was to unify the organisation and build a network of connections between these different tribes. There were multiple areas of focus and a need to be efficient considering the time pressure.

The Engagement

We began by creating 12 cross-functional cohorts of peers from right across the business (legacy and new business areas). We gathered these groups for two-day offsites over 18 months to build a cohesive network of teams. The work addressed:

• The business case for better integration and collaboration

• How high-performing teams and organisations work and how we benchmark

• Self-assessment psychometrics to understand our individual approach to collaboration

• Relaxation time and activities to build stronger relationships, deepen mutual understanding, share knowledge, and build social glue.

The Outcome

There was initial reluctance from some, which we acknowledged and worked with, and pockets of enthusiasm, which we leveraged as the early adopters of change. As time went on, the group largely unified as initial fears were proven unfounded and the benefits of the process were recognised.

After 18 months, the results were terrific. Most participants were aligned and committed. This led to new networks of relationships, better communication and collaboration, and improved client experience.

Many years later now, several cohorts still meet for an annual reunion, such was the strength of the bonds forged.

Connecting siloed teams

The Brief

The client was a US bank. It had traditionally worked in regional teams where everyone knew one another and serviced local clients. However, the strategy was to move to a service line model. Local clients would still be served by local teams; however, the solutions would be provided by central groups of solution specialists. The new model avoided duplication of effort across the regions but required a significant shift in mindset and approach to networked working.

The Engagement

The engagement was to develop a programme of work to connect the new teams, shift mindsets and develop new ways of collaborating. This included:

  • Design and deliver a series of service team workshops to:
  1. Build new relationships
  2. Surface and openly discuss the challenges and the opportunities
  3. Develop strategies to address challenges and capitalise on opportunities
  • Develop and agree on collective ‘rules of engagement’ that defined the new way of working and roll these out across the business
  • Advise on performance management processes and enable line managers to be effective in a matrix reporting environment
  • Advise on remuneration considerations, particularly around incentivising the right behaviours.

The Outcome

This was a complex project, and, as expected, there was both enthusiasm and resistance amongst those involved. Over time, some blockers began to see the benefit and converted to enablers while others were unable or unwilling to adapt moved on. This allowed others who were more aligned, with fresh ideas and energy, to play a more prominent role and drive the change.

The implementation continues, however, with new systems and processes, supported by ongoing work around building relationships and the culture, good progress is being made and the change has critical momentum.

Leading through adversity

The Brief

The client was a NASDAQ listed asset manager who were looking to support a high potential leader as they transitioned from one functional area to another. There was a degree of organisational stress present due to market and competitive conditions, which needed navigating with assurance.

The Engagement

The engagement was a 9-month executive coaching relationship with a focus on letting go of subject matter expertise, building resilience, addressing team dynamics, influencing for change with peers, and developing strategic leadership skills. The meetings were a mixture of in-person and online, as best suited and engagement.

The Outcome

The client found the experience to be very positive with both the sector expertise of the Goldcrest Partners coach and their understanding of a diverse range of relevant topics standing them apart from other coaches. The relationship continues with an extension to enable continued support as the client is considered for promotion.

Career transition for an investor

The Brief

The client was an experienced investor with a strong career at Europe-based asset managers. Following their departure from their most recent employer the brief was to support the move into the next chapter with specialist transition coaching.

The Engagement

A Goldcrest coach with experience working as a portfolio manager engaged with the client for a 12-month term. The coaching themes were reflecting on the previous employer, evaluating purpose and priorities for what came next, exploring personal investment philosophy and process, evaluation of opportunities and finally role application and interview preparation. A psychometric test was used, along with an emotional intelligence diagnostic and a specialist risk appetite survey to generate self-awareness and inform the conversations.

The Outcome

The presence of a companion at a difficult moment always tends to have value and this was very much the case in this engagement. The client has happily taken a position at a firm that shares their values and appreciates their investment approach, which augurs well for the future.

Creating a culture for the next chapter of growth

The Brief

Our client was a leading UK wealth management firm. The new CEO engaged us early in their tenure to help them define the existing culture, establish the desired future culture and support in that change journey.

The Engagement

Our solution was multi-faceted. Initially we needed to get to know the organisation and earn the trust of key players. Once that trust was built, we were able to explore the lived experience through a series of workshops, focus groups and one-to-one conversations. We started concurrently at the executive committee and the new entry levels of the organisation, working our way into the centre. It was vital to identify the individuals who had informal influence and were positive culture carriers and engage them early.

The Outcome

Over a period of six months, we built a picture of what worked well and what could be changed. We supported them to create a new set of values, helped roll them out and give them meaning. Finally, we developed a programme to build the senior management’s leadership capabilities and bind them together as a collaborative layer.

Re-framing performance goals for a senior investor

The Brief

The individual was a top performing long-only equity portfolio manager who experienced the first extended period of underperformance in their career. Goldcrest were asked to help the individual recover personal resilience, explore the currently held investment philosophy and process for investment decision making process and rebuild for the future.

The Engagement

A Goldcrest coach with experience working as a portfolio manager engaged with the client for a 6-month term. The assignment began with an alignment meeting with the investment team head to understand the organisational context, individual development areas and desired outcomes. The personality psychometric was used to generate self-awareness, particularly at times of stress, alongside an emotional intelligence diagnostic to develop further insights in service of the individual’s personal resilience, interpersonal relationships, and investment decision making. 

The Outcome

Work on boundaries and renewal activities boosted wellbeing and enabled a re-framing of performance goals through the lens of inputs to stabilise and build resilience. A reformulated approach to investment philosophy, process and decision making introduced more recognition of uncertainty and agility, and improved investment performance.

Getting the partners on the same page

The Brief

The client was a boutique regulated entity providing accounting and corporate finance services to public and private finance sector clients. The firm had a good reputation, high quality client list and had demonstrated strong growth but the partners were so busy ‘working in’ the business they had not taken a step back, evaluated the strategic objectives and aligned around them.

The Engagement

We began by conducting a round of exploratory interviews with the partners to deeply understand their personal and professional motivations and ambitions to inform next steps. We followed on with 4 half-day in-person strategy meetings to progress thinking and align the team around common goals. The backbone of the delivery was the Goldcrest Strategy Pyramid, which served as a framework to clarify the organisational purpose, create a new group strategy, and identify the key areas of focus to make this a reality. This work was integrated with activities to develop the necessary leadership, culture and teamwork to successfully land it in the business.

The Outcome

The outcome was precious time away from the day-to-day to consider the big questions. Clarity on where interests aligned and diverged, what culture would enable success and what leadership behaviours were necessary to achieve this was gained, along with the motivation to put it into practice.