Foundation Skills - Facilitating Effective Conversations [Best Practices]

Once a client is placed on the scales and next to Behavioural Archetypes, this triage can inform the communication styles an adviser uses during their conversations. 

There are four generally accepted styles of communication; passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive and assertive. Within these, a clear, assertive style is seen as the most effective at communicating important information, such as financial advice. 

In addition, there are different learning styles that can impact the way people communicate and understand what is being communicated. The most common learning styles are; visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and reading/writing. Lumiant has been designed to include multiple activities to cater for these different learning styles (i.e. the physical values cards are both visual and kinesthetic). 

The role of a financial adviser is to facilitate conversations that simultaneously put people at ease, while also drawing out deeply personal information. This task requires its own unique communication style. Advisers switch modes constantly, between being the impartial seeker of information, and being the expert provider of advice. This means that they jump between communication style depending on who they are talking to, and what role they are playing.