You want your people to become better advisors. You want them to ask thoughtful questions, recognize opportunities, and help your clients make better decisions.
But let me ask you something: Where are they learning how to do that?
If your answer is training courses, technical updates, or an occasional conversation during a performance review, I would encourage you to look more closely.
Those activities have value. But developing an advisor requires opportunities to observe good judgment, practice it, and receive meaningful feedback.
That is why I believe the apprenticeship model still matters. As you build your firm’s advisory capability, it deserves a deliberate place in your people development.
Show Your People What You Mean
Think about what you are asking when you tell a manager to “be more strategic.”
You may mean looking beyond the immediate assignment, understanding the client’s business, or asking a question that changes the direction of a conversation.
Does your manager understand that? Have they seen you do it? Have you explained your thinking afterward?
What feels natural to an experienced partner may be unfamiliar to someone who has spent most of their career completing assignments accurately and on time.
You have developed judgment through years of experience. Your younger professionals need access to the thinking behind that judgment.
Key Point: When you invite them into a client conversation, you give them something a course alone cannot provide: the opportunity to see how knowledge becomes useful advice.
Make Your Thinking Visible
Observation is a starting point. But sitting quietly in a meeting does not guarantee that someone understands what happened.
Suppose a client asks whether the business can afford another location. You could answer the immediate financial question. You might also ask about management capacity, customer demand, and what expansion would mean for the owner’s personal goals.
Your manager hears those questions. But do they understand why you asked them?
Afterward, take a few minutes to explain.
What caught your attention? What assumption did you want to test? Why did you pause instead of immediately offering a recommendation?
Ask what they noticed, too. They may have heard something you missed.
Key Point: This is where apprenticeship becomes a conversation about judgment. You help your people understand how to connect financial information with the decisions your client needs to make.
Give Them a Meaningful Role
Eventually, your people need to move from watching to participating.
Before your next appropriate client meeting, agree on a role for the person joining you. Perhaps they will explain a financial trend, ask about an operating challenge, or lead one part of the discussion.
Prepare together. What does the client need from this meeting? What questions would help? Where might the conversation become difficult?
Then give them room to contribute.
I know the temptation to step in. You can probably explain something faster. You may phrase a question more clearly. But if you take over every time someone hesitates, you limit their opportunity to develop.
Use your judgment to protect the client relationship while allowing your colleague to stretch.
Key Point: Confidence develops when people prepare, participate, and discover they can contribute something valuable.
Coach the Conversation Afterward
The discussion after the meeting is part of the learning.
Start by asking for their assessment. What went well? Where did they feel uncertain? What did they learn about the client’s business?
Then offer specific feedback.
“Good job” is encouraging, but it does not tell someone what to repeat. Explain that their follow-up question helped the client identify a concern they had not initially mentioned.
If something needs improvement, be equally clear. Perhaps they moved to a solution before understanding the problem. Explore what they could ask next time.
Keep the conversation constructive. You want your people to examine their decisions honestly, without feeling they must defend every word.
Key Point: Your willingness to discuss your own missteps helps create that environment.
Build Apprenticeship Into the Work
If development happens only when everyone has spare time, it will be easy to postpone.
As managing partner or CEO, you can make it part of how your firm operates.
Ask each partner and manager to identify appropriate client conversations where a developing professional can participate. Build preparation and debriefing into the plan. Recognize the time experienced people invest in teaching.
In a hybrid firm, these opportunities require intention. Invite someone into a virtual meeting, give them a role, and reserve time afterward to talk.
You should also look beyond your strongest technical performers. Curiosity, listening, empathy, and willingness to prepare deserve your attention.
Key Point: Your next excellent advisor may be someone who needs an invitation and a leader willing to coach them.
Some Final Thoughts: Start With Your Next Client Conversation
You do not need a complicated program to begin.
Choose one developing professional and one appropriate client meeting. Prepare together. Model the behavior you want them to learn. Give them a meaningful opportunity to practice. Then reflect together.
Repeat that process with greater responsibility as their capability grows.
Your firm’s future advisory capacity depends partly on what you make possible for your people today.
You cannot expect them to become trusted advisors without opportunities to learn what trusted advising looks like.
Who will you invite into your next client conversation?
Until Next Time!
