I recently made a brief attempt to discover the origins of the word “upskill”. It turned out to be trickier than I’d assumed. Maybe I need to upskill in the internet-trawling department.
Although it doesn’t reveal where or by whom, Webster’s Dictionary reports the term was first used in 1978. This should be of interest to the gang at the Oxford English Dictionary, who suggest it made its debut in 1983.
Regardless, upskilling is a concept with which the world of financial advice has a curious relationship. The last time our industry was officially compelled to upskill on a significant scale, somewhat embarrassingly, thousands of advisers headed for the hills and never returned.
That was back in the days of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), which famously introduced higher professional standards for the adviser community. To say the least, this revolution was less than universally welcomed.
To be fair, I don’t really blame some of those who turned tail and scarpered. Many were in the twilight of their careers and didn’t much relish the prospect of sitting an exam for the first time in 40-odd years. They were old dogs who weren’t willing to learn new tricks.
Others perhaps merited less sympathy. The idea of upskilling was never going to appeal to them, as they didn’t have sufficient skills to build on in the first place. They abandoned ship simply because they feared being found out and thrown overboard.
The departure of market participants who were manifestly underqualified – or even entirely unqualified – was one of the brighter corollaries of the RDR. Meanwhile, the creation of an advice gap that’s still with us today was one of the less useful consequences.
I wonder what would happen if a similarly seismic edict were handed down from above now. Would another slew of advisers rush towards the exit or would we all knuckle down and accept the challenge of bettering ourselves?
Frankly, this question is redundant. Advisers shouldn’t need to be told to improve. Upskilling – or, if you prefer, “continuing professional development” (CPD) – should be seen as an obligation, not an imposition.
The fact is that our industry, like so many others, is facing near-relentless disruption. There are multiple engines of churn and change, including technological progress and ever-shifting client requirements.
Individuals who adopt a “wait and see” attitude to upskilling can’t sincerely expect to keep pace with these far-reaching events and trends. They certainly can’t expect to get ahead of the curve.
The same goes for businesses that favour a “head in the sand” approach. They’re not prepared to adapt. They’re hoping against hope that they can get away with running on the spot.
In my opinion, adviser firms that deign to engage in CPD only when the regulators stir into action have no interest in it to start with. They barely qualify as laggards in the upskilling stakes.
By contrast, the leaders are those that practise upskilling as a matter of course. They appreciate its capacity to generate benefits not just for themselves but for their clients and their stakeholders as a whole.
And I’m talking about real upskilling here. I don’t mean devoting a couple of hours to learning origami just so you can bung something under “CPD” on your timesheet. I mean stuff that counts.
Crucially, that includes soft skills. Advisers can greatly increase their knowledge base by devoting more focus to collaboration, time management, critical thinking and other valuable proficiencies that are routinely overlooked.
We can rest pretty well assured that the FCA isn’t going to demand higher professional standards in these areas anytime soon. For one thing, I’m not sure the folks there have the imagination. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aspire to such goals.
It basically boils down to organisational culture. Advisers and the businesses they represent can treat upskilling as a permanent consideration, an opportunity, a duty – or they can view it as a peripheral concern, an inconvenience, even a kind of threat.
For as long as these two camps exist – and, make no mistake, they do – a commitment to voluntary upskilling will remain a potent source of competitive advantage in our industry. As such, it deserves to be recognised by clients as a key differentiator.
Andrew Goodwin is co-founder and CEO of Truly Independent and the author of ‘The Happy Financial Adviser’.
