Strengthening Your Insight Muscle: Tips for Advisors

Advisors can build loyalty, advocacy, and generosity by giving the gift of understanding to their clients. It all starts with building a stronger insight muscle.

Gina Fong is a consumer anthropologist and clinical associate professor of marketing at The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She loves transforming the classroom into a curiosity gymnasium so students learn how to think with their head, heart, and gut. She was voted the L.G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year by Kellogg’s 2023 graduating class. As principal at Fong Insight, Ms. Fong helps organizations become client-centric by coaching them on how to discover and distill insight.

Each year, our SPDR® MasterClass program draws on the expertise of leading specialists like Ms. Fong to help advisors grow their businesses, keep pace with change, and better satisfy clients’ evolving needs.

Quantitative thinking dominates the world of wealth management with data and spreadsheets taking center stage. Qualitative frameworks are also important for advisors, helping them better understand and serve their clients in an increasingly competitive environment. During a recent MasterClass, consumer anthropologist Gina Fong helped attendees learn how to improve client relationships by applying qualitative skills rooted in social science.

The Gift of Understanding

Anthropologists and ethnographers dig beyond the data to uncover insight into human behavior. In a business setting, their goal is to address the “why” behind people’s choices — to give consumers the gift of understanding.

The gift of understanding enables us to become joyful client advocates — to know our clients so well that we can advocate for them in every choice we make, predict their moves, and do so joyfully with a whole heart. When we give the gift of understanding, we build loyalty, advocacy, and generosity; clients come back for that feeling of being seen and heard. The gift creates surprise, delight, and a lasting competitive advantage.

Giving clients the gift of understanding is closely connected to gift-giving in the more traditional sense. “I believe the same skill set it takes to be a thoughtful gift-giver in your personal life is exactly the same skill set you need to be an insightful leader, marketer, advisor, and businessperson in your professional life,” said Ms. Fong. “If you work on giving better gifts in your personal life, you’ll become a more insightful leader in your professional life.”

Start to hone your gift-giving skills by considering bad gifts. According to Ms. Fong, the top three errors¹ that result in bad gifts are:

1. “Me” Gifts Gifts that the givers want for themselves; gifts that don’t match the recipient’s tastes, needs, or desires.
2. Overly Generic Gifts “Phoning it in” gifts like cash and gift cards are a missed opportunity to understand and connect with someone at a deeper level.
3. “Should” Gifts Gifts that are dripping in the judgment of what the recipient should do.

How to Strengthen Your Insight Muscle

The antidote to bad gifts — and the key to giving the gift of understanding — is insight. Luckily, insight is like a muscle: something we all have and can make stronger with diligent effort. To strengthen your insight muscle, focus on a blend of skills and mindset attributes.

Skills

• Observing Discern the details and find the points of contrast so you can examine things more carefully to uncover key insights.
• Listening Commit to wholehearted engagement. Be an eager listener; don’t argue, don’t teach, don’t sell. Listen to understand, not to reply, defend, or correct.
• Inquiring Coach someone to introspect. Ask from a place of curiosity, avoid leading questions, and focus on open-ended inquiries.

Mindset

• Curiosity Wonder without judgment. People may not make sense to you, but they always make sense to themselves. Try to suspend criticism, ask why, and invite the other person to share.
• Introspection To understand others, you must understand yourself first. Practice deliberate and nuanced reflection. Analyze your patterns and understand your own drivers.
• Empathy Understand without an opinion. When you understand a person’s backstory, it’s hard to dismiss them.

Advisors who discover and distill insights can create emotional closeness, improve client relationships, and get ahead of the competition. It takes work — just like going to the gym — but the payoff is substantial. By spending time at the intersection of social science and business, advisors can become better equipped to deeply understand their clients and anticipate their needs.

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