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What was coming up for me as I was listening to actually is, you know, here in at least the US, like we talk about like long-term care and insurance, like for that.
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And I was just thinking, like, what an assumption to make, or pushing like your own values as an advisor that, hey, long-term care insurance, like that is important to have, or it might be important for a client.
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But what if that client comes from more of a Eastern cultural background and they are not individualistic, like we a lot of Americans or American culture is like, what if the client's like, no, I'm not, I don't want to do that because my kids are going to be taking care of me.
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And if you're like, that's wrong, no, like your kids have their own lives.
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Do they even want that?
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Like, well, that's just that can be just an example like of a place to really understand, you know, and ask some of those questions around the values piece, then how does that play into the financial decision?
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Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the skill where financial planning meets human understanding.
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As an exceptional financial advisor, you know that financial planning is about more than just numbers, it's about giving clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters best, which is why each episode is designed with that goal in mind.
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You'll learn how to uncover the psychology behind client decisions and gain insights and behavioral strategies needed to create deeper, more meaningful client relationships.
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Whether it's mastering discovery meetings, handling sensitive client conversations, or understanding what is truly keeping your client staff.
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You'll walk away with not only strategies that you can use in your next client meeting, but also the confidence to do so.
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Oh, yeah.
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Hi.
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Welcome to Planning of the Office, the podcast where financial planning meets human understanding.
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I'm your host, Ashley Kwamey, and today I'm thrilled to welcome Dr.
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Amanda Kraft to the show.
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Dr.
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Amanda Kraft is a researcher and educator whose PhD work examines the cultural intelligence in the financial advisory space.
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When I saw her on LinkedIn and her posting, that's how I should say stalking, really.
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But when I found her work and then started stalking her, I was like, oh my goodness, like she has to come on and share a little bit more about it.
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So, Amanda, thank you so much for coming on.
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So excited to have you here.
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Thank you, Ashley.
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I'm excited to be here.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Now, before we kind of get into all the good stuff, can you just maybe take 30 seconds to a minute, just high level a little bit about you, a little bit about the work you do?
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Right.
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Exactly as you said.
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I'm a researcher at Western Sydney University.
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And I finished my PhD at the beginning of 2025 after about nine years of working on it, looking at exactly as you said, the cultural intelligence of financial advisors.
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So I suppose the inspiration came from my own sort of studies and work in financial planning and realizing that in a multicultural country, we teach other business students about cross-cultural management within other degrees.
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And it certainly wasn't something I studied it in a different field, and then I sort of wondered why don't we teach financial advisors about culture when it seems so obvious to me that you walk into any large financial planning practice in Australia and clients are multicultural.
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And surely that must make a difference to how you provide advice to a client.
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So I got a bit of pushback from the industry when I first started.
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Sad sadly, like I'm not surprised.
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So the initial, yeah, the initial feedback I got was either this topic doesn't exist, like this doesn't exist, there is no issue because we treat everybody as individuals.
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So no problems.
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Or it doesn't matter to me as an advisor because all of my clients are the same culture as or the same ethnicity as me.
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So it's not an issue.
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And then I thought, well, don't you think that's a bit strange?
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Don't you think it's a bit strange that you only attract people who are the same as you?
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What isn't that limiting your client base?
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So I proceeded to do the research anyway to try to find out initially just to find out what was happening in the space.
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So that was the subject of my first article was interviewing advisors and asking them what do you experience does culture make a difference?
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And that's what I found out from the first round of interviews was exactly that same sort of split that I actually got it in in data, that some advisors saw no problem at all.
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And other advisors who were those advisors who came from multicultural backgrounds themselves saw all kinds of different people.
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They said once they had once they had skill that they couldn't necessarily quantify, this skill of being able to work with people who are different from them, it opened up all of their horizons to a broader client base.
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And they, you know, just because you were an Indian advisor didn't mean you were you were mainly advising Indian clients.
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You had Italian clients, you had South African clients, you had Chinese clients.
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It didn't matter what the client culture was, but because you were used to dealing with people who were different from yourself, you could build relationships with a wide variety of people.
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I'm so glad that you said no to the naysayers and continued to follow like that passion and that per and that pursuit there.
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That little bit of, I don't know if you're a rebellious person, but a little bit of that, like, you know what?
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Challenge accepted.
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I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna keep going for it.
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Okay, so you've thrown out the word culture here.
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We've talked, we've said like culture a few times here.
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Before we maybe continue down this path, I'd love to hear like how you define culture, like in this context.
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I think that that's really important for our listeners that maybe we're all on the same page here.
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I know many people, when they hear that word, there's an automatic maybe association to you know ethnicity or race.
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But I think that you have a broader definition.
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So I'd love if you could talk a little bit about how do you define culture.
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No worries.
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Exactly as you said, culture is often thought of in like the average person would say, Oh, you're talking about race or ethnic or nationality, the country someone comes from.
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But it doesn't have to be that.
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Basically defined as your system of values, the assumptions you make about how the world works, what the societal norms are that you're used to, what communication style you use, and the lived experiences you've had throughout your life that shape your behaviors and your attitudes towards things that come from the group memberships that you've had.
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So a culture can form, as people do, like a culture can be related to the ethnicity you belong to, a culture can be related to the nationality you belong to, can also be the family you belong to, the age demographic you belong to, the socioeconomic group you belong to.
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Culture is multifaceted in that way, in that you draw your beliefs about the world and about how the financial world works and how you should operate inside it from those values and attitudes you've acquired from other groups you've been a member of and the people you associated with and what they thought.
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I love that.
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My background just in marriage and family therapy, like when we look at things across a systemic, a lot of those things, right, come into place and how everything that you just said there.
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And so I think that it is really important that when we are working with people, like as practitioners, right, when our job requires us to work with people, that we have just a better, more all-encompassed like understanding of just who and how people are and everything that you just shared around uh someone's culture and what that means and what it could mean.
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It's important for them to know.
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Now, when we look at advisors, though, because your research focused on advisors.
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And when you surveyed them, I know this was an Australian advisor demographic.
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Most of our, we do have actually quite a few Australian listeners, maybe a few more after this episode.
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But while a lot of ours are US-based or uh UK-based, probably some overlap and similarities here, I would imagine.
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But when you were surveying financial advisors in Australia and compared them to just other professional groups, where did they land just with their like cultural intelligence level or the skills?
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Exactly.
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So what I measured was rather than look at exactly at the cultures of the advisors or just interview them, I wanted to quantify something, right?
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Like I wanted something measurable that I could report that we could perhaps improve with education or training or something like that.
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So I used the framework that's called cultural intelligence.
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And rather than think of it like IU, think of it more like EU, emotional intelligence.
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It's a skill you can grow.
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So it's a framework about how the areas in which you can develop skills in dealing with people who are different than you, essentially.
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So when I surveyed the Australian advisors, I tried to compare them to other professions, but it was difficult to find data.
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So it just became sort of groups, other groups that had been surveyed.
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So it was things like international students in the U studying in the US, or managers who'd been stationed in Singapore, or interestingly, accounting lecturers in Australia was another group.
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That is interesting.
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The answer is I came up with as many, as many different studies as I could.
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So I had I had about more than a dozen different other groups to compare them to.
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And as I suspected, Australian advisors are below average in their skills, in their intercultural skills.
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And I suspected, based on the fact that I was getting that that interview feedback of people saying this does not matter, I suspected that that group of people when they showed up in the survey would would just not care because one of the dimensions of having intercultural skills is caring about intercultural skills and having an interest in it.
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And I knew that that segment of the population was going to come through in the survey and say, Well, it doesn't matter, and I don't have an interest in it, and it's not my thing.
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And so that probably brought the scores down.
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Whereas you could tell there are some some people who are like, Yes, I'm absolutely fascinated by this.
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My score, yeah, their scores are off the chart because they're interested, they speak multiple languages, they've done training courses on it.
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So it was quite variable, but on average, the average Australian advisor is below average in their intercultural skills compared to the worldwide population.
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And I think the um the Cultural Intelligence Center would say that about 250,000 people have taken that test.
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So when I say like there is an average, and they are below the average of people who have taken the test.
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Not a lot, but a bit.
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And they are below Australian accounting lecturers, which is interesting too.
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That is it, that is actually really, really interesting.
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My father is a CPA here in the States.
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And while I love him and I adore him, I would be curious.
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I think, and I have my own hypothesis on where he would stand on just any cultural intelligence place.
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Maybe he would surprise me.
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I don't maybe he would surprise me.
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I don't know.
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And that was what I had to come up with sort of an idea.
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Like I'm like, why did accountants score better than financial advisors?
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And I thought maybe the difference is, and I've never been able to test this, but maybe future studies.
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When you choose a doctor or you choose an accountant, you don't really care about the the ethnic or cultural background of of the doctor or the the accountant that you go to see.
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You go to see whoever you think is is good, is technically competent, right?
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Or whoever's available that you can get an appointment with, right?
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Whereas with a financial advisor, you're much more picky, I think.
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You're more choosy, you take more time to find someone that you really vibe or gel with.
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And maybe that element is causing people to look for someone who looks or feels like them much more so than they would with someone they would have less.
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You do have a closer relationship with your financial advisor, it's going to be ongoing.
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It's a trusting relationship.
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And even though you may say that you have a trusting relationship with your medical practitioner, it's a 10-minute interaction every every so often.
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It's not the same.
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And so maybe the nature of financial advice relationships that makes this matter more here than in other professions.
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Yeah, I would agree.
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Yeah, I would agree.
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Now, there might be some people listening who are like, okay, Amanda, like this makes sense.
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Like I understand like about culture a little bit, like this definition, expanding this as is helpful and okay.
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Like as a professional, I'm probably maybe I'm not where I quite should be.
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But how does culture shape the financial decisions of my clients?
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Like, how does understanding that culture help me to understand my clients better?
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Can we just maybe talk a little bit about like how does culture show up in client behavior?
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Sure.
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So you could imagine that it's my example is often imagine you have two clients who are otherwise identical with identical investment profiles and identical, theoretically the same goals out of life, but they make completely different decisions.
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And you think, why would these two people who who look on paper very similar make different decisions?
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And it can be around their values.
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So we can take the word culture out if people don't like the word culture and just put it down to you.
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Well, their values are different.
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They they think different things are important and they prioritize differently.
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Now the reason they prioritize differently is because of the background that they've come from.
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It will be differences differences around whether individual responsibility or family responsibility is what drives their decision making.
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So you know in a Western financial planning context, we often prioritize individualization and individual optimization and personal wealth accumulation.
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But people who come from other nations, particularly places like Asia, which are more collectivist, financial decisions like that aren't individual decisions.
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They're family decisions.
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And sometimes it means you don't have the right decision makers in the room if you only have the individual client or an individual couple, because there's multiple generations and extended family members sometimes who are involved in the decision making.
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So it can also be things like supporting family members as they age.
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So in our most western context, we would put our families into aged care and we would expect either some sort of government contribution or individual funding and maybe children chip in a bit into that that care.
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But the expectation is parents go to a facility where they are provided with medical care for end of life.
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Whereas in most eastern countries, that does not happen.
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Someone in the family will will sacrifice their career and take care of that person at home.
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If you are working overseas, you will be sending money back to support your parents.
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Even if you build your own nuclear family in the West and you have your own spouse and children, you still feel familial obligation to support upwards.
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Whereas in the West, most of us in an Anglo-Australian context, parents support children, not children support parents.
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So the flow of capital is different depending on your value system and whether you have obligations to communities.
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So that's a thing with um with a lot of indigenous populations and First Nations people, there will be communal ownership of funds, particularly in Australia.
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They go out to work, they earn, they get their paycheck.
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There is communal obligation that if their uncle needs the car repaired and their cousin needs a school uniform and someone else needs groceries, that all comes out of your paycheck because your money is family property, is communally owned.
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And the theory B, and then so you get you have no personal savings and you have no ability to make personal savings.
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But it's a reciprocity system.
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The next time someone else gets paid, your needs will also be met.
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But it means there's no individual banking or savings culture and they don't see a use for it.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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You've talked about, I think one of the things in one of our calls that I made a note of because I thought that this was really it was relevant for me and interesting just around clients who prefer like tangible assets, like and how culture like can impact that.
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Can you can you talk a little bit about that piece?
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Yeah, the first time someone, one of my students raised an issue for me with an exam was exactly on this topic.
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And I was going to say the student, I am fairly confident that the student was from Syria.
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And he said to me at the end of the exam, Miss, I I couldn't answer question five.
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I said, I I don't understand.
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How come?
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That was a very simple sort of exam question in investments, which was a young couple had gone together, the the woman had a large deposit saved, the the the gentleman did not have much of a deposit saved, he he hadn't worked as long as as the woman had.
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And so they'd come to you for advice on on how to own property jointly while protecting the interests of each party and acknowledging that they were bringing separate amounts into the relationship and that they hadn't been together very long.
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And the student said, I well, you you I couldn't you didn't give me all the information.
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What information didn't I give you?
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And the answer was they said, he said, um, well you haven't told me how much the parents are chipping in on each side or the uncles.
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And I said, Well, there is no parental contribution, no uncle contribution.
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And he said, Well about the siblings, how much what share are each of the siblings going to have in this house?
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None.
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It's just these two people.
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He said, That's not how it works.
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Like that's not how you buy property.
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It's like in in my family, in my community, property everyone helps the next person get on the property ladder.
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And so all the family will chip in for the next person in line when they sort of turn 18, 20, whatever, and it will be jointly owned and everyone contributes.
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And then you do it for the next person.
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So I can't answer your question because you didn't tell me what everyone's contributions were.
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And I thought this surely is something that a financial advisor must come across if my financial advising students are coming across it and telling me that this is their their you know their lived experience in Sydney, Australia.
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Who's advising their parents?
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Who's you know, what's happening out there?
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That because you do see exactly that, that there are certain communities from their cultural values who prefer tangible assets, whether that's gold, whether that's cash, whether that's real estate, but they want to be able to see and touch it because they don't trust the theoretical system of banking.
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And so they and that can be because of historical reasons, particularly people who have been through uh war zones and conflicts, or have been through countries that had, you know, massive inflation issues and currency devaluations, they have learned experience not to trust those things, and they pass that down through generations.
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And I think the research shows on generational values go at least the third generation.
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So they do eventually sort of peter out, but for the first the first generation will absolutely hold tight to tangible assets, the second generation will have a preference for it, and the third generation will like it better.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I had this situation show up with an advisor where the father, so the G1, like was wanting to utilize his liquid, right?
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Asset to buy and purchase land for the family, like for the family, but it was his adult daughters who were coming up, you know, and it's like I need to buy like land and like property, like for them.
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And the advisors struggled because like they weren't even, I think one of them was in university, the other was getting ready to go into university.
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And the advisors struggled because they're like, but what if these like young women like want to like what if they don't want to live by you?
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Yeah, like what if they want to go off?
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And and and so it was a struggle just from understanding culturally.
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And they did come from um historically a you know war-torn country.
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And so it was just interesting, just that mindset around like protection, protection of assets, right?
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And also what do we value?
00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:44.000
We value safety and security, and we see that through land and having that there.
00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:56.640
And so I just love like all the stuff that you were mentioning here, and just how culture it really does shape how clients come to do money and their preferences and their preferences there.
00:21:56.880 --> 00:21:59.680
And I guess for me, like on the financial.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:17.519
Therapy side of things, like to me, this connects a lot to like emotional safety and financial trauma there, particularly, you know, as we were just talking for clients who have been displaced or living in environments where, as you mentioned, like institutions can't be trusted, like the banking system.
00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:20.240
If we can't trust that, then how can we feel safe in that?
00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:28.240
I'd love to maybe hear from you though, like how can advisors start to recognize maybe a client's financial behavior?
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:31.519
Like, when is it rooted in something different?
00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:32.720
Right.
00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:36.559
So the first step is awareness.
00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:43.039
So being aware, which I hopefully at the end of this podcast, everyone is now very aware that it's a potential issue.
00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:59.440
The next step is simply exploring with the client in the getting to know you process, asking certain kinds of questions that will bring out that kind of information if you suspect that culture is an issue and not some sort of individual quirk.
00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:02.880
Sometimes the clients got their own values for their own reasons.
00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:07.359
So you can ask them, I suppose these almost feel like financial therapy questions sometimes.
00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:10.559
You know, how was money talked about when you grew up?
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:16.960
You know, do you feel responsibility financial responsibilities towards other members of family or community?
00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:22.720
What does financial success mean to you personally?
00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:29.759
Does that mean individual success or does that mean sort of success for your family, your broader community?
00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:31.039
Like what does it mean?
00:23:31.359 --> 00:23:38.480
Do you have any particular cultural or religious values that you think shape how you interact with the world?
00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:43.119
And when you make financial decisions, who else do you who else is involved?
00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:45.200
Uh who else do you consult other than me?
00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:47.920
Like as an advisor, other than me, who else do you talk to?
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:57.200
And I think that one always brings out the really interesting ones when you find out who else is actually in on the decision making that you know that you didn't realize.
00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:07.200
Mum or dad actually hears everything and before the decision, like before your advice is acted on, it actually is going to a whole bunch of other people first.
00:24:07.599 --> 00:24:07.920
Yeah.
00:24:08.079 --> 00:24:12.880
And mom and dad may not always agree with what you And they won't agree, right?
00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:16.640
Because they weren't in the room with you when you delivered your advice and explained your reasons.
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:28.640
So they didn't really say, you know, they are getting a secondhand version of what you said, and then they have come in with their own biases and belief systems and values, and they're pushing it down.
00:24:28.799 --> 00:24:38.319
And so but if you didn't know that that was happening in the background, knowing that that was happening in the background might change how you then approach that client.
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:44.319
Yeah, yeah, I think those are all like fantastic, fantastic questions to ask.
00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:55.440
If advisors were maybe if we think about this as maybe I'm trying to organize it, and you have a framework here, the four factors of cultural intelligence.
00:24:55.759 --> 00:25:01.200
Can we organize this maybe in such a way to where talking about these factors, like what are they?
00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:06.000
And maybe that will help just where do we place like some of these questions, right?
00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:09.200
You know, and how we think about like a client and their culture.
00:25:09.519 --> 00:25:11.039
That sounds like a whole research project.
00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:14.480
Wow, research project, I could turn it into like a four-factor model.
00:25:14.559 --> 00:25:15.200
Yes, excellent.
00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:20.799
So on the fly, I start with the first thing to know is that you're interested in it.
00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:32.640
So the first is being willing to be uncomfortable yourself as an advisor and ask questions that you might get answers that you don't expect.
00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:38.720
And to admit that you don't know the that you don't know the the consequences of the answers that you might get.
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:50.559
So you might you might ask a question thinking, please tell me you're not going to be one of these people that wants to do tangible assets because I feel like diversification and for you is the right thing.
00:25:50.720 --> 00:25:56.880
And then they say it and you think, oh now I have a problem to solve.
00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:09.200
So yeah, first of all, being being aware of your own reactions, that they are totally perfectly normal and human, that you are you're not expected to be an expert on other people's cultures.
00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:16.160
You don't have to always agree that their values are correct or that their values are going to serve them.
00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:16.640
Right?
00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:23.920
People can bring a whole bunch of biases and values into a advisor-client relationship that are not going to get them to their goals.
00:26:24.079 --> 00:26:42.559
And so that's where you have to use professional judgment and ask yourself first of all, for your conscience, am I prepared to budge my value towards the client and sort of do it their way because it's the client's interest that is paramount?
00:26:42.640 --> 00:26:44.000
So am I prepared to budge?
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:51.279
And if I don't budge because I genuinely believe that that would not be in their best interest, how am I going to manage this in the relationship?
00:26:51.599 --> 00:27:07.119
Am I going to try to educate or am I going to try to get them to say to see a financial therapist to work on what I feel may be holding them back from achieving their goals because it's a value that they're holding on to that no longer suits their situation?
00:27:07.279 --> 00:27:29.440
So if is is it in fact, like you said, is it's the value that's come really from a financial trauma rather than from just a different perspective on the world, in which case that's something you might want to identify is this is to be overcome or worked on versus this is part of who the person is and is sort of fairly fixed in stone and I need to adapt to work with that person.
00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:31.279
There is no hard and fast rule on that.
00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:36.720
That is absolutely something that everyone has to make their own personal judgment on.
00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:48.319
In terms of practical things for what advisors could do to get started, I would look at if I was an advisor again, I would look at the hidden assumptions in my onboarding form.
00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:58.480
Do I assume one that a student picked up and once asked me, which I thought was quite interesting, was why do you assume that there's a male client and a female client?
00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:02.799
And why is the male client always on the left and the female client on the right?
00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:04.160
Like they're secondary?
00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:06.480
That's a good question.
00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:07.359
I don't know.
00:28:07.519 --> 00:28:07.759
Yeah.
00:28:07.920 --> 00:28:10.319
It's an assumption that we make about our forms.
00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:16.319
Like, well, how and in yeah, in in Sydney, Australia, the question is, well, how do you know there's not a third person in the couple?
00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:17.039
Yeah.
00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:18.240
Okay, I don't.
00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:21.519
I don't, and my form does not does not allow for that.
00:28:21.759 --> 00:28:24.960
Or if the the couple are the same gender, my form doesn't allow for that.
00:28:25.200 --> 00:28:33.680
When I ask my onboarding, do I ask about my about their family background and whether they were, you know, how many we know everyone in Australia at least.
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:35.200
Everyone is a migrant.
00:28:35.359 --> 00:28:41.200
So do I ask any questions about how far back the migration point was in your family?
00:28:41.519 --> 00:28:43.839
No, I don't I don't ask questions like that.
00:28:44.160 --> 00:29:20.319
So there are hidden assumptions in our form, in our in our onboarding forms about what people or even down to the um some of our risk uh risk tolerance questions sometimes are a bit oversimplified, but assume you are familiar with a Western financial system and then you think, ooh, does this person and that's why if you well I think where we train everyone here to verbally walk people through the risk tolerance form because if you don't hear at least people don't seem well will often misunderstand the meaning behind the question.
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:23.359
So we'll interpret the question a certain way and answer it that way.
00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:29.759
And if you hear them talk through the logic of, well, why did you answer the question that way, you'll go, oh no, that's not what the question was asking.
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:47.279
And you find out a bit more about well, tell me why you thought that's what the question was, and you'll find out that's because in their country of origin or in their family of origin or the socioeconomic group that they grew up in, that was an assumption that they had that the form doesn't cater for exactly.
00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:50.480
No, I think that I think those are all fantastic ones.
00:29:50.720 --> 00:30:02.640
And what was coming up for me as I was listening to actually is you know, here in at least the US, like we talk about like long-term care and insurance, like for that.
00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:16.559
And I was just, you know, thinking like what an assumption to make or pushing like your own values as an advisor that, hey, long-term care, you know, insurance, like that is important to have, or it might be important for a client.
00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:33.680
But what if that client comes from more of a Eastern cultural background and they are not individualistic, like we a lot of Americans or American culture, right, is like what if the client's like, no, I'm not, I don't want to do that because my kids are going to be taking care of me.
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:40.079
And if you're like, that's wrong, no, like your kids have their own lives and do they even want that?
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:56.640
Like, oh, that's just that can be just an example like of a place to really understand, you know, and ask some of those questions around the values piece, you know, and then how how does that play into the financial decision, financial decision making?
00:30:56.720 --> 00:31:14.720
And if as an advisor, if you feel that it's that that that is putting wrong, like kind of in quotes, but if that's a struggle for you, because it's in contrast to what you believe, you know, as you said, like that's okay, that can be your reaction, but how do you support the client?
00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:20.559
Because ultimately, like you are doing work that is in service of them, not you yourself.
00:31:20.720 --> 00:31:30.000
So I think looking at those questions and the onboarding, like kind of questions, it's such a wonderful place to capture uh and get kind of that baseline there.
00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:36.480
So you gave some pretty pretty great examples, pretty great examples for places where advisors can start.
00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:41.759
Now, if people are listening and they're like, this is really like awesome.
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:51.279
Everything that you know Amanda is talking about, and I'm realizing that I probably did should do some work here, um, or our firm, our practice should do a little bit of work.
00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:57.519
If people want more of this, if they want more Amanda in their life, where can they where can they connect with you?
00:31:57.599 --> 00:31:58.480
Where can they find you?
00:31:58.640 --> 00:32:00.559
Where can they learn more about this stuff?
00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:03.279
Yes, you can find me on LinkedIn.
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:08.160
There are two profiles because I have a university academic Dr.
00:32:08.400 --> 00:32:13.680
Amanda Craft profile, and then I have my financial therapy Amanda Craft profile.
00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:15.440
So they both go to me.
00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:18.960
So you're welcome to connect with me on either or both of those.
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:23.519
I also have AmandaCraft at gmail.com to keep things simple.
00:32:23.839 --> 00:32:32.640
I am a uh certified cultural intelligence workshop leader, so I can run the cultural intelligence workshops.
00:32:32.880 --> 00:32:40.000
They're not I have not yet developed on on the plan, developed ones specifically for financial advisors.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:46.160
But the general one that is done for all professionals, I I am capable of running.
00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:57.039
Or if you prefer to do it with um, you can do them directly with the Cultural Intelligence Center, which is based in the US, and they have certified trainers all over the world in all different time zones.
00:32:57.279 --> 00:32:57.680
I love that.
00:32:57.759 --> 00:32:58.799
That's such great information.
00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:05.359
We'll make sure that we include those links in the show notes for uh everyone to access easily.
00:33:05.680 --> 00:33:11.119
Thank you, Amanda, for coming on and sharing all of your wisdom, all of your insights here.
00:33:11.359 --> 00:33:17.680
I wish that we had another 30 minutes to just continue, continue the conversation.
00:33:17.920 --> 00:33:18.400
I wish.
00:33:18.880 --> 00:33:23.279
I think it just means you'll have to come back on and we can talk uh a little bit more nuance.
00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:23.680
Yeah.
00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:24.799
That'd be great.
00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:31.440
Uh and thank you to all of you for allowing Amanda and I into your ears and into your mind today.
00:33:31.759 --> 00:33:37.359
If this conversation resonated with you, I would love to keep the conversation going.
00:33:37.519 --> 00:33:42.799
You can find me on LinkedIn at Ashley Kwame, where I share weekly insights on the human side of planning.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:34:03.519
And if you'd like a little bit more, maybe not Ashley, but beyond the plan, if you'd like a little bit more of that in your life, you can head over to our website, www.beondthefp.com and sign up for our monthly newsletter where we share all kinds of strategies and insights on how to integrate the human side of planning into your work and into your firm.
00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:11.519
But most importantly, make sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcast so that you never miss a future conversation like this one.
00:34:11.760 --> 00:34:16.800
And as always, my friends, remember finances don't have feelings, but your clients do.
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:21.760
Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond.
00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:27.519
Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond.
00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:33.519
I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth.
00:34:33.760 --> 00:34:39.119
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00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:44.559
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00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:15.920
Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going and speaking.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:10.480
What was coming up for me as I was listening to actually is, you know, here in at least the US, like we talk about like long-term care and insurance, like for that.
00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:23.120
And I was just thinking, like, what an assumption to make, or pushing like your own values as an advisor that, hey, long-term care insurance, like that is important to have, or it might be important for a client.
00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:39.520
But what if that client comes from more of a Eastern cultural background and they are not individualistic, like we a lot of Americans or American culture is like, what if the client's like, no, I'm not, I don't want to do that because my kids are going to be taking care of me.
00:00:39.679 --> 00:00:43.600
And if you're like, that's wrong, no, like your kids have their own lives.
00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:45.520
Do they even want that?
00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:59.600
Like, well, that's just that can be just an example like of a place to really understand, you know, and ask some of those questions around the values piece, then how does that play into the financial decision?
00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:05.760
Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the skill where financial planning meets human understanding.
00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:22.159
As an exceptional financial advisor, you know that financial planning is about more than just numbers, it's about giving clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters best, which is why each episode is designed with that goal in mind.
00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:32.319
You'll learn how to uncover the psychology behind client decisions and gain insights and behavioral strategies needed to create deeper, more meaningful client relationships.
00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:43.439
You'll discover techniques for navigating emotional science situations, conversations with leading industry experts, and behavioral finance psychology, communications, and more.
00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:52.640
Whether it's mastering discovery meetings, handling sensitive client conversations, or understanding what is truly keeping your client staff.
00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:59.359
You'll walk away with not only strategies that you can use in your next client meeting, but also the confidence to do so.
00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:00.079
Oh, yeah.
00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:00.480
Hi.
00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:28.479
Welcome to Planning of the Office, the podcast where financial planning meets human understanding.
00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:32.719
I'm your host, Ashley Kwamey, and today I'm thrilled to welcome Dr.
00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:34.400
Amanda Kraft to the show.
00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:34.879
Dr.
00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:44.400
Amanda Kraft is a researcher and educator whose PhD work examines the cultural intelligence in the financial advisory space.
00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:48.879
When I saw her on LinkedIn and her posting, that's how I should say stalking, really.
00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:56.800
But when I found her work and then started stalking her, I was like, oh my goodness, like she has to come on and share a little bit more about it.
00:02:56.960 --> 00:02:59.039
So, Amanda, thank you so much for coming on.
00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:00.800
So excited to have you here.
00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:02.159
Thank you, Ashley.
00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:03.919
I'm excited to be here.
00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:05.199
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:05.439 --> 00:03:14.719
Now, before we kind of get into all the good stuff, can you just maybe take 30 seconds to a minute, just high level a little bit about you, a little bit about the work you do?
00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:15.360
Right.
00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:16.639
Exactly as you said.
00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.360
I'm a researcher at Western Sydney University.
00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:31.439
And I finished my PhD at the beginning of 2025 after about nine years of working on it, looking at exactly as you said, the cultural intelligence of financial advisors.
00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:46.479
So I suppose the inspiration came from my own sort of studies and work in financial planning and realizing that in a multicultural country, we teach other business students about cross-cultural management within other degrees.
00:03:46.560 --> 00:04:02.879
And it certainly wasn't something I studied it in a different field, and then I sort of wondered why don't we teach financial advisors about culture when it seems so obvious to me that you walk into any large financial planning practice in Australia and clients are multicultural.
00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:09.680
And surely that must make a difference to how you provide advice to a client.
00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.240
So I got a bit of pushback from the industry when I first started.
00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:17.040
Sad sadly, like I'm not surprised.
00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:28.079
So the initial, yeah, the initial feedback I got was either this topic doesn't exist, like this doesn't exist, there is no issue because we treat everybody as individuals.
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So no problems.
00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:37.920
Or it doesn't matter to me as an advisor because all of my clients are the same culture as or the same ethnicity as me.
00:04:38.240 --> 00:04:39.839
So it's not an issue.
00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:42.639
And then I thought, well, don't you think that's a bit strange?
00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:47.040
Don't you think it's a bit strange that you only attract people who are the same as you?
00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:49.040
What isn't that limiting your client base?
00:04:49.439 --> 00:04:56.720
So I proceeded to do the research anyway to try to find out initially just to find out what was happening in the space.
00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:06.160
So that was the subject of my first article was interviewing advisors and asking them what do you experience does culture make a difference?
00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:17.360
And that's what I found out from the first round of interviews was exactly that same sort of split that I actually got it in in data, that some advisors saw no problem at all.
00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:24.399
And other advisors who were those advisors who came from multicultural backgrounds themselves saw all kinds of different people.
00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:36.319
They said once they had once they had skill that they couldn't necessarily quantify, this skill of being able to work with people who are different from them, it opened up all of their horizons to a broader client base.
00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:42.399
And they, you know, just because you were an Indian advisor didn't mean you were you were mainly advising Indian clients.
00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:46.959
You had Italian clients, you had South African clients, you had Chinese clients.
00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:58.959
It didn't matter what the client culture was, but because you were used to dealing with people who were different from yourself, you could build relationships with a wide variety of people.
00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:08.319
I'm so glad that you said no to the naysayers and continued to follow like that passion and that per and that pursuit there.
00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:13.519
That little bit of, I don't know if you're a rebellious person, but a little bit of that, like, you know what?
00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:14.959
Challenge accepted.
00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:17.279
I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna keep going for it.
00:06:17.519 --> 00:06:21.120
Okay, so you've thrown out the word culture here.
00:06:21.199 --> 00:06:24.000
We've talked, we've said like culture a few times here.
00:06:24.319 --> 00:06:31.439
Before we maybe continue down this path, I'd love to hear like how you define culture, like in this context.
00:06:31.600 --> 00:06:36.720
I think that that's really important for our listeners that maybe we're all on the same page here.
00:06:36.959 --> 00:06:44.800
I know many people, when they hear that word, there's an automatic maybe association to you know ethnicity or race.
00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:47.199
But I think that you have a broader definition.
00:06:47.279 --> 00:06:50.800
So I'd love if you could talk a little bit about how do you define culture.
00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:52.399
No worries.
00:06:52.639 --> 00:07:04.160
Exactly as you said, culture is often thought of in like the average person would say, Oh, you're talking about race or ethnic or nationality, the country someone comes from.
00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:05.519
But it doesn't have to be that.
00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:28.879
Basically defined as your system of values, the assumptions you make about how the world works, what the societal norms are that you're used to, what communication style you use, and the lived experiences you've had throughout your life that shape your behaviors and your attitudes towards things that come from the group memberships that you've had.
00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:46.319
So a culture can form, as people do, like a culture can be related to the ethnicity you belong to, a culture can be related to the nationality you belong to, can also be the family you belong to, the age demographic you belong to, the socioeconomic group you belong to.
00:07:46.560 --> 00:08:05.920
Culture is multifaceted in that way, in that you draw your beliefs about the world and about how the financial world works and how you should operate inside it from those values and attitudes you've acquired from other groups you've been a member of and the people you associated with and what they thought.
00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:07.040
I love that.
00:08:07.199 --> 00:08:17.199
My background just in marriage and family therapy, like when we look at things across a systemic, a lot of those things, right, come into place and how everything that you just said there.
00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:40.159
And so I think that it is really important that when we are working with people, like as practitioners, right, when our job requires us to work with people, that we have just a better, more all-encompassed like understanding of just who and how people are and everything that you just shared around uh someone's culture and what that means and what it could mean.
00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:41.679
It's important for them to know.
00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:46.720
Now, when we look at advisors, though, because your research focused on advisors.
00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:51.919
And when you surveyed them, I know this was an Australian advisor demographic.
00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:58.320
Most of our, we do have actually quite a few Australian listeners, maybe a few more after this episode.
00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:06.559
But while a lot of ours are US-based or uh UK-based, probably some overlap and similarities here, I would imagine.
00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:18.480
But when you were surveying financial advisors in Australia and compared them to just other professional groups, where did they land just with their like cultural intelligence level or the skills?
00:09:18.879 --> 00:09:19.360
Exactly.
00:09:19.519 --> 00:09:27.759
So what I measured was rather than look at exactly at the cultures of the advisors or just interview them, I wanted to quantify something, right?
00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:35.120
Like I wanted something measurable that I could report that we could perhaps improve with education or training or something like that.
00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:37.840
So I used the framework that's called cultural intelligence.
00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:43.440
And rather than think of it like IU, think of it more like EU, emotional intelligence.
00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:44.879
It's a skill you can grow.
00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:53.919
So it's a framework about how the areas in which you can develop skills in dealing with people who are different than you, essentially.
00:09:54.320 --> 00:10:02.879
So when I surveyed the Australian advisors, I tried to compare them to other professions, but it was difficult to find data.
00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:07.039
So it just became sort of groups, other groups that had been surveyed.
00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:20.159
So it was things like international students in the U studying in the US, or managers who'd been stationed in Singapore, or interestingly, accounting lecturers in Australia was another group.
00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:21.679
That is interesting.
00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:25.519
The answer is I came up with as many, as many different studies as I could.
00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:30.080
So I had I had about more than a dozen different other groups to compare them to.
00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:39.039
And as I suspected, Australian advisors are below average in their skills, in their intercultural skills.
00:10:39.120 --> 00:11:01.039
And I suspected, based on the fact that I was getting that that interview feedback of people saying this does not matter, I suspected that that group of people when they showed up in the survey would would just not care because one of the dimensions of having intercultural skills is caring about intercultural skills and having an interest in it.
00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:09.120
And I knew that that segment of the population was going to come through in the survey and say, Well, it doesn't matter, and I don't have an interest in it, and it's not my thing.
00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:11.679
And so that probably brought the scores down.
00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:16.159
Whereas you could tell there are some some people who are like, Yes, I'm absolutely fascinated by this.
00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:22.639
My score, yeah, their scores are off the chart because they're interested, they speak multiple languages, they've done training courses on it.
00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:33.279
So it was quite variable, but on average, the average Australian advisor is below average in their intercultural skills compared to the worldwide population.
00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:39.919
And I think the um the Cultural Intelligence Center would say that about 250,000 people have taken that test.
00:11:40.639 --> 00:11:46.960
So when I say like there is an average, and they are below the average of people who have taken the test.
00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:48.639
Not a lot, but a bit.
00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:53.279
And they are below Australian accounting lecturers, which is interesting too.
00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:55.919
That is it, that is actually really, really interesting.
00:11:56.159 --> 00:12:00.159
My father is a CPA here in the States.
00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:05.600
And while I love him and I adore him, I would be curious.
00:12:05.679 --> 00:12:12.639
I think, and I have my own hypothesis on where he would stand on just any cultural intelligence place.
00:12:12.799 --> 00:12:13.840
Maybe he would surprise me.
00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:15.679
I don't maybe he would surprise me.
00:12:15.759 --> 00:12:16.240
I don't know.
00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:18.240
And that was what I had to come up with sort of an idea.
00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:21.759
Like I'm like, why did accountants score better than financial advisors?
00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:26.559
And I thought maybe the difference is, and I've never been able to test this, but maybe future studies.
00:12:26.879 --> 00:12:35.600
When you choose a doctor or you choose an accountant, you don't really care about the the ethnic or cultural background of of the doctor or the the accountant that you go to see.
00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:39.200
You go to see whoever you think is is good, is technically competent, right?
00:12:39.360 --> 00:12:42.080
Or whoever's available that you can get an appointment with, right?
00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:45.039
Whereas with a financial advisor, you're much more picky, I think.
00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:51.360
You're more choosy, you take more time to find someone that you really vibe or gel with.
00:12:51.679 --> 00:13:03.600
And maybe that element is causing people to look for someone who looks or feels like them much more so than they would with someone they would have less.
00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:07.919
You do have a closer relationship with your financial advisor, it's going to be ongoing.
00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:09.840
It's a trusting relationship.
00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:16.480
And even though you may say that you have a trusting relationship with your medical practitioner, it's a 10-minute interaction every every so often.
00:13:16.559 --> 00:13:17.679
It's not the same.
00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:25.120
And so maybe the nature of financial advice relationships that makes this matter more here than in other professions.
00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:26.639
Yeah, I would agree.
00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:28.159
Yeah, I would agree.
00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:33.519
Now, there might be some people listening who are like, okay, Amanda, like this makes sense.
00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:40.480
Like I understand like about culture a little bit, like this definition, expanding this as is helpful and okay.
00:13:40.559 --> 00:13:46.240
Like as a professional, I'm probably maybe I'm not where I quite should be.
00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:51.519
But how does culture shape the financial decisions of my clients?
00:13:51.759 --> 00:13:56.960
Like, how does understanding that culture help me to understand my clients better?
00:13:57.279 --> 00:14:03.200
Can we just maybe talk a little bit about like how does culture show up in client behavior?
00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:04.000
Sure.
00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:19.200
So you could imagine that it's my example is often imagine you have two clients who are otherwise identical with identical investment profiles and identical, theoretically the same goals out of life, but they make completely different decisions.
00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:25.759
And you think, why would these two people who who look on paper very similar make different decisions?
00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:28.240
And it can be around their values.
00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:32.480
So we can take the word culture out if people don't like the word culture and just put it down to you.
00:14:32.559 --> 00:14:33.919
Well, their values are different.
00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:37.279
They they think different things are important and they prioritize differently.
00:14:37.519 --> 00:14:42.799
Now the reason they prioritize differently is because of the background that they've come from.
00:14:43.039 --> 00:14:51.440
It will be differences differences around whether individual responsibility or family responsibility is what drives their decision making.
00:14:51.519 --> 00:15:00.080
So you know in a Western financial planning context, we often prioritize individualization and individual optimization and personal wealth accumulation.
00:15:00.960 --> 00:15:10.159
But people who come from other nations, particularly places like Asia, which are more collectivist, financial decisions like that aren't individual decisions.
00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:11.600
They're family decisions.
00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:25.759
And sometimes it means you don't have the right decision makers in the room if you only have the individual client or an individual couple, because there's multiple generations and extended family members sometimes who are involved in the decision making.
00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:31.600
So it can also be things like supporting family members as they age.
00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:43.600
So in our most western context, we would put our families into aged care and we would expect either some sort of government contribution or individual funding and maybe children chip in a bit into that that care.
00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:50.320
But the expectation is parents go to a facility where they are provided with medical care for end of life.
00:15:50.879 --> 00:15:55.200
Whereas in most eastern countries, that does not happen.
00:15:55.679 --> 00:16:00.000
Someone in the family will will sacrifice their career and take care of that person at home.
00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:04.240
If you are working overseas, you will be sending money back to support your parents.
00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:13.759
Even if you build your own nuclear family in the West and you have your own spouse and children, you still feel familial obligation to support upwards.
00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:21.519
Whereas in the West, most of us in an Anglo-Australian context, parents support children, not children support parents.
00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:30.000
So the flow of capital is different depending on your value system and whether you have obligations to communities.
00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:39.519
So that's a thing with um with a lot of indigenous populations and First Nations people, there will be communal ownership of funds, particularly in Australia.
00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:50.639
They go out to work, they earn, they get their paycheck.
00:16:50.799 --> 00:17:02.960
There is communal obligation that if their uncle needs the car repaired and their cousin needs a school uniform and someone else needs groceries, that all comes out of your paycheck because your money is family property, is communally owned.
00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:08.880
And the theory B, and then so you get you have no personal savings and you have no ability to make personal savings.
00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:11.039
But it's a reciprocity system.
00:17:11.279 --> 00:17:15.359
The next time someone else gets paid, your needs will also be met.
00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:23.440
But it means there's no individual banking or savings culture and they don't see a use for it.
00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:24.079
Right.
00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:24.640
Yeah.
00:17:24.799 --> 00:17:41.839
You've talked about, I think one of the things in one of our calls that I made a note of because I thought that this was really it was relevant for me and interesting just around clients who prefer like tangible assets, like and how culture like can impact that.
00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:44.559
Can you can you talk a little bit about that piece?
00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:51.039
Yeah, the first time someone, one of my students raised an issue for me with an exam was exactly on this topic.
00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:55.519
And I was going to say the student, I am fairly confident that the student was from Syria.
00:17:55.680 --> 00:18:00.480
And he said to me at the end of the exam, Miss, I I couldn't answer question five.
00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:02.079
I said, I I don't understand.
00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:02.799
How come?
00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:16.880
That was a very simple sort of exam question in investments, which was a young couple had gone together, the the woman had a large deposit saved, the the the gentleman did not have much of a deposit saved, he he hadn't worked as long as as the woman had.
00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:32.000
And so they'd come to you for advice on on how to own property jointly while protecting the interests of each party and acknowledging that they were bringing separate amounts into the relationship and that they hadn't been together very long.
00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:35.680
And the student said, I well, you you I couldn't you didn't give me all the information.
00:18:35.839 --> 00:18:37.200
What information didn't I give you?
00:18:37.359 --> 00:18:43.200
And the answer was they said, he said, um, well you haven't told me how much the parents are chipping in on each side or the uncles.
00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:47.200
And I said, Well, there is no parental contribution, no uncle contribution.
00:18:47.359 --> 00:18:51.599
And he said, Well about the siblings, how much what share are each of the siblings going to have in this house?
00:18:52.799 --> 00:18:53.359
None.
00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:55.039
It's just these two people.
00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:56.559
He said, That's not how it works.
00:18:56.799 --> 00:18:58.240
Like that's not how you buy property.
00:18:58.400 --> 00:19:04.400
It's like in in my family, in my community, property everyone helps the next person get on the property ladder.
00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:14.799
And so all the family will chip in for the next person in line when they sort of turn 18, 20, whatever, and it will be jointly owned and everyone contributes.
00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:17.440
And then you do it for the next person.
00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:21.359
So I can't answer your question because you didn't tell me what everyone's contributions were.
00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:32.720
And I thought this surely is something that a financial advisor must come across if my financial advising students are coming across it and telling me that this is their their you know their lived experience in Sydney, Australia.
00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:34.319
Who's advising their parents?
00:19:34.480 --> 00:19:36.160
Who's you know, what's happening out there?
00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:54.000
That because you do see exactly that, that there are certain communities from their cultural values who prefer tangible assets, whether that's gold, whether that's cash, whether that's real estate, but they want to be able to see and touch it because they don't trust the theoretical system of banking.
00:19:54.160 --> 00:20:13.680
And so they and that can be because of historical reasons, particularly people who have been through uh war zones and conflicts, or have been through countries that had, you know, massive inflation issues and currency devaluations, they have learned experience not to trust those things, and they pass that down through generations.
00:20:13.759 --> 00:20:19.839
And I think the research shows on generational values go at least the third generation.
00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:32.720
So they do eventually sort of peter out, but for the first the first generation will absolutely hold tight to tangible assets, the second generation will have a preference for it, and the third generation will like it better.
00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:33.839
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:45.519
I had this situation show up with an advisor where the father, so the G1, like was wanting to utilize his liquid, right?
00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:57.119
Asset to buy and purchase land for the family, like for the family, but it was his adult daughters who were coming up, you know, and it's like I need to buy like land and like property, like for them.
00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:06.400
And the advisors struggled because like they weren't even, I think one of them was in university, the other was getting ready to go into university.
00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:13.839
And the advisors struggled because they're like, but what if these like young women like want to like what if they don't want to live by you?
00:21:15.359 --> 00:21:17.440
Yeah, like what if they want to go off?
00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:23.119
And and and so it was a struggle just from understanding culturally.
00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:29.119
And they did come from um historically a you know war-torn country.
00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:36.640
And so it was just interesting, just that mindset around like protection, protection of assets, right?
00:21:36.880 --> 00:21:38.240
And also what do we value?
00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:44.000
We value safety and security, and we see that through land and having that there.
00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:56.640
And so I just love like all the stuff that you were mentioning here, and just how culture it really does shape how clients come to do money and their preferences and their preferences there.
00:21:56.880 --> 00:21:59.680
And I guess for me, like on the financial.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:17.519
Therapy side of things, like to me, this connects a lot to like emotional safety and financial trauma there, particularly, you know, as we were just talking for clients who have been displaced or living in environments where, as you mentioned, like institutions can't be trusted, like the banking system.
00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:20.240
If we can't trust that, then how can we feel safe in that?
00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:28.240
I'd love to maybe hear from you though, like how can advisors start to recognize maybe a client's financial behavior?
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:31.519
Like, when is it rooted in something different?
00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:32.720
Right.
00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:36.559
So the first step is awareness.
00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:43.039
So being aware, which I hopefully at the end of this podcast, everyone is now very aware that it's a potential issue.
00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:59.440
The next step is simply exploring with the client in the getting to know you process, asking certain kinds of questions that will bring out that kind of information if you suspect that culture is an issue and not some sort of individual quirk.
00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:02.880
Sometimes the clients got their own values for their own reasons.
00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:07.359
So you can ask them, I suppose these almost feel like financial therapy questions sometimes.
00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:10.559
You know, how was money talked about when you grew up?
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:16.960
You know, do you feel responsibility financial responsibilities towards other members of family or community?
00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:22.720
What does financial success mean to you personally?
00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:29.759
Does that mean individual success or does that mean sort of success for your family, your broader community?
00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:31.039
Like what does it mean?
00:23:31.359 --> 00:23:38.480
Do you have any particular cultural or religious values that you think shape how you interact with the world?
00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:43.119
And when you make financial decisions, who else do you who else is involved?
00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:45.200
Uh who else do you consult other than me?
00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:47.920
Like as an advisor, other than me, who else do you talk to?
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:57.200
And I think that one always brings out the really interesting ones when you find out who else is actually in on the decision making that you know that you didn't realize.
00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:07.200
Mum or dad actually hears everything and before the decision, like before your advice is acted on, it actually is going to a whole bunch of other people first.
00:24:07.599 --> 00:24:07.920
Yeah.
00:24:08.079 --> 00:24:12.880
And mom and dad may not always agree with what you And they won't agree, right?
00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:16.640
Because they weren't in the room with you when you delivered your advice and explained your reasons.
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:28.640
So they didn't really say, you know, they are getting a secondhand version of what you said, and then they have come in with their own biases and belief systems and values, and they're pushing it down.
00:24:28.799 --> 00:24:38.319
And so but if you didn't know that that was happening in the background, knowing that that was happening in the background might change how you then approach that client.
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:44.319
Yeah, yeah, I think those are all like fantastic, fantastic questions to ask.
00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:55.440
If advisors were maybe if we think about this as maybe I'm trying to organize it, and you have a framework here, the four factors of cultural intelligence.
00:24:55.759 --> 00:25:01.200
Can we organize this maybe in such a way to where talking about these factors, like what are they?
00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:06.000
And maybe that will help just where do we place like some of these questions, right?
00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:09.200
You know, and how we think about like a client and their culture.
00:25:09.519 --> 00:25:11.039
That sounds like a whole research project.
00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:14.480
Wow, research project, I could turn it into like a four-factor model.
00:25:14.559 --> 00:25:15.200
Yes, excellent.
00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:20.799
So on the fly, I start with the first thing to know is that you're interested in it.
00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:32.640
So the first is being willing to be uncomfortable yourself as an advisor and ask questions that you might get answers that you don't expect.
00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:38.720
And to admit that you don't know the that you don't know the the consequences of the answers that you might get.
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:50.559
So you might you might ask a question thinking, please tell me you're not going to be one of these people that wants to do tangible assets because I feel like diversification and for you is the right thing.
00:25:50.720 --> 00:25:56.880
And then they say it and you think, oh now I have a problem to solve.
00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:09.200
So yeah, first of all, being being aware of your own reactions, that they are totally perfectly normal and human, that you are you're not expected to be an expert on other people's cultures.
00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:16.160
You don't have to always agree that their values are correct or that their values are going to serve them.
00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:16.640
Right?
00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:23.920
People can bring a whole bunch of biases and values into a advisor-client relationship that are not going to get them to their goals.
00:26:24.079 --> 00:26:42.559
And so that's where you have to use professional judgment and ask yourself first of all, for your conscience, am I prepared to budge my value towards the client and sort of do it their way because it's the client's interest that is paramount?
00:26:42.640 --> 00:26:44.000
So am I prepared to budge?
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:51.279
And if I don't budge because I genuinely believe that that would not be in their best interest, how am I going to manage this in the relationship?
00:26:51.599 --> 00:27:07.119
Am I going to try to educate or am I going to try to get them to say to see a financial therapist to work on what I feel may be holding them back from achieving their goals because it's a value that they're holding on to that no longer suits their situation?
00:27:07.279 --> 00:27:29.440
So if is is it in fact, like you said, is it's the value that's come really from a financial trauma rather than from just a different perspective on the world, in which case that's something you might want to identify is this is to be overcome or worked on versus this is part of who the person is and is sort of fairly fixed in stone and I need to adapt to work with that person.
00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:31.279
There is no hard and fast rule on that.
00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:36.720
That is absolutely something that everyone has to make their own personal judgment on.
00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:48.319
In terms of practical things for what advisors could do to get started, I would look at if I was an advisor again, I would look at the hidden assumptions in my onboarding form.
00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:58.480
Do I assume one that a student picked up and once asked me, which I thought was quite interesting, was why do you assume that there's a male client and a female client?
00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:02.799
And why is the male client always on the left and the female client on the right?
00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:04.160
Like they're secondary?
00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:06.480
That's a good question.
00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:07.359
I don't know.
00:28:07.519 --> 00:28:07.759
Yeah.
00:28:07.920 --> 00:28:10.319
It's an assumption that we make about our forms.
00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:16.319
Like, well, how and in yeah, in in Sydney, Australia, the question is, well, how do you know there's not a third person in the couple?
00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:17.039
Yeah.
00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:18.240
Okay, I don't.
00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:21.519
I don't, and my form does not does not allow for that.
00:28:21.759 --> 00:28:24.960
Or if the the couple are the same gender, my form doesn't allow for that.
00:28:25.200 --> 00:28:33.680
When I ask my onboarding, do I ask about my about their family background and whether they were, you know, how many we know everyone in Australia at least.
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:35.200
Everyone is a migrant.
00:28:35.359 --> 00:28:41.200
So do I ask any questions about how far back the migration point was in your family?
00:28:41.519 --> 00:28:43.839
No, I don't I don't ask questions like that.
00:28:44.160 --> 00:29:20.319
So there are hidden assumptions in our form, in our in our onboarding forms about what people or even down to the um some of our risk uh risk tolerance questions sometimes are a bit oversimplified, but assume you are familiar with a Western financial system and then you think, ooh, does this person and that's why if you well I think where we train everyone here to verbally walk people through the risk tolerance form because if you don't hear at least people don't seem well will often misunderstand the meaning behind the question.
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:23.359
So we'll interpret the question a certain way and answer it that way.
00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:29.759
And if you hear them talk through the logic of, well, why did you answer the question that way, you'll go, oh no, that's not what the question was asking.
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:47.279
And you find out a bit more about well, tell me why you thought that's what the question was, and you'll find out that's because in their country of origin or in their family of origin or the socioeconomic group that they grew up in, that was an assumption that they had that the form doesn't cater for exactly.
00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:50.480
No, I think that I think those are all fantastic ones.
00:29:50.720 --> 00:30:02.640
And what was coming up for me as I was listening to actually is you know, here in at least the US, like we talk about like long-term care and insurance, like for that.
00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:16.559
And I was just, you know, thinking like what an assumption to make or pushing like your own values as an advisor that, hey, long-term care, you know, insurance, like that is important to have, or it might be important for a client.
00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:33.680
But what if that client comes from more of a Eastern cultural background and they are not individualistic, like we a lot of Americans or American culture, right, is like what if the client's like, no, I'm not, I don't want to do that because my kids are going to be taking care of me.
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:40.079
And if you're like, that's wrong, no, like your kids have their own lives and do they even want that?
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:56.640
Like, oh, that's just that can be just an example like of a place to really understand, you know, and ask some of those questions around the values piece, you know, and then how how does that play into the financial decision, financial decision making?
00:30:56.720 --> 00:31:14.720
And if as an advisor, if you feel that it's that that that is putting wrong, like kind of in quotes, but if that's a struggle for you, because it's in contrast to what you believe, you know, as you said, like that's okay, that can be your reaction, but how do you support the client?
00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:20.559
Because ultimately, like you are doing work that is in service of them, not you yourself.
00:31:20.720 --> 00:31:30.000
So I think looking at those questions and the onboarding, like kind of questions, it's such a wonderful place to capture uh and get kind of that baseline there.
00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:36.480
So you gave some pretty pretty great examples, pretty great examples for places where advisors can start.
00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:41.759
Now, if people are listening and they're like, this is really like awesome.
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:51.279
Everything that you know Amanda is talking about, and I'm realizing that I probably did should do some work here, um, or our firm, our practice should do a little bit of work.
00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:57.519
If people want more of this, if they want more Amanda in their life, where can they where can they connect with you?
00:31:57.599 --> 00:31:58.480
Where can they find you?
00:31:58.640 --> 00:32:00.559
Where can they learn more about this stuff?
00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:03.279
Yes, you can find me on LinkedIn.
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:08.160
There are two profiles because I have a university academic Dr.
00:32:08.400 --> 00:32:13.680
Amanda Craft profile, and then I have my financial therapy Amanda Craft profile.
00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:15.440
So they both go to me.
00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:18.960
So you're welcome to connect with me on either or both of those.
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:23.519
I also have AmandaCraft at gmail.com to keep things simple.
00:32:23.839 --> 00:32:32.640
I am a uh certified cultural intelligence workshop leader, so I can run the cultural intelligence workshops.
00:32:32.880 --> 00:32:40.000
They're not I have not yet developed on on the plan, developed ones specifically for financial advisors.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:46.160
But the general one that is done for all professionals, I I am capable of running.
00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:57.039
Or if you prefer to do it with um, you can do them directly with the Cultural Intelligence Center, which is based in the US, and they have certified trainers all over the world in all different time zones.
00:32:57.279 --> 00:32:57.680
I love that.
00:32:57.759 --> 00:32:58.799
That's such great information.
00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:05.359
We'll make sure that we include those links in the show notes for uh everyone to access easily.
00:33:05.680 --> 00:33:11.119
Thank you, Amanda, for coming on and sharing all of your wisdom, all of your insights here.
00:33:11.359 --> 00:33:17.680
I wish that we had another 30 minutes to just continue, continue the conversation.
00:33:17.920 --> 00:33:18.400
I wish.
00:33:18.880 --> 00:33:23.279
I think it just means you'll have to come back on and we can talk uh a little bit more nuance.
00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:23.680
Yeah.
00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:24.799
That'd be great.
00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:31.440
Uh and thank you to all of you for allowing Amanda and I into your ears and into your mind today.
00:33:31.759 --> 00:33:37.359
If this conversation resonated with you, I would love to keep the conversation going.
00:33:37.519 --> 00:33:42.799
You can find me on LinkedIn at Ashley Kwame, where I share weekly insights on the human side of planning.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:34:03.519
And if you'd like a little bit more, maybe not Ashley, but beyond the plan, if you'd like a little bit more of that in your life, you can head over to our website, www.beondthefp.com and sign up for our monthly newsletter where we share all kinds of strategies and insights on how to integrate the human side of planning into your work and into your firm.
00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:11.519
But most importantly, make sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcast so that you never miss a future conversation like this one.
00:34:11.760 --> 00:34:16.800
And as always, my friends, remember finances don't have feelings, but your clients do.
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:21.760
Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond.
00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:27.519
Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond.
00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:33.519
I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth.
00:34:33.760 --> 00:34:39.119
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00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:44.559
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00:34:44.800 --> 00:34:52.719
For more resources, tips, and to continue the conversation, visit our website at BeyondTheF.com.
00:34:53.119 --> 00:34:59.760
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00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:03.280
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00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:10.079
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00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:15.920
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